Messing with data, here's a map below of the number of Ob/Gyns per 100,000 population in Georgia. Athens ranks high. Click on an individual county to see its rate and rank.
Data Source:GeorgiaStats
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Who's On Twitter
There's a mini-tempest in a teeny tiny teapot about what The New York Times journalists are on, or not on, or who rarely use, Twitter. As if anyone cares.
Still, for fun, I applied the same question to my own Department of Journalism at Grady College (note, we've combined with broadcast journalism, so the list is long below, and I've bold/italicized those folks). Let's take a look, but I'm not about to create a jillion little screenshots. Instead, below I list the faculty members in alphabetical order and, if on Twitter, how many tweets that person has created as of Tuesday afternoon. Each name should link to their individual faculty bio in case you don't know who they are, what they teach, or what research they do (if any).
Now, in fairness, many people use Twitter not to send or interact but as radar to keep up with those they follow. Think of it as a news feed, a way to keep up with what's breaking. That's one of the weaknesses of the NYT criticism above. Not everyone uses Twitter as a platform. Some use it, instead, as a wire service, as a feed, as radar, not as a way to blather away as some of us tend to do. In all, 13 are on Twitter (some, barely), 10 are not. Not sure what that means.
And it sucks that I'm second to Johnson in number of tweets.
Sigh. Just 46 more tweets and I'm #1.
Still, for fun, I applied the same question to my own Department of Journalism at Grady College (note, we've combined with broadcast journalism, so the list is long below, and I've bold/italicized those folks). Let's take a look, but I'm not about to create a jillion little screenshots. Instead, below I list the faculty members in alphabetical order and, if on Twitter, how many tweets that person has created as of Tuesday afternoon. Each name should link to their individual faculty bio in case you don't know who they are, what they teach, or what research they do (if any).
- Lee Becker (524 tweets)
- Valerie Boyd (not on Twitter, best I can tell)
- Dodi Cantrell-Bickley (not on Twitter)
- Michael Castengera (174 tweets)
- Charles Davis (our dean, 301 tweets as his new dean handle)
- John Greenman (not on Twitter)
- David Hazinski (2 tweets)
- Keith Herndon (730 tweets)
- Barry Hollander (um, me, 5,404 tweets)
- Ann Hollifield (not on Twitter)
- Tom Hudson (120 tweets)
- Janice Hume (department head, not on Twitter)
- Mark Johnson (5,449 tweets, our #1 Tweetmeister)
- Bill Lee (not on Twitter)
- Vicki Michaelis (838 tweets)
- Kent Middleton (not on Twitter)
- Ivanka Pjesivac (not on Twitter)
- Leara Rhodes (not on Twitter)
- Chris Shumway (1,831 tweets)
- John Soloski (18 tweets)
- Welch Suggs (3,019 tweets)
- Pat Thomas (1,202 tweets)
- Bart Wojdynski (985 tweets)
Now, in fairness, many people use Twitter not to send or interact but as radar to keep up with those they follow. Think of it as a news feed, a way to keep up with what's breaking. That's one of the weaknesses of the NYT criticism above. Not everyone uses Twitter as a platform. Some use it, instead, as a wire service, as a feed, as radar, not as a way to blather away as some of us tend to do. In all, 13 are on Twitter (some, barely), 10 are not. Not sure what that means.
And it sucks that I'm second to Johnson in number of tweets.
Sigh. Just 46 more tweets and I'm #1.
Monday, September 29, 2014
SLOPpy Journalism
A SLOP in surveys refers to a self-selected opinion poll. Such a poll has no random sample, no systematic sampling at all. Basically, it's crap. But don't take my word for it. Here's the take of AAPOR, the leading group of polling professionals (bold face my own):
The Internet is awash with SLOP polls that invite people to answer a question and then view the results. In addition to attracting only those with an ax to grind on a particular issue, even the best Internet-derived convenience samples currently tend to include too few older people, minorities and less affluent, less well educated. In short, they tend to miss people who don’t have access to a computer or an Internet connection. These surveys also invite manipulation, as a number of news organizations have learned to their dismay.Why am I writing about this? Because my j-school's student-run television newscast is "slopping." Here's the tweet out Monday morning:
UGA goes tobacco-free this Wednesday. We want your thoughts! Take our survey to give us your opinions for the show! https://t.co/NMMETN5t9I
— Grady Newsource (@GradyNewsource) September 29, 2014
This blog post followed shortly after. I figured someone in the newsroom would see it and they'd kill this idea. Nope. In fact, Tuesday morning this one came out:
Take our poll on UGA's new smoking ban. The ban goes in effect tomorrow http://t.co/8die5p3j7n
— Grady Newsource (@GradyNewsource) September 30, 2014
Argh.
