Data Analysis in practice

I'm not sure if you feel about the same thing: you have been working with a professor for so long you think you know everything that s/he knows. But every time s/he impresses you with something new. This is what I felt about my advisor--DAS.

He offered a data-analysis course this semester, which covers a wide range of topics ranging from pre-analysis data cleaning, index-building, to various analytical approaches, with the statistical software of SPSS. As I have been working on data for years, I assume this class won't be a big challenge for me. I was thinking that even I just learn one thing new in each class, that will not be too bad. However, what I get turns out to be more than I expected. (I hope this doesn't mean I knew little before going to this class.)

The first class when I sat in was about building a composite index; for example, a "newspaper use" variable. I know exactly the technical process of doing this. But why should we build a multiple item index? I got questioned by a journal reviewer about my "talk" variable, which was based on single survey question. What is wrong with a single-item measure?

Basically, this at least partially has to do with the idea of systematic error, which refers to the missing of data due to mechanisms that does not affect everyone equally. For example when asking about people's income level, those who are weathy tend to be more concious and senstive to the question and have a higher chance of skipping the question. This is called a systematic error because it happens not to everybody, but only to those who don't feel comfortable answering the question (usually the wealthier ones).

Does setting up a yard sign, showing a bump sticker, or donating money each consititue a valid measure ofr political participation? The answer might be negative. Those who put up a yard sign need to have a lawn at the first place. By the same token, for people to show bump stickers, they need to have a car. In addition, those who can donate usually are economically better off. All these measures favor a demographic with higher SES status and thus can not be considered a comprehensive index of participation individually. That's why researchers usually combine all of these variables to form a composite index that gives a clearer picture regarding the concept of "participation."

Another source of systematic error comes from the tendancy for some people to give "socially desirable" answers--people are prone to give anwswers that are adored by the society. There are several strategies employed by large survey institution to deal with such situation. For example, GSS matched the interviewer and interviewee to the level or gender and race in order to solicit valid answer. One appraoch I felt very interesting is by asking respondensts a "hypothetical policy proposal" which does not exist at all. If the respondents said they have heard about it, they are people who tend to provide socially desirable answers.

Asia Values

While I was rummaging literature about worldview differences between West and Asia, I found several useful databases that may provide quantitative evidence. Because large-scale, cross-cultural surveys are relatively few in Asia than in the US (e.g., NES, GSS...) and in Europe (Eurobarometer), I think it's worth a note.

1. Asiabarometer is a comparative survey in Asia, covering East, Southeast, South and Central Asia. A Japanese scholar is in charge of the center. Many cross-national studies are based on the datasets. The data can be downloaded either at its Web site or through ICPSR, of which the University of Wisconsin is a member.

2. Asian Barometer is surprisingly different from the previous dataset. It is maintained by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, National Taiwan University. The survey includes some interesting questions about "traditional Chinese values;" for example, "it is a shame for a man to work for a woman." There are also measures about political participation, media use, and national identity.

3. East Asia Value Survey. Unlike the previous two, which focus more on the "opinion" aspect, EAVS emphasizes the "value" aspect. For example, EAVS probes the relationship between human and nature or people's environmental beliefs. Taiwan is also included in this survey.

The Democracy Study Center at UC-Irvine actually compiled a webpage that includes many international survey databases.

A ASEP/JDS-maintained website also gives good resources for comparative studies.

Sources in news about epidemics

What sources played a role in news about avian flu and West Nile virus? Does sourcing patterns in news coverage of public health issues different from those of political issues?

The research of news source is pivotal because of mainly two reasons. First, journalists can not say things in their own names. They have to cite the witness of an incident, participant of an event, or government officials in order to be objective. Second, journalists need sources because they provide information not availabe to reporters or explain diffcult ideas.

Because sources have the "privilege" to appear in the media, they are also considered capable of shaping the focus of a story by supplying information to their advantage. Many researchers, in fact, think of the news construction process as the stuggle between sources.

