Do (Not!) Track Me: Relationship Between Willingness to Participate and Sample Composition in Online Information Behavior Tracking Research

Gil-Lopez, Teresa; Christner, Clara; de León, Ernesto; Makhortykh, Mykola; Urman, Aleksandra (30 May 2022). Do (Not!) Track Me: Relationship Between Willingness to Participate and Sample Composition in Online Information Behavior Tracking Research (Unpublished). In: 72nd Annual ICA Conference - "One world, one network?!". Paris, France. 26.05.-30.05.2022.

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This paper offers a critical look at the promises and drawbacks of a popular, novel data collection technique - online tracking - from the point of view of sample compo- sition. Using data from two large-scale studies about political attitudes and informa- tion consumption behavior, we find that the likelihood of participation in a tracking study at several critical dropout points is systematically related to the gender, age, and education of participants, with men, young, and more educated participants be- ing less likely to drop out of the studies. Our findings also show that these patterns are incremental, as changes in sample composition accumulate over successive study stages. Political interest and ideology were also significantly related to the likelihood of participation in tracking research. The study explores some of the most common concerns associated with tracking research leading to non-participation, finding that they also differ across demographic groups. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Communication and Media Studies (ICMB)

UniBE Contributor:

de León Williams, Ernesto Emiliano, Makhortykh, Mykola, Urman, Aleksandra

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology

Language:

English

Submitter:

Mykola Makhortykh

Date Deposited:

21 Jun 2022 11:27

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:20

Uncontrolled Keywords:

survey, web tracking, methodology, representativeness, bias, information behavior

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170679

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