If you follow the link you can add your opinion on what's a pretty important story, the campus going tobacco free. Sure as hell newsworthy. But a SLOP is next to useless. Also ... if you fill it out, there's even a link if you'd like to fill it out again. In other words, you can fill it out again and again and again, even more biasing to the results.
Here's a screenshot of ending of poll (below). See? You can click to do it again via the "Submit another response" link. That's never ever a good idea. By the way, I've completed three surveys so far.
To report on such results is journalistically unsound, if not ethically challenged. About the only way to do it would be to preface the results like this:
"In a completely unscientific and useless self-selected poll on the Internet, we found most students ..."Um, no. Apply the same rules to poll results you do to interviewing official sources or experts. I don't want to pick on the students too much. If the student newspaper did a SLOP I'd blast it too. I probably have in the past. And if our local daily paper did it, I'd hammer it. And finally, in fairness, SLOPs are okay if used only for entertainment purposes and are labeled as being complete bullshit on your site. But a SLOP's results should never go in a news story. Ever. Period.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Voting Libertarian in Georgia
Where's the hotbed of libertarianism in Georgia? Nowhere, really, but if you rank the counties, it's Athens-Clarke -- home of me (and UGA) that comes out #1. You can see the Top 10 below, with the percent of all votes in 2012 cast for a Libertarian candidate.
1 Clarke 2.4
2 Dade 2.2
3 Murray 2.0
4 Franklin 1.9
5 Catoosa 1.8
6 Lumpkin 1.8
7 Cherokee 1.8
8 Chattooga 1.8
9 Chattahoochee 1.7
10 Rabun 1.7
If you know your geography, you'll recognize many of the counties above tend to be in North Georgia. The map below ranks the counties, darker colors being, of course, more "Libertarian," though this isn't by much, by at best a percentage point or two.
1 Clarke 2.4
2 Dade 2.2
3 Murray 2.0
4 Franklin 1.9
5 Catoosa 1.8
6 Lumpkin 1.8
7 Cherokee 1.8
8 Chattooga 1.8
9 Chattahoochee 1.7
10 Rabun 1.7
If you know your geography, you'll recognize many of the counties above tend to be in North Georgia. The map below ranks the counties, darker colors being, of course, more "Libertarian," though this isn't by much, by at best a percentage point or two.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Freshman Data = Popularity?
I was looking at this blog's stats today and, well, the image below will tell you all you need to know. It's of the most popular posts of all time on this blog. Most focus on my scribblings about the infamous Red & Black walkout from 2012. Indeed, five of the top seven most popular posts come from that time.
But look what's hit the Top 10, my post this week about the most popular UGA freshman names. That either says a lot about that post, or how deeply uninteresting everything else is that I've written over the last several years. You pick.
But look what's hit the Top 10, my post this week about the most popular UGA freshman names. That either says a lot about that post, or how deeply uninteresting everything else is that I've written over the last several years. You pick.
Child Abuse in Georgia
I'm at home recovering from a medical thing, so messing with local data. Below (hopefully) is a map of child abuse in Georgia per 1,000 kids. In other words, it's per capita, so it controls for small versus large counties. As you can see, not a lot of consistency here, except perhaps too many counties around Macon popping out. Click on the map and you can move around. Click on a county and you'll get its rank and rate per 1,000 kids.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
What Super Power Do I Want
This the second time I've done this.
