survey – OccupyResearch http://occupyresearch.net Research Occupy, occupy the research Sun, 09 Oct 2016 22:34:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.4 Occupy Research at Facing Race http://occupyresearch.net/2012/11/17/occupy-research-at-facing-race/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/11/17/occupy-research-at-facing-race/#respond Sat, 17 Nov 2012 06:17:21 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=624 Occupy Research is at Facing Race in Baltimore – check out this panel tomorrow at 11am!

 

Where is the Color in Occupy? Race, Class and Gender in the Occupy Movement

Speaker

Kate Khatib, Editor, AK Press
Christine Schweidler, Research Director, DataCenter
Maria Poblet, Executive Director, Causa Justa :: Just Cause
Janée Woods Weber, Program Officer, Everyday Democracy

Description
When a Canadian magazine, Adbusters, issued the call last summer to Occupy Wall Street, no one could predict the response that would follow.  Many have pointed to the lack of race-explicit analysis by the Occupy movement and the domination of white middle class participation.  Organizers of color involved with Occupy discuss how race is manifested in their city and how Occupy can lead with a race-explicit analysis.

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“We Are Many” by AK Press includes Occupy Research survey summary http://occupyresearch.net/2012/11/14/we-are-many-by-ak-press-includes-occupy-research-survey-summary/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/11/14/we-are-many-by-ak-press-includes-occupy-research-survey-summary/#respond Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:13:39 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=622

We’re happy to say that “We Are Many,” the edited Occupy volume by AK Press, includes a summary of findings from the Occupy Research General Demographic and Political Participation Survey (ORGS). Please read more about the book from editor Kate Khatib, then order your copy ASAP!

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ORGS data facet browser http://occupyresearch.net/2012/10/18/orgs-data-facet-browser/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/10/18/orgs-data-facet-browser/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:03:26 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=610 firstmovement-300x188

We’re pleased to announce the release of the Occupy Research General Survey (ORGS) facet browser. You can use this tool to drill down into the more than 5,000 responses to the Occupy Research General Survey.  For example, you might like to know about the survey responses of occupiers who are from California, and have been to a camp “many times”. Or responses from people who donated money, food, or goods, and also attended a general assembly. Select as many facets of the dataset as you’d like, and share your findings via unique links to your set of selections. Enjoy, and please tweet/share using the hashtag #occupyresearch! The ORGS facet browser is by Charlie de Tar.

Click here to try it out.

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#Occupydata Hackathon 2 Roundup http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/29/hackathon-2-roundup/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/29/hackathon-2-roundup/#respond Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:51:08 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=553 In 5 cities (Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, DC) over 3 days (Mar 23, 24, and 25), developers, designers, researchers, artists, occupiers, and hackers gathered to analyze and visualize datasets related to the Occupy movement. At the various sites, teams of people worked on separate projects, with the goal of using free and open source tools to creatively present data pertinent to the Occupy movement and the issues it has raised. Hackathon participants created a range of exploratory visualizations, including artistic word clouds (#OccupyData Mural, State and Space), bubble charts, phrase nets, maps, tumblr blogs combining data and photos, and faceted data browsing tools.  The sites remained in real-time communication throughout the Hackathon, networked via video chat, IRC, and collaborative documents.screenshot

Data sets

One major focus was the Occupy Research General Demographic and Political Participation Survey (ORGS), which aimed to gather information about the demographics of Occupiers as well as about various forms of civic and political participation in the Occupy movement. The survey was designed through a transparent and collaborative process that included Occupiers and researchers from across the globe.

The survey was conducted by the Occupy Research Network (http://occupyresearch.net), which includes academics, activists, students, community researchers, and others, with support from DataCenter (http://www.datacenter.org). A list of people involved in the ORGS survey is available at http://occupyresearch.wikispaces.com/surveys#People.

ocw-youtubevideo

To explore questions about issues of interest to the movement, hackathon participants worked with publicly available data sets as well as social media data gathered by scraping information from sites like Twitter (State and Space), online news sources, and media sharing platforms like Youtube (Occupy Video as Data: Visualizing Temporal Narratives).

 

Hacked!

