How Tech Has Enabled Survey Research and Undermined It- Livestream

Survey research is a centerpiece of life in America and throughout the world. Billions of dollars are spent by commercial companies, governments, academics, NGOs, and others to track people's life experiences (e.g., the unemployment rate comes from surveys) and opinions (e.g., presidential approval, preferences for government policies, satisfaction with products and services). For decades, scientific survey data collection was strikingly accurate, though expensive. With the arrival of the Internet, the cost of scientific survey data collection declined, but unscrupulous companies took advantage of non-scientific methods to minimize costs, maximize profits, and lie to customers and the public about the accuracy of the resulting data. Fortunately for those companies, researchers purchasing cut-rate data have been complicit in misrepresenting data quality, a prevarication that served the short-term interests of the researchers but caused hugely embarrassing and public failures, such as the prediction that Hillary Clinton would win the U.S. Presidential Election in 2016. Reviewing this history offers an opportunity to see how tech can help researchers and dramatically undermine those same researchers, science generally, and the nation.

Speaker: Jon Krosnick, Stanford University

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