A bare, efficient room at Athens Regional Hospital. Someone walks in with a glass of water and a heavy lead container, and then they scurry safely away. I open the container, take out a pill. And swallow it.
Swallow the thing they're running away from. Great.
It's thyroid cancer. They removed the thyroid and cancer cells last year. Also a year ago (and again today) I'm undergoing what's called Radioactive Iodine Ablation. Before the ablation, you go off any iodine in your diet because thyroid cells suck up iodine. And then they give you an iodine pill laced with radioactivity. Any remaining thyroid cells, or potential cancer cells, soak up the iodine and the radioactivity, which kills the remaining cells but doesn't really harm much of anything else.
The super power thing? I'm hoping to get bitten by a spider. More likely it'll be a particularly ugly slug.
Anyway, I have to stay away from people for a few days. What itty bit doesn't get soaked up by thyroid cells has to go somewhere -- and basically that means drinking lots of fluids and getting rid of the excess exactly like you think you have to get rid of the excess. Oh, and flush 2-3 times after each, um, excess. Really it takes a coupla days to get rid of most of it, but you have to sleep alone for 4 days (my dosage) and not share plates or spoons or let people near you.
But ... tomorrow I can go off this stupid iodine-free diet. Again, I can have bread, or dairy, or eggs, or a burger for God's sake.
And if I'm very lucky, this will kill off the remaining cells that seem to be somewhere in my neck, but we can't find them by scanning.
Monday, September 22, 2014
UGA Freshman Names
(update at bottom)
Every year I get the raw data on the first names of UGA's freshman class. Why? Just because. Just in this morning, the 2014 class data.
And the winner is .... Emily.
Again.
In the last seven years, Emily has been the top name among UGA freshmen four times, and it's been the top name four out of the last five years, including 2013 and 2014.
At UGA, if your name is Emily, you're never alone.
The only real competition is Sarah, which ranked #1 in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Semi-fun Sarah fact: the name dropped to 8th in 2010. Note that the two dominate names are female. That's no surprise given the make up of UGA. That, or parents are less creative when it comes to girls names.
There are lots of ways to analyze these data. I pull it together because it makes for a nice classroom exercise for my students to learn spreadsheets, something kinda interesting and they're familiar with. Ask the data questions, I tell them. Find the story.
If I have time, I'll do some more analyses and maybe create a word cloud of all the freshman names in 2014. That's often popular.
The Top 10
UGA Frosh Names
of 2014 Class
UPDATE
Messing with the data a little more. This freshman class breaks one record -- in the number of different first names. The 2014 freshmen have 1,814 different first names, the highest ever. Now you may say, "But it's a bigger class!" No. The biggest freshman ever at UGA (20111) had 1,733 different names.
What's this mean? I'd like to think it's some indirect, blunt measure of diversity, but to be honest I doubt you can really view the data that way. But -- in 2008, my first year of doing this --- there were only 1,446 different first names. So maybe there's something to it after all. That or people are just getting more creative in how they name their little darlings.
Someone on Twitter responded that these were "white names" (I posted a word cloud and certainly Emily and Sarah, et al., dominate). I'm not sure what's a white versus a non-white name (Biblical names seem to dominate here), and I can only imagine the trouble I'd get in if I wrote about "black names." However, I'm as politically incorrect as it gets, so let's look at one interesting first name case, the ' in a name, as in B'arry, a tendency to naming you often see in the African American community. I see only three in the 2014 list, and I see a whopping 8 back in 2008. I have no idea what that means, if anything, except perhaps a disturbing mid-name punctuation shortage among our newest freshmen.
As an aside, there's not a single Barry in the entire freshman class. Really?
Oh, and that word cloud? See it here or, with luck, see the tweet and visual below.
Every year I get the raw data on the first names of UGA's freshman class. Why? Just because. Just in this morning, the 2014 class data.
And the winner is .... Emily.
Again.
In the last seven years, Emily has been the top name among UGA freshmen four times, and it's been the top name four out of the last five years, including 2013 and 2014.
At UGA, if your name is Emily, you're never alone.