Faceted Browsing
Occupy Research has made the ORGS survey data available in many formats for analysis and remixing. In order to make the data accessible to more people who might be interested in exploring the survey’s findings, one group created a faceted navigation interface.

http://orgs-facet.tirl.org/exhibit.htmlfacets

 

Text Mural
This mural draws from survey respondents’ answers to the question “If you participate in the Occupy movement, what TOP THREE concerns motivate you TO PARTICIPATE?” — the larger the word, the more it was used in people’s survey responses.  This is a collaboration between Nadia Afghani and Gilad Lotan.Screen-shot-2012-03-24-at-5.18.13-PM1

 

State and Space

Also blending text and imagery, this project uses the web service Topsy and a Ruby script to search for tweets that document police misconduct or benevolence, can be traced back to a specific officer, and are related to Occupy events. After cleaning the tweets of web noise, e.g. http://, the project visualizes the prominence of particular keywords associated with police misconduct. As a balancing counterpoint, the project team is also searching for keywords associated with positive instances of police behavior.

fist3p

Visions of Occupy
This project seeks to creatively juxtapose the beliefs we have which inspire us to occupy, and visual traces of the physical occupations themselves.

Using data collected this winter by the Occupy Research General Survey (administered by OccupyResearch), we take the answer to question 42—”In just a few words, what are you trying to achieve with your participation in the Occupy movement”—and pair it with a Flickr photo tagged with the camp name that the same respondent mentions. This means that while the photo displayed and quote may be completely unrelated (both in source and in specific content), viewers are presented with locational context and imagery.visionsof

Displaying ORGS survey results by State (by quantile)
Map by Don Blair and Chris Schweidler, using GeoCommons.ogsusparticipationbystate

Exploring the Civic Anatomy of Occupy
According to the  Occupy Research General Survey (ORGS), OWS sympathizers and participants are among the most civically engaged individuals of the U.S. population, they possess an active voting record, and tend to be involved in a wide range of organizations and civic actions.  The ORGS allows us to explore some of the characteristics of the diverse “civic cultures” of online sympathizers who have brought broad support to OWS in the U.S.Organizational-Affiliation_Non-Participants1

 

Visualizing “Phrase Nets” using Many Eyes
Also using Many Eyes, this is a visualization of answers to the question “What is your top reason for participating in the Occupy Movemment” in which the most commonly occuring terms appear larger.participation2

 

Overall the second #OccupyData hackathon was a success, with more participants than the first round, many creative explorations and demos of new data visualization possibilities, and a strong desire by participants to continue developing shared, distributed, free and open approaches to social movement based research.

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Exploring the civic anatomy of OWS http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/24/exploring-the-civic-anatomy-of-ows/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/24/exploring-the-civic-anatomy-of-ows/#comments Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:21:16 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=419 According to the  Occupy Research General Survey (ORGS), OWS sympathizers and participants are among the most civically engaged individuals of the U.S. population, they possess an active voting record, and tend to be involved in a wide range of organizations and civic actions.  The ORGS allows us to explore some of the characteristics of the diverse “civic cultures” of online sympathizers who have brought broad support to OWS in the U.S.

Investigating the civic anatomy of OWS is of critical importance for those who seek to understand the movement’s potential as a force to promote social change through different forms of social and political action, from community-based work and peaceful protest to participatory deliberation and electoral politics. Comparing the different patterns of organizational affiliation (Graph 1) between self-defined participants and non-participants in the movement helps us to think about different civic trajectories, and the diverse pool of mobilizing practices from which Occupiers draw their strategies and political views.

Graph 1. Dimensions of Organizational Affiliation, 

Organizational-Affiliation_Non-Participants3

Organizational-Affiliation-_Participants2

OWS Participants vs. Non-participants

The experience in non-profit organizations is clearly central for participants and non-participants. However, the space of the political in Occupy seems significantly shaped by the trajectory of sympathizers in social justice organizations, political parties, labor unions, voluntary associations, affinity and cultural groups  (see Table 1). In some cases, affiliation to these institutions is higher among Occupiers than in the overall American population. As aptly argued by professor Wendy Brown, OWS should be understood fundamentally as a civic movement galvanized by the economic crisis, and the reaction to neoliberal policies that have threatened the foundations of democratic governance and public life in America.

Table 1. Organizational affiliation: “I belong and actively participate in…

Organizations

Participants

in OWS

   Non-participants

   in OWS

   Sig.

n

%

n

%

Non-profits

(3193)

44.7%

(397)

43.3%

Social justice groups

(3137)

32.9%

 (387)

14.5%

   ***
Another voluntary associations

 (2994)

30.8%

(390)

24.4%

   *
Political Party

(3231)

24.1%

(398)

18.6%

   ***
NGO

(3056)

21.7%

(388)

16.0%

Professional associations

 (3095)

19.9%

 (388)

21.6%

Cultural groups

 (3035)

19.8%

 (385)

14.8%

   *
Affinity Groups

(3018)

16.6%

 (383)

7.3%

   ***
Churches

(3121)

15.2%

(388)

20.6%

   ***
Labor unions

(3149)

8.5%

(391)

2.6%

   ***
Sport groups or teams

 (3006)

8.1%

 (387)

11.4%

   **
Worker center

(2960)

2.2%

(384)

1.2%

   **

*** p <0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05

Source: ORGS (U.S. residents, n=3,715)

In the electoral front, the voting record of Occupy participants in the ORGS is particularly high when compared to the average voter turnout of the country (64% in the 2008 presidential election). According to ORGS data, 87.5% of Occupiers voted in the 2008 presidential elections, and 80.6% plan to vote next November. These results echo findings of ongoing surveys of visitors to the OWS website.

