A media briefing on Survey 2000, an unprecedented effort to collect original social-scientific data over the Internet, will be held during the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association on August 24th at 3 PM.
Survey 2000, a collaboration between National Geographic and a team of distinguished sociologists, will address how often people have moved, what role they play in their communities, and how geography has shaped their tastes in food, music, and literature. The result will be a snapshot of life on Earth at the end of a long century.
"Survey 2000: Charting Communities" aims to map communities and change around the world. The sociologists involved, including Jim Witte of Northwestern University and Barry Wellman of the University of Toronto, hope to find answers to questions like: How solid are local communities today? How does geographic mobility affect them? What effect does the spread of mass media have on regional culture? What role do regional roots play in shaping our identities?
The interactive Internet survey will be housed on the National Geographic Society's web page later this year. The team plans to collect data from 18,000 participants.
"Although the internet has been used extensively for marketing surveys, this will be the major sociological survey done on the Internet," said Valerie May, Project Director for Survey 2000.
Speakers will include Valerie May and Jim Witte. The briefing will take place Monday August 24 at 3 PM at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers, 333 O'Farrell in room 2 Union Square, located on the 4th floor.