The only real competition is Sarah, which ranked #1 in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Semi-fun Sarah fact: the name dropped to 8th in 2010. Note that the two dominate names are female. That's no surprise given the make up of UGA. That, or parents are less creative when it comes to girls names.
There are lots of ways to analyze these data. I pull it together because it makes for a nice classroom exercise for my students to learn spreadsheets, something kinda interesting and they're familiar with. Ask the data questions, I tell them. Find the story.
If I have time, I'll do some more analyses and maybe create a word cloud of all the freshman names in 2014. That's often popular.
The Top 10
UGA Frosh Names
of 2014 Class
- Emily
- Sarah
- John
- William
- Rachel
- Anna
- Katherine
- Elizabeth
- Caroline
- Hannah
UPDATE
Messing with the data a little more. This freshman class breaks one record -- in the number of different first names. The 2014 freshmen have 1,814 different first names, the highest ever. Now you may say, "But it's a bigger class!" No. The biggest freshman ever at UGA (20111) had 1,733 different names.
What's this mean? I'd like to think it's some indirect, blunt measure of diversity, but to be honest I doubt you can really view the data that way. But -- in 2008, my first year of doing this --- there were only 1,446 different first names. So maybe there's something to it after all. That or people are just getting more creative in how they name their little darlings.
Someone on Twitter responded that these were "white names" (I posted a word cloud and certainly Emily and Sarah, et al., dominate). I'm not sure what's a white versus a non-white name (Biblical names seem to dominate here), and I can only imagine the trouble I'd get in if I wrote about "black names." However, I'm as politically incorrect as it gets, so let's look at one interesting first name case, the ' in a name, as in B'arry, a tendency to naming you often see in the African American community. I see only three in the 2014 list, and I see a whopping 8 back in 2008. I have no idea what that means, if anything, except perhaps a disturbing mid-name punctuation shortage among our newest freshmen.
As an aside, there's not a single Barry in the entire freshman class. Really?
Oh, and that word cloud? See it here or, with luck, see the tweet and visual below.
A "word cloud" of 2014 UGA freshman first names. pic.twitter.com/Xz0bkEn73i
— Barry Hollander (@barryhollander) September 22, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
The Big Game
Saturday is a big game for Georgia. The Bulldogs travel to South Carolina to play Steve "Evil Genius" Spurrier's Gamecocks. UGA won its first game, a blowout of a good Clemson team, while South Carolina lost its opening game, a blowout loss to Texas A&M. UGA had a bye last week, while South Carolina played a middling game to beat East Carolina.
Okay, enough with all the proper nouns. What's it all mean?
UGA is a touchdown favorite tomorrow. The fine folks at 538 did a nice piece today on the game. I'm only gonna add something about rankings.
Since 2000, UGA has started the season ranked in the AP Poll's Top 10 six times. Only in three of those seasons, though, did it finish in the Top 10. The most painful, probably, was 2008 when Georgia opened as #1 and finished 13th. Ouch. See the table below for pre-season prediction and final ranking since 2000.
AP Poll on Georgia
* Not in Top 25
Georgia averages a pre-season ranking of about 12th. I say "about" because there's an unranked year, so I called it 28th. It ends with an average of about 16th (there are some rankings in the 30s as finishes). To summarize, UGA averages an AP Poll ranking of 12, and averages an AP Poll finish of 16.
Hopefully this season it'll go in the opposite direction, starting at 14, finishing at ... well ... it's too soon to say.
Okay, enough with all the proper nouns. What's it all mean?
UGA is a touchdown favorite tomorrow. The fine folks at 538 did a nice piece today on the game. I'm only gonna add something about rankings.
Since 2000, UGA has started the season ranked in the AP Poll's Top 10 six times. Only in three of those seasons, though, did it finish in the Top 10. The most painful, probably, was 2008 when Georgia opened as #1 and finished 13th. Ouch. See the table below for pre-season prediction and final ranking since 2000.