The obvious conclusion of this evidence is that the popular outrage expressed by the movement is not the result of extremist factions of society but of civic discontent across broad sections of the American public. This is not to say that Occupy is merely an assemblage of political groups and identities. The diversity of  civic cultures and trajectories of occupiers should move activists and researchers to critically interrogate the historical roots of the movement, and its emergent identities and structures in connection with existent forms of civic governance in the American society. Answering all these questions may seem an elusive task in the case of a self-defined ‘leaderless’ movement; however, understanding the political and the ‘civics’ in Occupy is critical to assess the future of the movement, and its potential role as a transformative force of American democracy.

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Why participate in Occupy? http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/23/top-reasons-for-participation-in-occupy/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/23/top-reasons-for-participation-in-occupy/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:08:24 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=375

We used Many Eyes to visualize the responses to the survey question: “What is your top reason for participating in the Occupy Movement”?

For textual data, Many Eyes allows you to simply paste a large body of text into a field on their website.  To do this:

  1. Create an account. Create an account at Many Eyes; you will be sent an email to confirm your registration.
  2. Upload your data. Logging into Many Eyes, in the left-hand side of the main page you’ll see a link for “upload your data”. This will lead you to a page that will lead you the process in a straightforward manner.  If you’re analyzing simple text data, as we were, you can simply copy the text file you want to analyze, and paste it into the field provided.
  3. Create your visualization. After you have pasted in your data, and provided a name for your dataset, click “Create”.  This will lead you to page that provides you with various visualization options.  Above, we show the result that was generated by the “Word Cloud” option.

We’ve also generated a zipocc of the survey data, that simply contains the zip codes, latitude and longitude, and place names for people who responded to the survey.

 

 

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Preliminary Findings: Occupy Research Demographic and Political Participation Survey http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/23/preliminary-findings-occupy-research-demographic-and-political-participation-survey/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/03/23/preliminary-findings-occupy-research-demographic-and-political-participation-survey/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:58:31 +0000 http://www.occupyresearch.net/?p=338 Overview: this is a short summary of the methodology and preliminary findings from the Occupy Research Demographic and Political Participation Survey (ORGS), followed by frequency tables from the closed-ended questions, followed by links to the full anonymized dataset (including both open-ended and closed-ended questions). Enjoy! If you download the data, please leave a comment to this page and let us know what you do with it.

 

Introduction

Inspired by the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street began on September 17, 2011 in New York City, and led to a broader Occupy movement throughout the U.S. and internationally. The Occupy movement is focused on social and economic inequalities, particularly wealth and power disparities between the wealthiest 1% and everyone else, the 99%.

The Occupy Research General Demographic and Political Participation Survey (ORGS) aimed to gather information about the demographics of participants, as well as forms of civic and political participation in the Occupy movement. ORGS also included questions about forms of communication and media use within the Occupy movement. The survey was designed through a transparent and collaborative process that included Occupy participants and researchers from across the globe.

The survey was conducted from December 7th, 2011, to January 7th, 2012. A total of 5,074 surveys were collected.  This summary provides a brief overview of key findings; we expect to release more in-depth analysis over time via the project site, http://occupyresearch.net. Included here are the frequency counts and percents for the closed ended questions.

The survey was conducted by the Occupy Research Network (http://occupyresearch.net), which includes academics, activists, students, community researchers, and others, with support from DataCenter (http://www.datacenter.org), a U.S. based research organization. A list of people involved in this survey is available at http://occupyresearch.wikispaces.com/surveys#People. For more information or if you have questions, please contact owsgeneralsurvey AT gmail.com.

Methodology

We initially hoped to conduct a large number of face to face surveys at Occupy camps, following a simple random sampling method that is detailed in our manual for surveyors (http://bit.ly/OccupyResearchSurveyandGuide), as well as in a webinar presentation used to train surveyors (http://prezi.com/abentbthm65z/occupy-research-survey-training). However, prior to and during the survey period the majority of Occupy camps were raided and shut down by police.