In the case of epidemic diseases, a recent study found that journalists rely on bureaucratic officials and experts as source of information. The affected, such as humans infected by WNV or paltry farmers affected by avian flu, did not get much attention from the media. Even medical care providers, such as doctors and nurses, did not appear very frequently.

The depedence on institutional or government officials is more explicit when looking at trend lines illustrating the distribution of number of news coverage, key sources, number of press releases from key regulatory agencies, and number of infected cases.

The chart below indicates that the ups and downs of media attention to epidemics conform to the ups and downs of the number of press releases and government officials used. The findings suggest that the number of coverage did not reflect the magnitute of diseases, but reflect what government said about the seriousness of diseases.

The case illustrates that government authorities control the information journalists needed for public health issues and therefore have much power to shape media agenda of these issues.

Framing public epidemic hazards

A recent study published in Mass Comm and Society compared news coverage patterns of three epidemic diseases: mad cow disease, West Nile virus, and avian flu. The findings indicated that although journalists emphasized similar themes in general across these three issues, their narrative considerations changed as the diseases developed into different stages.

Specifically, this study looks into media framing and issue attention cycle of epidemic issues. We have talked about framing a lot. But not much research link framing with issue attention cycle, which, in a simplified way, refers to the ups and downs of media attention.

Although how to operationalize the "attention cycle" has undergone some debates, many researchers measured the concept by story numbers in different periods of time, which this study did. Previous research on this topic often focused on environmental issues (e.g. Downs, 1972) or climate change (McComas & Shanahan, 1999). This study expands the line of research to a different realm.

One thing interesting but not highlighted as the main selling point is that this study actually found different cyclical patterns of epidemic hazards from those of environmental issues. In other words, there was a "maintenance" stage for the latter, but not for the former. (The "maintenance stage" refers to a stage of relatively stable news coverage of an issue.) This indicates that media pays attention to different issues in a very different way.

What should be noted is that the issue of avian flu is in an early stage when media still having high interests. It is therefore not possible to compare media frames of avian flu to those of the other two hazards. Maybe future research can address this gap.

For more studies on issue attention cycle, please see:
1. Attention Cycles and Frames in the Plant Biotechnology Debate: Managing Power and Participation through the Press/Policy Connection, by Nisbet & Huge, 2006

2. Are issue-cycles culturally constructed? A comparison of French and American coverage of global climate change, by Brossard, Shanahan, & McComas, 2004.

Global warming is local

This weekend I attended a workshop about global warming at the local level, held by the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

So, what does it mean that the global warming is local? The workshop did not provide evidence of the weather getting warmer in Wisconsin. Instead, those experts presented models for evaluating climate change, introduced the situation of a governmental task force in charge of policy-making related to climate change, and discussed what UW has done in its effort to tackle the problem.

It is interesting to learn that battling global climate change does not and can not dependent on a simple, all-encompassing approach. Different areas faced different problems and challenges in relation to climate change. For instance, Wisconsin uses a lot of coal for electricity, which released a great amount of carbon into the air. The main source of carbon or CO2 in California, however, comes from vehicle emissions.

It is also interesting to learn that UW has been dedicated to many efforts that is environmentally beneficial. For example, many of the buildings on campus use energy-effective glasses, nice ventilation systems, and rain water recycling systems.

They also talked about the use of biofuel, fuel produced from plants and crops, to decrease the level of greenhouse gas in the air. This remind me of an interesting conversation taken place between a friend of mine and me. One day when we were at a BP gas station, which always touts its efforts in contributing to a better environment by providing "green" fuels, T.L. Lin saw the "10% ethanol" label at the pumps and asked me what good ethanol will do to our vehicles. Both of us were thinking maybe it will make our cars run faster or to have better gas millage. In other words, we both relate the addition of ethanol in petrol to the economic aspect of our life, instead of the environmental aspect.

It is good to see that some steps have already been taken, at the state or local level, to combat climate change. Although I sometimes complain about the unusual hot weather during the summer, it never occurs to me that the battle grounds are so close to me.

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For some discussion about the relationship between ethanol (in the fuel) and global warming, please see Ethanol and Global Warming

For more articles related to biofuel and global warming, please see the Science page in the NY Times and Turn Food into Fuel in the Time Magazine.

Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE)

Fear of science

This week I watched a movie The Mist, a Sci-Fi horror adapted from Stephen King's novel. Of course the movie has something to do with mist. Well, the storyline is sort of like this. After a night of thunderstorm, a unusual mist rolls into a small town where everybody knows each other . It is to the residents surprise that there seems to be something in the mist that catch and kill people. They later find out that those human-hunting monsters lurking in the thick mist were actually unleashed by some secret scientific experiments or actions carried out by the US military.

Many people found this movie successful in creating the creepy and breath-holding atmosphere. But to me, it is more like a vivid example of people's fear of science.

Although people in general agree that science and technology bring about positive impact on our society, there is a concomitant worry that the development of science may go beyond our control. Although imaginary, the reckless military scientific action and the ensuing detrimental impact reflect lively people's worry in "run-away science."

We have seen the same fear in the development of nuclear power, where people were excited about its ability to solve energy problems on the one hand and worried about its unexpected outcome on the other hand. The case of nanotechnology is probably more recent. A sizable proportion of people in a national opinion survey actually consider the "self-replicating nano-robots going out of control" as an important risk of nanotechnology.

These examples indicate that there exists "ambivalence" in people's attitude toward science. Unless scientists can claim confidently that they have a full control on what they are doing, people will always be skeptic about science. The mist is not the only instance that script writers express such fear (for American people). The movie--Godzilla, where radiations emitted from French nuclear test mutated lizards into gigantic monsters--was actually one that reflects the similar fear.

Are these only imaginations or likely to come true? I don't know. But seeing the fact that the catastrophes usually come from "secret" governmental or military operations, keeping the process of scientific development open to the public may not be a bad idea to reduce people's level of fear.

P.S. For those interested in the movie, please see an article in the NY Times.

Something Creepy This Way Creeps, and It Spells Bad News

nano uncertainty

Uncertainty is a concept worth exploring in the context of emerging technologies. A common definition of uncertainty is a state of mind due to an incomplete of information. Probability is therefore a prevalent expression of uncertainty. We often see predictions such as "20% chance of precipitation" or " the likelihood of the outbreak of a disease is X%." Experts provide probability because they don't have sufficient information for making a conclusive call.

Uncertainty comes not only by way of insufficient knowledge, it also originates from disagreements between scientists or experts. The case of global climate change provides a vivid example. Although there is a consensus among most of the scientists that human activities are culprits of the temperature increase, the balance reporting tenet that guides American journalism makes people feel like as if much more research is still needed in order to hold human accountable. Specifically, because of the need to be objective and balanced, journalists tend to give equal space to the two contradictory views (human-induced temperature increase vs uncertain cause), even there exists some consensus in the scientific community.

See discussions by Nisbet and Mooney (2007) in Science, 316 (5821) , p56.
And Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias by Boykoff and Boykoff (2004).

In the case of nanotechnology, people feel uncertain because the technology is new and a lot of its risks, properties, and benefits are unclear. In Europe. uncertainty about risks, benefits, and moral acceptability of nanotechnology is found to relate to people's uncertain attitudes of how they should support nanotechnology. (support with regular regulation, support with strict regulation, ...)

More interestingly, uncertainty about nanotechnology is found to be associated with uncertainty about GMF and GMP. The result may suggest two stories:

1. There exist an underlying uncertainty about sciences and technologies. In other words, it doesn't matter which technology was the subject of the question. People's uncertainty will be there as long as science is involved.

2. People use their past experiences of GMO, biotechnology, cloning, or stem cell research and apply them in the case of nanotechnology. That is, above and beyond how much people know about nanotechnology, the mental templates created by other controversial sciences also play a role.

Inasmuch as nano-outreach personnel wants to increase nano acceptance, they need to understand these factors or mechanisms that work to shape public attitudes, or uncertainty. They need to know that, in addition to providing information about nanotechnology, they should also deal with the similarities and differences between nanotechnology and other controversial technologies that people are more familiar with.