Method and Representation in Internet-Based Survey Tools— Mobility, Community, and Cultural Identity in Survey2000

The Survey2000 Project is the largest and most comprehensive Internet-based social science survey to date. Along with generating interesting data about geographic mobility, feelings of community, and culinary, literary and musical tastes, the experience of operating a survey with Internet tools has set into sharp relief important methodological issues of sample size, representation, and generalization. We argue that Internet-based survey research can yield meaningfully comparable data about both Internet users and larger populations. KEYWORD LIST: Survey2000; Web-Based Survey Design; Sampling Survey2000 is a collaborative research project of the staff at National Geographic Interactive and academic researchers. The National Geographic Society and Northwestern University have provided financial support for this project. One year after data collection is completed a public use version of the data set will be distributed to allow the academic and scientific community at large access to the data. Any information that could potentially compromise the anonymity of respondents will be eliminated from the public use data set. For their advice and assistance in the preparation of various drafts we are grateful to Bill Bainbridge, Bonnie Erickson, Joe Germuska, Wendy Griswold, Keith Hampton, Valerie May, Pete Peterson, and Barry Wellman. Draft: under review, please contact jwitte@clemson.edu regarding citation and publication status