As a result, the ORGS survey team turned to online outreach, where we used a mixed method combining systematic Facebook outreach with snowball sampling via email and social media.

We used an iMacros script to post the survey description and link to 883 Occupy related Facebook groups, using the most comprehensive list of Occupy related Facebook groups available, known as the B.E.S.T. database ( Available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An-A-lITWCO8dHJjVlplQklhOWNxR1YzQmZXaWN3TkE#gid=0 ). We also posted the survey to the 505 email addresses publicly associated with Occupy groups (again from the BEST database). Additionally, the site http://occupytogether.org added a link to the survey in the upper right hand corner of their site during the survey period. Finally, members of the ORGS survey team posted the survey information extensively to personal and professional networks, blogs, social media, and via twitter.

Overall, we gathered 5,074 completed surveys, the vast majority of which (5,040, or 99.3%) were completed online.

Of those (4,382) who answered the question “Where did you find the link to this survey,” 57% said via a link from Facebook, 20% from a personal contact, 12% from occupytogether.org, 7.3% from twitter, and 4% from occupyresearch.net.

Limitations

The ORGS sample is non-random and therefore does not have external validity: our findings should not be read as conclusions about the overall Occupy movement. In addition, as an online survey, we can expect our data to be deeply biased to reflect the demographics and political participation characteristics of those with greater levels of Internet access. The survey was in English only, and therefore fails to reflect non-English speakers who may be Occupy participants.  The high proportion of respondents who came to the survey via Facebook rather than in other ways also skews results – for example, in the responses to questions about recent Occupy related media use. However, the survey does contain data from several thousand self-identified Occupy movement participants, and will be of interest to anyone seeking to better understand the Occupy movement across multiple sites.

Key Findings

Involvement in Occupy Wall Street

The vast majority of people we surveyed (91.3%) report performing various activities related to the Occupy movement.

  • The most common activities are: posting on Facebook (74.3%) and holding face-to-face conversations about the movement (72.7%), followed by signing petitions (59.7%) and marching in protests (49.3%).
  • Others donate money (38.8%), food, or needed goods to a camp (23.7%); make phone calls to elected officials (23.7%); or organize events or actions (18.7%).
  • About a fifth of participants write blog posts (18.3%), while 7.9% make video about Occupy.
  • A smaller, core group of participants report getting arrested (2.3%).

Engagement with the movement in the public space is a prominent feature of participants’ experience in the Occupy movement.

  • 63.3% have been to a camp.
  • Most attend General Assemblies (68.7%) and participate in protests organized at camps (68.6%).
  • More than a third volunteer to provide food or services (41.1%), take part in workshops or events (39.5%), or participate in working groups (38%).
  • 17.2% lived or slept in camps, and 3.6% got arrested at camps.

Organizational Affiliation and Civic Engagement

The majority of survey respondents (86.8%) self-identify as participants in OWS, and more than half of them (59%) have previously been involved in other social movements.

Survey respondents are engaged in a wide range of civic and political organizations, representing the variety of civic cultures and interests characteristic of the U.S. population. However, they tend to have distinct degrees of involvement in particular organizations.

  • The majority (57%) belonge to non-profit organizations, and most respondents declare that they are active in nonprofits.
  • Although 52.5% belong to political parties, only 21.6% of respondents are actively involved.
  • Social justice groups and other volunteer associations are also preferred sites for respondents’ active involvement with their communities. Other sites of active community engagement include professional associations, cultural groups, churches or religious organizations, and affinity groups.

There are many ways in which survey respondents have taken civic action in their communities over the past year:

  • The overwhelming majority (91%) have signed petitions and boycotted or deliberately bought certain products for political, ethical or environmental reasons (89.9%).
  • More than two thirds have contacted or attempted to contact a politician or civil servant to express their views (77%) , and 67.7% have donated money or raised funds for a social or political activity.
  • Almost two thirds have taken part in demonstrations (66.6%); joined an Internet political forum or discussion group (65%); or attended a political meeting or rally in the last year (62.5%).
  • 40% have contacted or appeared in the media to express their views.

The overwhelming  majority of participants in our survey are also actively involved in electoral politics.

  • 87.3 % voted in the 2008 presidential elections, and
  • 81% % plan to vote in the November elections.

However, political preferences of survey participants are mostly fragmented, and include an important number of independents.

  • More than a third declare that they are independent or not identified with any political  party (38.4%), while almost an equal number declare that they are sympathizers with the Democratic party (37.9%).
  • The political views the rest of participants are widely diverse, consisting of many other parties and political causes (22.6%), and a small minority identifying with the Republican party (1.1%)

We found that most respondents (76.6%) voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential elections. However, voting intentions for the 2012 presidential election appeared divided and in flux.

