The Political Science Department is conducting research studies that examine past and future politicians.
The most interesting project may be a poll survey on Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Doctoral candidate John Barr and professor Richard Murray hope this will display what people think about Lincoln.
‘The Works Progress Administration field workers interviewed thousands of ex-slaves in the 1930s and I looked through all those interviews to see what the ex-slaves were saying about Lincoln in the 1930s,’ Barr said. ‘That got me thinking about what people would say today.’
Questions in this survey measure the survey-taker’s level of interest and knowledge on American presidents, along with overall opinions of how effective Lincoln during was during his term.
‘There has been limited account with the public on the views of Lincoln. There’s really not been systematic surveying done,’ Murray said.
Some survey questions mention that President Barack Obama identifies Lincoln as a role model.
‘With Obama modeling himself on Lincoln, it simply seemed a good project and a good time to do it,’ Barr said.
The questions that refer to Obama are at the end of the preliminary survey, something Murray required.
‘We want the survey to be a historical recall of Lincoln, not ‘what do you think about Barack Obama?” Murray said.
In another study, ‘What Drives Online Political Joining?’, assistant professor Brandon Rottinghaus and professor Noah Kaplan took to social networking sites Facebook and MySpace for insight into young people’s political involvement.
The study explores the relationship between multiple political debates, poll positions, media attention and the trend of people joining as ‘friends’ of politicians on MySpace and Facebook profiles.
‘The idea for the project emerged when I read an article in the Washington Post about this techpresident.com Web site that was collecting stories about the use of technology in campaigns,’ Rottinghaus said. ‘I checked out the site and found that they were tracking daily ‘friends’ for political candidates on MySpace and Facebook. This struck me as an interesting way to test how new campaign technologies are affecting (or are affected by) campaign resources.’
The study’s main question asks whether independent political events affect the number of people who join candidates’ MySpace and Facebook profiles.
The political awareness of younger audiences is raised in the development.
‘The research is still in the initial stages, so we don’t have the ability to comment on whether younger voters are becoming more politically aware,’ Rottinghaus said.
For more information on Rottinghaus’ research, visit http://www.polsci.uh.edu/faculty/rottinghaus/research.htm
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