AAPOR

The American Association for Public Opinion Research will have its annual conference May 18-21, 2006 in Montreal. AAPOR is a little different from most of our Communication conferences in that it accepts paper, poster and panel proposals on its web site with a deadline of Dec. 1, 2005. AAPOR attracts a unique group of individuals who represent academe, government statistical agencies, commercial polling firms, and media polling firms.

Interesting Site

If you're a snoop, you should check out www.fundrace.org. It allows you to type in an address and identify political contributions recorded by the Federal Election Commission by distance from that address.

I've recently asked Jess Flanders to use this site to help me identify very local climates of opinion. I did a survey of Ohio right after the 2004 election and obtained something close to an address for each respondent. I'm now trying to identify the climate of opinion surrounding that person, with the assumption that those who donate to candidates or parties are likely to publicly express their opinions in the form of bumper stickers, yard signs, buttons, etc., and that this will help to generate perceptions of a local climate of opinion of one's neighbors. And, once these data are combined with the survey data, we can see if this influences the participation of those whose views are in the minority relative to their local opinion climate.

Anyhow, just thought this might be a "real" first post to our blog. Feel free to share your comments or suggestions in the comments section of this post.

Chip