  • 45% of participants plan to vote for the Democratic candidate,
  • 35.9% are undecided, and
  • 19.1% plan to vote for other candidates, including the candidate of the Republican party (1.9%).

 

Media Use

Among those who answered questions about usage of different types of media for news and information about the Occupy movement, survey respondents are heavy users of social media (as to be expected given the proportion of survey respondents arriving via a link from Facebook). Print and broadcast media were not used as frequently or as widely by survey respondents.

  • The majority (63.7%) report using Facebook in the past 24 hours,
  • Nearly half (43.8%) used Occupy movement websites in the past 24 hours, while a similar percent (42.6%) used word of mouth for Occupy news and information in the past 24 hours.
  • 41.5% used email, while a third used YouTube (29.2%).
  • Just a quarter (23.8%) used newspapers, blogs (23.7%), or Twitter (23.3%).
  • A fifth (19.2%) used a livestreaming video site, TV (17.3%), or radio (17.3%).

 

Who completed the survey

  • The majority (85.7%) of the people who filled out the survey are in the USA, while 14.3% live abroad.
  • More than half of the survey respondents (52.9%) identify as women, 43.7% as men, and about 1% (50) as transgender.  In regards to sexual identity, the majority identify as heterosexual/straight (76.4%), while 15.5% identify as LGBTQ.
  • The average age of survey respondents is 42. Almost half (45%) are between the ages of 25 and 44, followed by those  between 44 and 64. Two out of ten are under 25 or over 65.
  • 80.8% identify as white.  There is a diversity of other races/ethnicities including Latino/a (5.3%), Asian/Pacific Islander (5.4%),  Native American (5.3%),  and African American (2.9%).
  • Almost half (49.2%) of the respondents identify as working or lower middle class. More than half (54.4%) report that they earn less than $50,000.  Just under one third are employed full time. 8.6% report being unemployed, and 7.6% say they are underemployed.  17.6% are students.
  • Over one quarter (29.8%) have graduate degrees, followed by those that completed college (26%) or some college (23%).
  • Almost half (47.5%) of the respondents are renters, and 41.3% are homeowners. 8.6% say they live with their parents.
  • Respondents are fairly evenly split between being married/in a partnership, and single. 17.9% report having one or more children, and almost half (47.2%) say they support at least one person with their income.

 

Frequency Tables

Part 1.  Occupy Participation

Have you ever been to an Occupy camp?  (n=5070)
N Percent
Yes 3208 63.3
No 1862 36.7

 

Frequency of going to camp (n=3132)
N Percent
I live in the camp 109 3.5
I’ve been many times 1109 35.4
I’ve been a few times 1302 41.6
I’ve been once 612 19.5

 

Type of activities participated in during visits to Occupy camps. (n=3208)
N Percent
Attended a General Assembly 2203 68.7
Marched in a protest 2202 68.6
Volunteered to provide food or services to people at the camp 1320 41.1
Participated in workshops or events hosted at the camp 1266 39.5
Taken part in a Working Group 1219 38.0
Slept in an Occupy camp 552 17.2
Got arrested 114 3.6
Other (please describe activities, one per line): 837 26.1

 

Types of activities participated in related to the Occupy movement
N Percent
Posted about Occupy via Facebook, Twitter, or other social m 3770 74.3
Had a face to face discussion about Occupy 3689 72.7
Signed a petition 3027 59.7
Marched in a protest 2503 49.3
Donated money, food, or needed goods to a camp 1968 38.8
Made phone calls to elected officials 1203 23.7
Organized an event or action 948 18.7
Wrote a blog post about Occupy 930 18.3
No, I have not participated in any activity related to the O 439 8.7
Made a video about Occupy 399 7.9
Got arrested 116 2.3
Other (write in, one per line): 747 14.7

Part 2. Movement Participation

Organizational Affiliation and Civic Engagement

If the Occupy movement the first movement respondents participated in (n=4865)
N Percent
Yes 1347 27.7
No 2874 59.1
I don’t consider myself a participant 644 13.2

 

