pdf - Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern University

started data collection on her new
longitudinal project examining young
people’s online abilities. This project
looks at how young people incorporate
technology into their everyday lives and
whether these new digital media are
leveling the playing field for youth or
increasing the digital divide. Hargittai is
working on a conceptual framework that
accounts for these differences. She is
also collecting a unique data set about a
diverse group of young people’s Internet
uses to illustrate existing differences.
Funding for the project has been
provided by the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation.
Hargittai is also looking at Internet use
among older adults with Jeremy Freese
and Salvador Rivas of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Investigating the
link between cognition and Internet
use, the three researchers find strong
evidence that people with higher IQs
(cognitive skills) are best able to take
advantage of online tools that help older
adults to navigate social benefits and
ultimately make complicated decisions.
Despite the importance of technological
standards in driving economic growth,
there has been little research on the role
of public policy in the development of
standards. Leading researchers in public
policy standards address this research
gap in Standards and Public Policy
(Cambridge University Press), edited
by strategy and management professor
Shane Greenstein and Victor Stango of
Dartmouth College. In it, they examine
whether markets choose efficient
standards, the effect of standards
organizations on the development of
standards, and appropriate public policy
on the issue of standards. Greenstein is
Elinor and Wendell Hobbs Professor of
Management and Strategy.
In a project on how candidates use
the Web to win elections, James
Druckman and two colleagues developed
a theoretical framework for studying
politicians’ campaigns on the Web that
accounts for politically strategic aspects of
Web-based campaigns and novel technical
elements. They then conducted a content
analysis of more than 700 candidates’
Web sites over three election cycles. They
included additional data on candidate and
district characteristics, permitting them
to study how candidates campaign on the
Web, how Web campaign strategies differ
from other types of media campaigns,
why candidates’ Web sites differ from one
another, how campaign Web sites have
changed over time, and what effect Web
campaigns might have in the future. Some
of their findings have centered on showing
the conditions under which campaigns
“go negative” against their opponents
and those technological features that
candidates use or avoid and why.
While historians of American urban
development have documented how
powerful actors from mayors to developers
shaped the history of American cities,
the men and women whose technical
and technological models laid out basic
assumptions about the nature of city life to
guide many urban decisions have been at
most minor characters in these accounts.
Jennifer Light, a historian of information
systems, has begun a new research project
that is using geographical information
systems (GIS) in an analysis of the
urban renewal program. In particular,
she is looking at how the maps that
were central to federal and local policy
decisions about urban redevelopment, and
the mapmakers who created them, shaped
the fate of several U.S. cities. Light wants
to show how historians can employ GIS
and quantitative data to complement
qualitative, archivally-based inquiry in
their field of study.
Some findings by
Druckman and
his colleagues have
centered on showing
the conditions under
which campaigns “go
negative” against their
opponents and those
technological features
that candidates use or
avoid and why.
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