AP Poll on Georgia
| Season | Pre-Season Rank |
End-of-Season Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 12 | NA, 6th at present |
| 2013 | 5 | * |
| 2012 | 6 | 5 |
| 2011 | 19 | 19 |
| 2010 | 23 | * |
| 2009 | 13 | * |
| 2008 | 1 | 13 |
| 2007 | 13 | 2 |
| 2006 | 15 | 23 |
| 2005 | 13 | 10 |
| 2004 | 3 | 7 |
| 2003 | 11 | 7 |
| 2002 | 8 | 3 |
| 2001 | * | 22 |
| 2000 | 10 | 20 |
Georgia averages a pre-season ranking of about 12th. I say "about" because there's an unranked year, so I called it 28th. It ends with an average of about 16th (there are some rankings in the 30s as finishes). To summarize, UGA averages an AP Poll ranking of 12, and averages an AP Poll finish of 16.
Hopefully this season it'll go in the opposite direction, starting at 14, finishing at ... well ... it's too soon to say.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Why UGA Won't Be in AAU
I wrote yesterday about how UGA (where I profess) would dearly love to be invited to the prom -- in this case, the Association of American Universities, the organization of the top research schools. I predicted an invitation by 2017 that elite group of 62.
I'd like to take that back.
First, there's this story about a couple of schools either nudged out or who left the organization, complaining:
Plus, among the list of indicators is how the schools rank in terms of NSF, USDA, and other grant funding. I looked it up. UGA is #83 on one NSF list, #84 on another. I couldn't quickly located other rankings, but I'd expect us to be a bit higher on the USDA stuff, but not so much as to overwhelm the underwhelming ranks in the 80s.
So that 2017 prediction? Never mind.
I'd like to take that back.
First, there's this story about a couple of schools either nudged out or who left the organization, complaining:
...the metrics the group uses to assess its members define the contributions of high-quality research universities too narrowly, focusing excessively on biomedical research and the volume of federally supported research.UGA does a good bit of this kind of stuff, but not anywhere near enough given there's no sizeable research medical school located within the university.
Plus, among the list of indicators is how the schools rank in terms of NSF, USDA, and other grant funding. I looked it up. UGA is #83 on one NSF list, #84 on another. I couldn't quickly located other rankings, but I'd expect us to be a bit higher on the USDA stuff, but not so much as to overwhelm the underwhelming ranks in the 80s.
So that 2017 prediction? Never mind.
AAU for UGA?
Most people have never heard of the Association of American Universities. Say "AAU" and odds are, if anything at all comes to mind, it's amateur sports. Actually, the AAU is an elite club of the very top research universities in the U.S. and Canada. Sixty-two of them.
UGA (where I teach) would dearly love to belong. You can't come out and say it, of course. How academically gauche. You can't apply. Can't beg. No, it works like this:
2012 Boston University (most recent)
2010 Georgia Tech
Okay, let's stop right there. Who imagines Georgia Tech would never be happy to see Georgia join its club? Luckily it requires a three-fourths vote to be invited, so Tech alone couldn't stop us. And yet, and yet.
2001 Stony Brook University
2001 Texas A&M
Okay, I know nothing about Stony Brook other than I love the name. A&M, it I know, and am not surprised. Good school.
1996 Univ Cal-Davis
1996 Univ Cal-Irvine
So 1996 is Cal Year. Funny, as Cal-Davis is one of UGA's "peer institutions." So are several others in the club (University of Florida, UNC-Chapel Hill, etc.). Oddly (another post, another day) few of UGA's self-identified "peer" universities list UGA as their peer institution. There's a good story in there somewhere.
1995 Emory University
1995 Univ Cal-Santa Barbara
Emory is another school likely to be less than enamored with the idea of the nearby football factory being invited into its nerdhouse. As you can no doubt see, membership comes in batches, sometimes several years apart (the biggest gap seems to be 9 years, unless I'm miscounting, from 2001 to 2010 when Tech joined). Frankly, given its world-class program, I'm surprised it took that long for Tech to get in.
Will UGA ever get an invite? I'm betting yes. The latest USN&WR rankings name it the 20th best public university in the country. While I haven't studied the rankings closely, UGA is higher on that list than many AAU members. To be clear, this is an apples and oranges comparison. AAU membership is more focused on research and faculty productivity, along with other "indicators," a few of which have to do with actually educating students.