Participation and level of participation different kinds of groups or associations.
N belong, actively participate belong but don’t actively participate used to belong, do not any more have never belonged can’t choose/don’t know
Nonprofit Organization 4537 42.5 14.6 17.9 22.8 2.1
Another voluntary association 4296 29.4 10.4 24.8 27.8 7.5
Social Justice Organization 4452 28.8 14.4 11.8 40.0 5.1
Political Party 4592 21.6 30.9 16.3 28.8 2.4
Non-government Organization 4361 21.0 10.0 12.2 45.9 10.9
Professional Association 4410 19.6 18.2 16.0 41.6 4.6
Cultural Groups 4314 19.5 10.7 13.4 48.5 7.9
Affinity Group 4295 14.6 5.4 8.6 48.5 22.8
Church or Religious Organization 4441 14.6 8.3 37.0 38.4 1.7
Sports group or teams 4296 8.9 3.7 36.9 46.4 4.0
Labor Union 4479 8.0 8.1 20.9 61.3 1.7
Business Association 4288 7.8 6.4 12.2 67.5 6.1
Worker Center 4227 2.0 1.6 4.1 78.9 13.5
Participation in different forms of political and social
N In the past year Over a year ago Not done it but may Would never do it Can’t choose/don’t know
Signed a petition 4623 91.1 5.9 1.9 .7 .4
Boycotted, or deliberately bought, certain products for political, ethical or environmental reasons 4593 89.9 4.3 4.1 .8 .8
Contacted, or attempted to contact, a politician or a civil servant to express your views 4575 77.1 10.1 10.6 1.5 .7
Donated money or raised funds for a social or political activity 4545 67.7 12.9 14.6 3.0 1.8
Took part in a demonstration 4556 66.6 15.3 15.5 1.6 .9
Joined an Internet political forum or discussion group 4543 65.1 6.8 22.7 2.8 2.6
Attended a political meeting or rally 4547 62.5 18.9 15.5 2.2 1.0
Contacted or appeared in the media to express your views 4479 40.3 16.1 33.7 7.1 2.7

Part 3. Political Preferences

 

[US Respondents =3,652]

Which of the following political parties do you identify with most closely?

N

Percent

Independents/ Do not identify with any party

1401

38.4

Democratic

1383

37.9

Republican

40

1.1

Other

828

22.6

[International  Respondents]  Political Party affiliation  (n=579)
N Percent
I associate with the following political party (list forthcoming) 283 48.9
I do not identify with any party 296 51.1
[US Respondents]  Candidate voted for in the 2008 presidential election? (n=3661)
N Percent
Other candidate (please specify) 249 6.8
Barack Obama 2805 76.6
John McCain 76 2.1
Voted but decline to state candidate 64 1.7
Was too young to vote 122 3.3
Wasn’t eligible to vote 85 2.3
Did not vote 260 7.1
Total 3661 100.0

 

[International  Respondents]  If voted in most recent election (n=586)
N Percent
Yes, I voted for: (list forthcoming) 450 76.8
No, didn’t vote 84 14.3
Was too young to vote 17 2.9
Wasn’t eligible to vote for other reasons 35 6.0

 

[US Respondents]  Plan to vote in the 2012 presidential election.  (n=3652)
N Percent
Yes 2960 81.1
No 148 4.1
Undecided 443 12.1
Won’t be eligible to vote 101 2.8
Total 3652 100.0

 

[US Respondents n=3,487]

If you plan to vote, for whom do you expect to vote?

N

Percent

Democratic candidate

1569

45

Undecided

1251

35.9

Republican

66

1.9

Other

601

17.2

[International  Respondents]  Plans to vote in the next national election (n-586)
N Percent
Yes, I plan to vote for: (list forthcoming) 398 67.9
No 71 12.1
Undecided 98 16.7
Won’t be eligible to vote 19 3.2

Part 4 Media Use and Occupy

Usage of different types of sources for news and information about the Occupy movement.
N In the past 24 hours In the past week In the past month More than a month ago Never
Facebook 4383 63.7 13.3 7.7 2.5 12.8
Websites of the Occupy Movement 4376 43.8 23.1 15.7 5.8 11.7
Word of mouth 4397 42.6 28.5 16.7 5.8 6.3
Email 4399 41.5 21.1 14.3 5.8 17.4
YouTube 4316 29.2 24.4 19.5 7.2 19.8
National or international Newspaper 4270 23.8 26.3 19.6 9.0 21.2
Blogs 4225 23.7 24.2 18.3 7.3 26.5
Twitter 4202 23.3 9.4 9.5 4.6 53.2
Local Newspaper 4285 20.2 23.6 21.7 11.3 23.1
Livestreaming video site 4237 19.2 21.9 23.1 9.1 26.7
National or International Television 4163 17.3 19.4 19.8 11.2 32.2
National or international Radio 4192 17.3 19.5 17.8 9.5 35.8
Discussions at Occupy camps or face to face groups 4332 17.2 15.9 21.8 16.9 28.2
Local Radio 4247 16.8 18.1 16.7 11.1 37.3
Local Television 4196 12.2 15.4 19.4 14.0 39.0
Chat rooms / IRC 4128 7.0 5.5 6.8 7.2 73.6
Tumblr 4125 6.0 7.4 10.0 5.3 71.3
Other 1382 14.0 4.1 4.5 2.2 75.1

