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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action
from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived
document may not work.
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Africa: Survey Report, Summary
Any links to other sites in this file from 1996 are not clickable,
given the difficulty in maintaining up-to-date links in old files.
However, we hope they may still provide leads for your research.
Africa: Survey Report, Summary
Date Distributed (ymd): 960818
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List
Reader Survey Analysis
Executive Summary
A full version of this report (49K) is available in html
format at http://www.igc.org/apic/survey/report96.html.
To receive an ascii version of the full report by e-mail,
in two files, send a message to apicdata@igc.org,
containing in the first line the message:
send report96
The survey itself can be found at
gopher://gopher.igc.org:7040/00/docs96/survey
This posting is followed by a separate posting with APIC's
comments on possible lessons to be drawn from the survey.
Survey distribution and response
A 26-question survey was distributed by e-mail on June 30,
1996 to the 1164 addresses on the list. Four weeks later,
1996, 417 completed surveys had been received. 299 were from
persons receiving the postings directly, a response rate of
25.8%. 69 were from persons receiving postings through the
AFRICA-N listserv, a 3.4% return rate among its 2013
subscribers.
Survey Procedures
In the most comparable survey for which a detailed report was
located on-line, the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab's survey
of press releases and other information distributed by the
White House, the return rate, within the one week allowed for
returns by the survey administrators, was 11.9% for addresses
directly on the list, and 7.5% for addresses on a
supplementary redistribution list. (See Roger Hurwitz and
John Mallery, "Of Public Cyberspace: A Survey of Users and
Distributors of Electroric White House Documents," April,
1994,
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/surveys/report.html).
In order to increase the response rate for the Africa Policy
survey,
(1) a premium of a poster was offered for returning the
survey,
(2) there was no deadline mentioned for returning the survey
(although these results are analyzed in terms of responses
within the first four weeks only),
(3) respondents were given the option of returning the surveys
by fax or mail as well as by e-mail, and
(4) all addresses that received the survey also received, 12
days later, a summary report on results to date, together with
a reminder notice and an offer to send a replacement copy of
the survey if the first copy had gone astray or been deleted.
The results were encouraging. The return for those directly
on the list within the first week was 15.4%, as compared to
the 11.9% in the White House survey. Of the 417 returns in
the first month, 57 were returned by fax or post, most of
which would probably not have been returned at all if these
options had not been mentioned.
Representativity of the respondents
There is no conclusive way of determining if the respondents
are representative of the universe of recipients, including
those who did not respond to the survey. There are, however,
measures that can be used to gauge the likelihood of major
response biases. These show that respondents are not likely
to differ in major ways from non-respondents on the variables
in the survey, with the prominent exception of how likely they
are to redistribute documents.
Total Readership Estimates
The known base readership is made up of 1159 direct
recipients, plus 2327 receiving postings through AFRICA-N,
Africa Advocacy and AFRICA-L, a total of 3486.
Estimates of additional recipients, calculated from data in
the survey (see full report for details) bring the average
total number of individuals receiving each document through
the list to between 6100 and 6200. Since the sets of those
receiving each document through redistribution are likely to
differ significantly from each other, the total number of
recipients during a given time period is likely to be larger
than this number, by an unknown factor.
Background Variables
Ninety percent of the recipients of documents are resident in
five countries (USA 71%; Canada 6%; South Africa 5%; UK 5%;
and Netherlands 3%). Grouping by continent, we can note that
76% are located in North America, 13% in Europe, 7% in Africa,
and 4% in other continents.
Within the USA, the states most heavily represented are
Washington, DC, with 17.3%, New York with 10.9%, California
with 8.5% and Massachusetts, with 8.2%. Responses to the
sruvey came from a total of 38 states, and from every region
of the country.
Sex
Precisely one-third of the 405 respondents answering this
question (135) were female; two-thirds (270) were male. This
compares to baseline demographics for Internet users in the
U.S. of 33% female (O'Reilly & Associates, 1995,
http://www.ora.com/research/users/).
Age
No respondents at all came from the under-20 age group. The
largest age group was 36 to 50 (42.5%), followed by 20 to 35
(35%) and Over 50 (22.5%). This is significantly older than
estimates of age distributions from existing surveys of
Internet users in U.S. and Canada.
Education
The largest proportion of respondents (76%) hold advanced
degrees. This compares to 26% of WWW users estimated by
Nielsen to have post-graduate degrees, and to the 8% of the
U.S. population with such degrees.