If I were to bet, after studying the list and how often schools are added, I'd predict UGA gets an invite by 2017.
All it needs is 47 out of 62 votes.
UGA (where I teach) would dearly love to belong. You can't come out and say it, of course. How academically gauche. You can't apply. Can't beg. No, it works like this:
Membership in AAU is by invitation and is based on the high quality of programs of academic research and scholarship and undergraduate, graduate, and professional education in a number of fields, as well as general recognition that a university is outstanding by reason of the excellence of its research and education programs.There's a policy on membership. It's long, it's full of "indicators," (academics wrote it, after all) and really it boils down to grants and research productivity. UGA's lack of major medical and engineering programs does hurt. So who does belong? You can see the list yourself. What I did is download it and sort it by year to see what schools have been added most recently, and how often a school gets asked to the prom. Let's take a peak:
2012 Boston University (most recent)
2010 Georgia Tech
Okay, let's stop right there. Who imagines Georgia Tech would never be happy to see Georgia join its club? Luckily it requires a three-fourths vote to be invited, so Tech alone couldn't stop us. And yet, and yet.
2001 Stony Brook University
2001 Texas A&M
Okay, I know nothing about Stony Brook other than I love the name. A&M, it I know, and am not surprised. Good school.
1996 Univ Cal-Davis
1996 Univ Cal-Irvine
So 1996 is Cal Year. Funny, as Cal-Davis is one of UGA's "peer institutions." So are several others in the club (University of Florida, UNC-Chapel Hill, etc.). Oddly (another post, another day) few of UGA's self-identified "peer" universities list UGA as their peer institution. There's a good story in there somewhere.
1995 Emory University
1995 Univ Cal-Santa Barbara
Emory is another school likely to be less than enamored with the idea of the nearby football factory being invited into its nerdhouse. As you can no doubt see, membership comes in batches, sometimes several years apart (the biggest gap seems to be 9 years, unless I'm miscounting, from 2001 to 2010 when Tech joined). Frankly, given its world-class program, I'm surprised it took that long for Tech to get in.
Will UGA ever get an invite? I'm betting yes. The latest USN&WR rankings name it the 20th best public university in the country. While I haven't studied the rankings closely, UGA is higher on that list than many AAU members. To be clear, this is an apples and oranges comparison. AAU membership is more focused on research and faculty productivity, along with other "indicators," a few of which have to do with actually educating students.
If I were to bet, after studying the list and how often schools are added, I'd predict UGA gets an invite by 2017.
All it needs is 47 out of 62 votes.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Attitudes toward Blacks (and sports fandom)
Among the big sports stories this week is, of course, the NBA and racism, this time involving the team just down the road from me (Atlanta Hawks). So I decided to check out the data, see what it could tell us about fans of different sports and their attitudes about African Americans.
This is a first blush, an initial glimpse of the data, after I merged two connected datasets that include questions on:
A positive correlation coefficient means the more interested you are in a sport, the more warm you're also about blacks. A negative coefficient means just the opposite, that less interest in a sport is associated with warmth or, vice versa, greater interest in that sport is associated with less warmth. I've reported only statistically significant correlations.
Positive Relationships
Boxing (.06)
NBA (.05)
NASCAR (.04)
Negative Relationships
Olympics (-.07)
WNBA (-.07)
And that's it. A bunch of stuff, no relationship among whites (NFL, PGA, mixed martial arts, college football, etc.).
What's it tell us? Attitudes about blacks, at least as measured in this survey item, are largely unconnected to sports fandom. The coefficients above are, while statistically significant, relatively weak. If I were writing an academic paper, I might hypothesize that, for whites, sports in which there are large number of black competitors should lead to a positive relationship between being a fan of that sport and attitudes toward blacks. Certainly the NBA coefficient above supports that, at least at the simple bivariate level. Then again, so does the NASCAR number. And what's up with the negative coefficient and WNBA fandom? I have no idea.