Demographics

 

Gender / Sexual Identity

Gender (Valid responses 4,307)
N Percent
Female 2277 52.9
Male 1881 43.7
Transgender 45 1.0
Decline to state 96 2.2
Marked multiple responses 8 0.2

 

Sexual identity  (n=4,225)
N Percent
Heterosexual/Straight 3229 76.4
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Queer 653 15.5
Decline to state 299 7.1
Marked multiple responses 44 1.0

Age

Age (Check all that apply)
N Percent
Under 18 41 1.0
18-24 529 12.5
25-44 1910 45.0
45-64 1437 33.9
65 and over 324 7.6
Total 4241 100.0

Race / Ethnicity

[US respondents] Your race/ethnicity –(Check all that apply)
N Percent
White/Caucasian 3002 80.8
Latino/Latina 196 5.3
Native American/Indigenous 160 4.3
Asian 106 2.9
Black, African, or African-American 109 2.9
South Asian 41 1.1
Arab, Southwest Asian or North African 28 .8
Pacific Islander 25 .7
Southeast Asian 15 .4
Biracial/Multiracial/Mixed race 165 4.4
Decline to state 171 4.6

Employment / Income / Class

Employment Status in last month (Check all that apply)
N Percent
Employed full-time 1605 31.6
Student 894 17.6
Self-employed 749 14.8
Part-time 729 14.4
Unemployed 438 8.6
Retired 399 7.9
Under-Employed 388 7.6
Disabled 269 5.3
Full-time homemaker 173 3.4
Veteran 133 2.6
Temp/Per-diem 67 1.3
Seasonal 63 1.2
Armed Services (active service) 12 .2
Other (please specify) 280 5.5

 

[US respondents] What is your annual household income in U.S. dollars? (n=3641)
N Percent
No income 133 3.7
1-9,999 253 6.9
10,000-19,999 473 13.0
20,000-29,999 427 11.7
30,000-39,999 370 10.2
40,000-49,999 323 8.9
50,000-59,999 257 7.1
60,000-69,999 195 5.4
70,000-79,999 194 5.3
80,000-89,999 149 4.1
90,000-99,999 109 3.0
100,000+ 458 12.6
Decline to state 300 8.2

 

Class Identity
N Percent
Working class 1192 29.7
Lower middle class 784 19.5
Middle class 1489 37.1
Upper middle class 503 12.5
Upper class 50 1.2
Total 4018 100.0

Education

[US respondents] Educational Attainment  (n=3668)
N Percent
No formal education 1 .0
Grade school (grades 1-8) 7 .2
Some high school (9-12), no degree 54 1.5
High school, completed diploma/GED 162 4.4
Some college, no degree 842 23.0
Associates degree 240 6.5
College degree (BA, BS, AB, etc.) 955 26.0
Graduate or professional school, no degree 314 8.6
Graduate or professional degree (MA, MS, MD, JD, PhD) 1093 29.8
Total 3668 100.0

Motivations

Respondents gave 0 to 3 reasons for participating or for not participating or both.

Number of Reasons Why I Participate
0 1 2 3 TOTAL
Number of Reasons Why Not 0 911 42 59 1901 2913
1 36 19 27 199 281
2 38 17 29 256 340
3 198 12 24 1305 1539
TOTAL 1183 90 139 3661 5073
Number of Reasons Why I Participate
0 1 2 3 Total
Reasons Why No 0 18% 1% 1% 37% 57%
1 1% 0% 1% 4% 6%
2 1% 0% 1% 5% 7%
3 4% 0% 0% 26% 30%
Total 23% 2% 3% 72% 100%

Home/ Housing

Housing Status (n=4163)
N Percent
Renter 1977 47.5
Homeowner 1721 41.3
Live with parents 358 8.6
Homeless 57 1.4
Homeowner – foreclosed 50 1.2

 

Currently living in  U.S. (n=4333)
N Percent
Yes 3715 85.7
No 618 14.3

Family

Marital status (n=4311)
N Percent
Have partner/Married 2017 46.8
Single 1639 38.0
Divorced 469 10.9
Other (please specify) 186 4.3
Total 4311 100.0

 

