The Internet Experiment

Background:

The WORLDwide web. When you actually consider how much information is at your fingertips when you access the Internet, it can be daunting. Sorting through the excess information to find exactly what you’re looking for can be even more challenging.

A few years ago, USA Today’s Andrew Kantor wrote that there was too much information on the Internet to organize it systematically. Recently, new search engines, such as bing (the site with the clever commercials), have attempted to alleviate this problem and streamline the search process.

Research Question:

So where has this information overload left the public? Can citizens access the information they need to make informed political decisions?

The Internet has been praised for its democratizing effects on our society. The web provides citizens with updates on campaigns, elections, government actions and representatives from official government entities, news sources, leaders themselves, databases, and more. They can even be informed by other citizens.

National politics and news have a dominant presence online, but what about state and local politics? And obscure information that citizens need to understand and influence the policies of their community?

Method:

To investigate, I will try to answer the following three questions presented by Professor Towns using the Internet…

Results:

1. What did Gov. Beverly Perdue’s last campaign finance report show for cash on hand?

Step 1: I searched “governor beverly perdue campaign finance report” on Google. The search did not produce results about how much “cash on hand” she raised, although I did learn about the controversy over her expenditures on undisclosed flights from the first page of links. Next, I added “cash on hand” to the end of my previous search. Success! The second link took me to the North Carolina Democratic Party Web site that reports Perdue raised $1.4 million cash on hand.

2. How many voters are registered in NC – and what is the breakdown of R, D, and I?

This time, I searched “voter registration north carolina.” The first link was the North Carolina State Board of Elections Web site. Easy enough. The bar at the top of the home page lists the total number of registered voters in North Carolina – 6,038, 531. The breakdown? Democratic: 2,734,258; Republican: 1,918,603; Libertarian: 6,733; Unaffiliated: 1,378,937. And it’s up-to-date. The numbers are based on registration data from Feb. 14, 2010.

3. Pick a prof – any prof at UNC – and find his/her salary.

Hmm…since I’ve been studying for my international politics exam tomorrow, I’ll look up how much my associate professor of political science, Thomas Oatley, makes. Searching “thomas oatley” produces information about his research, education, blog and teaching experience. But what about his salary? After scrolling through the first six pages, I had no luck.

The faculty and staff data page of the UNC-Chapel Hill Office of Institutional Research and Association Web site did have links to charts that list the demographics of the professors as well as the median and mean salaries of each position in the schools. However, there were no specifics. Bummer.

Next, instead of searching specifically for Professor Oatley, I searched for applications and tools that could help me find out his salary. This proved to be the superior method. The North Carolina System Salary Database on triangle.com listed his total salary and his hire date. The Daily Tar Heel’s data center is also a good source of statistical information about the university. It too has a tool to look up the salaries of UNC system employees.

Analysis:

The first two questions were extremely easy to answer. I was impressed with how fast I was able to find reputable sites that gave me accurate results. Information overload or not, search engines know how to sort prominent data.

The last question – more personal and local – was a challenge. The more specific the information, the harder it is to find. Ironically, specific information is often more applicable to citizens’ lives. It applies to their communities and the people who directly influence their daily lives.

Conclusion:

While there should be restrictions on how much information is available on the Internet, practical information, like the data above, should be accessible for the average citizen. After all, if the people who would use the information can't access it online, the Internet does not serve one of its main purposes.