This first attitude measure is a bit clumsy, and as the week progresses I'll dip deeper into the questionnaire and pull out something more useful. I should also point out that the survey includes a huge number of sports questions. I just used the most obvious ones. It also includes a very powerful measure of racism, one conducted at the subconscious level to respondents, but it'll take me some work to get it into the analyses here.
About the Data: I used the 2008-2009 ANES panel study and merged the base file with the supplemental data file (not all respondents participated in both, but a couple of thousand did). I have not yet weighted the data in any meaningful way.
Don't try this at home.
New Stuff (added 12:12 p.m.)
Just ran the sports fandom items against a question on how much a respondent admires blacks. Not a lot different, but similar to above a positive correlation coefficient means the more you like a sport, the more you also admire blacks.
Positives: NBA, NASCAR, mixed martial arts.
Negatives: Olympics, tennis, WNBA, men's college basketball.
So, for example, the more you like the Olympics or tennis, the less you admire blacks -- or the more you admire blacks, the less you like tennis, etc. This is not causality, of course. The college basketball relationship is interesting and confusing.
This is a first blush, an initial glimpse of the data, after I merged two connected datasets that include questions on:
- how interested respondents are in various sports, and
- attitudes toward blacks, etc.
A positive correlation coefficient means the more interested you are in a sport, the more warm you're also about blacks. A negative coefficient means just the opposite, that less interest in a sport is associated with warmth or, vice versa, greater interest in that sport is associated with less warmth. I've reported only statistically significant correlations.
Positive Relationships
Boxing (.06)
NBA (.05)
NASCAR (.04)
Negative Relationships
Olympics (-.07)
WNBA (-.07)
And that's it. A bunch of stuff, no relationship among whites (NFL, PGA, mixed martial arts, college football, etc.).
What's it tell us? Attitudes about blacks, at least as measured in this survey item, are largely unconnected to sports fandom. The coefficients above are, while statistically significant, relatively weak. If I were writing an academic paper, I might hypothesize that, for whites, sports in which there are large number of black competitors should lead to a positive relationship between being a fan of that sport and attitudes toward blacks. Certainly the NBA coefficient above supports that, at least at the simple bivariate level. Then again, so does the NASCAR number. And what's up with the negative coefficient and WNBA fandom? I have no idea.
This first attitude measure is a bit clumsy, and as the week progresses I'll dip deeper into the questionnaire and pull out something more useful. I should also point out that the survey includes a huge number of sports questions. I just used the most obvious ones. It also includes a very powerful measure of racism, one conducted at the subconscious level to respondents, but it'll take me some work to get it into the analyses here.
About the Data: I used the 2008-2009 ANES panel study and merged the base file with the supplemental data file (not all respondents participated in both, but a couple of thousand did). I have not yet weighted the data in any meaningful way.
Don't try this at home.
New Stuff (added 12:12 p.m.)
Just ran the sports fandom items against a question on how much a respondent admires blacks. Not a lot different, but similar to above a positive correlation coefficient means the more you like a sport, the more you also admire blacks.
Positives: NBA, NASCAR, mixed martial arts.
Negatives: Olympics, tennis, WNBA, men's college basketball.
So, for example, the more you like the Olympics or tennis, the less you admire blacks -- or the more you admire blacks, the less you like tennis, etc. This is not causality, of course. The college basketball relationship is interesting and confusing.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Time Trumps Data
Too little time, too much data. If I had the time, given the latest NBA racism kerfuffle, I'd merge two data sets and have something interesting to say about it all.
I wrote a bit about it last April, when the first NBA controversy arose. But the list of liking a sport is actually much longer. See my post here. What I really need to do, though, is merge two data sets to make it work. One has the sports attitudes, the other has a long list of racism measures. The same people completed both sets of interviews, a national survey that probably runs into a couple of thousand folks.
Sigh, time trumps data, because the merge -- while I've done it before -- can eat up a few hours when you add in time recoding variables, cleaning, and getting it up and running for analysis. It'd be fun, for example, to separate out white fans of various sports and see if and when racism plays a role. I suspect so.