Number of Children Support with Income  (under the age of 18)
N Percent Valid Percent
0 1677 33.1 (treat as no answer)
1 466 9.2 51.3
2 300 5.9 33.0
3 95 1.9 10.5
4 or more 47 .9 5.2
No answer 2489 49
Number of adults (over 18 years of age) support with income
N Percent
0 965 19
1 1427 28.1
2 785 15.5
3 130 2.6
4 or more 69 1
No answer 1698 33.4

Survey Implementation

Is this survey being conducted in a camp or did you follow a link online?
N Percent
Followed a link online 5040 99.3
Completed the survey in a camp 19 .4
No Answer 15 .3
Total 5074 100.0

 

Where did you find the link to this survey?
N Percent
Facebook 2504 57.1
From a personal contact 859 19.6
OccupyTogether.org 532 12.1
Twitter 322 7.3
Occupyresearch.net 165 3.8
Total 4382 100.0

 

Links to Data

The following links are to the full, anonymized dataset from ORGS in SPSS format, as a spreadsheet, and as a csv. In addition, there’s a link to the codebook. If you download and work with this data, please leave comments/links here at this post!

Occupy General Survey clean data:

With mnemonic field names:
Code book

Easy to print version survey: http://bit.ly/openqueshighlightoccupygen

 

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Thanks for taking the OR general survey! http://occupyresearch.net/2012/01/18/thanks-for-taking-the-or-general-survey/ http://occupyresearch.net/2012/01/18/thanks-for-taking-the-or-general-survey/#respond Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:20:28 +0000 http://occupyresearch.net/?p=203 OccupyResearch has gathered over 5,000 surveys from across multiple sites, both f2f and online. We’re now moving to the data analysis stage, the first steps of which are:

1. anonymizing the responses (some people put their contact info in the final open ended question) and

2. coding the responses to a question about which physical Occupy camp/location people participated in.

Once 2. is complete, we can cut the data by camp and provide that subset to each Occupy (so the Oakland Occupy Research working group will get early access to all the data from Oakland occupiers, Occupy Boston gets Boston occupiers, etc). We’re planning to organize a webinar & resources to help teams from each Occupation analyze their own data. If you’re interested in that part of the process please join the occupyresearch.net wiki and get on the mailing list!

In the future, we’ll clean, code, and analyze the full results, release a report, and release the anonymized complete data set for others to analyze as they’d like (under a creative commons license). Thanks to everyone who has participated in this process so far!

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Last Chance! Take the Occupy Research Demographic and Political Participation Survey by Jan 9th http://occupyresearch.net/2011/12/11/occupy-demographics-and-political-participation-survey/ http://occupyresearch.net/2011/12/11/occupy-demographics-and-political-participation-survey/#comments Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:57:57 +0000 http://occupyresearch.net/?p=155 occupy research survey cover

Quick links

Tweet This!

Last Chance! Take #OccupyResearch survey: http://bit.ly/owsurvey-net Research by/4 the movement FTW! More info: http://bit.ly/owsurvey-info

 

Background:

The OccupyResearch network is pleased to launch this exciting survey,
which aims to create a better understanding of who engages with the
Occupy movement, and how — it includes questions about media,
communication, political activities, and more. The survey is open to
people living in any country, regardless of their level of involvement
with the Occupy movement. The more people we can reach with this survey,
the better we can reflect on this exciting time — so we invite you to
spread the word. You can pitch in by:

  • Posting it on social networks
  • Sharing it with your local Occupy activists and groups
  • Contacting or starting a research working group at an Occupy site
  • Conducting the survey yourself
  • Getting involved in a survey training workshop

Get started! Share this link to the survey with your networks:
http://svy.mk/owsurvey-net.

At Occupy sites, the survey can either be conducted online, if internet access is available in the field, or on paper. For both scenarios, we’ve created a comprehensive guide to conducting the survey, including detailed directions, a script, important information regarding consent, and many useful pointers.

Download that guide as a PDF here: http://bit.ly/OccupyResearchSurveyandGuide.

Coming soon: Interactive training materials for surveyors, and on-the-ground training at Occupy sites! Get in touch with us at owsgeneralsurvey@gmail.com and let us know how you’d like to be involved.

The survey is open until January 9th, 2011. Once closed, the data will be publicly available through the OccupyResearch website. The survey is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 General License.

The survey is being conducted by the OccupyResearch Network (http://occupyresearch.net), which includes over 200 activists, academics, and researchers, and DataCenter (www.datacenter.org), a U.S. based research organization. For more information about who is involved, see http://occupyresearch.net/surveys.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this exciting project, and happy surveying!

-OccupyResearch Survey Team

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