Institutional Affiliation
The largest group of respondents have a primary institutional
affiliation with an educational institution (44.3%), but the
remainder are widely spread among non-governmental (19.0%),
governmental (8.9%), religious (8.6%), other (7.4%), media
(6.7%), and commercial (5.2%)institutions.
Connections with Africa
Recipients of the list have very high levels of diverse
connections with the African continent.
Percent born in Africa: 19.2%
USA residents only (294): 14.6%
Percent worked in Africa: 47.2%
USA residents only (294): 49.7%
Percent visited Africa: 42.2%
USA residents only (294): 44.9%
Percent born in, worked or visited Africa: 77.5%
USA residents only (294): 77.6%
Percent African Diaspora: 11.3%
USA residents only (294): 13.6%
Percent with Business Interests in Africa: 13.7%
USA residents only (294): 15.7%
Percent with Academic Interests in Africa: 55.9%
USA residents only (294): 60.2%
Percent with Other Professional Interests in Africa: 42.7%
USA residents only (294): 44.9%
Percent with Activist Concerns about Africa: 66.4%
USA residents only (294): 68.0%
Web Access
Although the distribution of the list is overwhelmingly by e-
mail (only two respondents of the 417 said they received the
documents regularly through the Web), 85.1% say they do have
access to Web browser software. Among USA residents, that
percentage is slightly greater, at 87.4%.
Summary Observations
In some respects, the respondents are a highly diverse group,
spread over different institutional sectors and geographical
areas. There are expected biases reflecting current levels of
access to the Internet, particularly the underrepresentation
of women, overrepresentation of North America and Europe, and
the high proportion with primary affiliations with educational
institutions. These proportions among list recipients can be
expected to change as access continues to spread for Internet
use in general.
There are also several striking results which seem to reflect
instead the particular audience to which the distribution list
appeals. The age range is considerably older than that for
the "typical" Internet user. More than 3/4 of the list have
advanced degrees. More than 3/4 have direct personal
experience in Africa, including those born in, having worked
in or having visited an African country. And almost 2/3 say
they have activist concerns.
Opinion/Action Variables
Reading Pattern
Average Number of Documents (out of ten)
Number discarded or deleted without reading: 1.5
Number skimmed quickly: 4.3
Number read more carefully: 3.9
Number archived for later reference: 4.0
Number redistributed 1.9
Number of additional recipient/document 5.5
Number used for teaching or public education: 1.0
Quality
On a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good), the average
rating by respondents of documents distributed through the
list was 4.4. Better than 92% of the respondents rated the
documents very good (46.9%) or good (45.7%). There was little
variation in ratings by any of the background variables.
The generally positive impression given by survey answers was
confirmed by the additional comments volunteered by
respondents. Of 153 comments received, the largest category
(70) was of comments that consisted of congratulations, praise
and encouragement to "keep up the good work." The second
largest group (57) was constructive suggestions for
improvement, by, for example, providing coverage of additional
topics or countries, filtering the list, shortening the
postings or providing summaries, or reducing the proportion of
U.S.-specific information.
Frequency
Among the 402 who answered this question, 88.1% said that the
frequency of documents distributed was "about right."
Length
Among the 400 answering this question, a substantial majority
(76.2%) were of the view that the average length of documents
distributed was "about right." However, a significant
minority (20.5%) rated document length as "too long."
Action
Two questions asked specifically about what action recipients
took when receiving a document such as an action alert calling
for contacting officials.
Of 397 respondents answering the question about contacting
policy-makers, 243 (61.2%) said they never or almost never did
so, while 154 (38.8%) said they did so sometimes, often, or
always. Among USA residents only, 55% said they never or
almost never contacted policy-makers, while 45% said they did
so sometimes, often, or always.
Of 403 respondents answering the question about passing on
action alerts, 189 (46.9%) said they never or almost never did
so, while 214 (53.1%) said they did so sometimes, often, or
always. The percentages did not differ significantly among USA
and non-USA residents.
Possible Lessons from Survey
See next posting, also available on-line at
gopher://gopher.igc.org:7040/00/docs96/lessons
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This material is produced and distributed by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC), the educational
affiliate of the Washington Office on Africa. APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
providing accessible policy-relevant information and analysis
usable by a wide range of groups and individuals.
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