I wrote a bit about it last April, when the first NBA controversy arose. But the list of liking a sport is actually much longer. See my post here. What I really need to do, though, is merge two data sets to make it work. One has the sports attitudes, the other has a long list of racism measures. The same people completed both sets of interviews, a national survey that probably runs into a couple of thousand folks.
Sigh, time trumps data, because the merge -- while I've done it before -- can eat up a few hours when you add in time recoding variables, cleaning, and getting it up and running for analysis. It'd be fun, for example, to separate out white fans of various sports and see if and when racism plays a role. I suspect so.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Letters to the Editor
First off, I'm going to protect the guilty.
I'm reading a scholarly book by a couple of folks not in mass comm but who, as part of their study, include a massive content analysis of newspaper letters to the editor. It's an excellent book (so far), and there's nothing wrong with how they analyzed the letters. Again, I'm protecting the guilty, so I won't even name their academic discipline, but the underlying assumption in their work is people choose to publish letters to the editor, and there's no mention at all of the fact the editors decide what letters get published. Indeed, if you read the book, you get the sense the letters reflect people's opinions on a topic, as if by magic their letters automatically appear in the newspaper.
Given the nature of the study, this is kinda a big deal. As someone steeped in journalism, I am of course well aware of the somewhat screwy process involved in what letters get published, what letters get tossed, and what letters get pasted to the newsroom bulletin board for a good laugh.
Clearly, these two fine scholars -- and again, it's a damn good book -- are innocent of such newsroom experience. Someone should have caught this when the book was being proposed or vetted. Then again, it was probably someone in their discipline, with little news experience, who vetted it.
I'm reading a scholarly book by a couple of folks not in mass comm but who, as part of their study, include a massive content analysis of newspaper letters to the editor. It's an excellent book (so far), and there's nothing wrong with how they analyzed the letters. Again, I'm protecting the guilty, so I won't even name their academic discipline, but the underlying assumption in their work is people choose to publish letters to the editor, and there's no mention at all of the fact the editors decide what letters get published. Indeed, if you read the book, you get the sense the letters reflect people's opinions on a topic, as if by magic their letters automatically appear in the newspaper.
Given the nature of the study, this is kinda a big deal. As someone steeped in journalism, I am of course well aware of the somewhat screwy process involved in what letters get published, what letters get tossed, and what letters get pasted to the newsroom bulletin board for a good laugh.
Clearly, these two fine scholars -- and again, it's a damn good book -- are innocent of such newsroom experience. Someone should have caught this when the book was being proposed or vetted. Then again, it was probably someone in their discipline, with little news experience, who vetted it.
Last One (I Promise ... maybe)
I've written a few times recently about the military gear passed on from the feds to local law enforcement. So has many other people. One final bit as I put these data away for good. Georgia cops like rifles. Best I can tell, Georgia law enforcement agencies have received 10,265 rifles of various types as part of the program. That's a lot of guns.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Military Gear (again)
More and more data are being released on the militarization of police and the kinds of gear passed on to local governments through a federal program. I've written on this before (here, and here). Countless others have done the same with much more comprehensive and nuanced analyses. For fun, using a new version of the data I look at universities in Georgia and what they've received.
The short answer -- not all that much.
And I am disappointed in my own UGA police, who seem to have missed the militarization bus on this one.
Update
Who received the most stuff in Georgia? According to this new-and-improved list:
The short answer -- not all that much.
- Columbus State University Police: three rifles.
- Emory University Police: an image intensifier (no idea what that is).
- Fort Valley State University Police: two refrigerators, a fan, and a set of firefighter clothes (helmet, coat, trousers).
- Kennesaw State University Police: six rifles.
And I am disappointed in my own UGA police, who seem to have missed the militarization bus on this one.
Update
Who received the most stuff in Georgia? According to this new-and-improved list:
- Villa Rica Police (590 items)
- Ga. Dept. of Public Safety (546)
- Carroll County Sheriff (506)
- Ga. DNR in Social Circle (406)
- Warner Robins Police (359)
- Telfair City Sheriff (260) [a city sheriff?]
- Lee County Sheriff (254)
- Bartow County Sheriff (213)
- Carrollton Police (167)
- Douglas County Sheriff (166)
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
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