Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The number of wireless subscribers continues to increase in the United States with nearly 148,000,000 by July, 2003. Traditional telephone frames and RDD surveys continue to be affected by increasing penetration of wireless phones. Telephone number portability also poses new challenges for telephone and wireless phone surveys. To date there have been only a limited number of surveys conducted using wireless phone frames, in part due to strict FCC guidelines. But as subscribers begin to port their wireline/wireless numbers and as the number of wireless subscribers increases, more emphasis will be placed on incorporating wireless numbers into sampling frames or on surveys conducted using frames of wireless phone numbers. As a consequence, methods of contacting subscribers via their mobile phone will become increasingly important.

The recent technological advances in digital mobile phone devices being introduced are creating the potential for multiple modes of contact including: text messaging, photographic and other attachment transmissions and web mail. In fact, 92 percent of wireless subscribers use a digital device and could potentially be contacted using one of these alternatives. For example, a researcher could send a text message prior to phone contact alerting the subscriber of an upcoming interview. These text alerts may also be used to help the interviewers schedule “safe/appropriate” times for callbacks. Wireless phone enabled panels could also be constructed and contacted using short text polls, similar to web-enabled panels or people-meter samples.

In this paper various methods of contact available to researchers conducting surveys of wireless subscribers will be introduced along with a discussion of the inherent variation in these services across the major wireless providers. Some emphasis will also be given to the effect of number portability on these options. A brief discussion of the uses and extensions of these technologies in European surveys will also be included.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: We are witnessing a radical transformation in the structure of public services, caused by (1) the emphasis on contracting out of services and (2) trans-border consolidation in the contractor community. In several policy sectors, the service delivery components of national and sub-national governments are now formally connected, through the corporate structure of the contractor. The emergence of these trans-jurisdictional service systems has important implications for the diffusion of policy and social technologies. It may also introduce undesirable policy biases. Weak states may find themselves unable to monitor or control better resourced multinational service providers, creating serious problems of public accountability.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The use of e-commerce is inversely related to the “old” leisure activities and is directly related to the possibilities offered by new technology. It seems that a greater use of e-commerce is related to the availability at home of a large amount of computer equipment and equipment related to leisure which, at the same time, is compatible with the former. The best combination of predictors of Internet shopping are, in order of importance, use of e-mail, time spent watching television at weekends, use of the Internet and the use of a greater number of channels of the digital television service (repertory). The results of our research work are based on a survey involving personal interviews with members of 560 households in five Spanish cities who subscribe to a TV digital packet, by cable or satellite.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Liberals traditionally conceive of citizenship in a difference-blind manner. Demands for the recognition of highly particularized identities, individual or collective, are commonly viewed as potentially divisive and therefore as politically problematic. Where liberal egalitarianism typically rules out any claims for how people should be treated based upon religious, racial, ethnic or other differences, a politics of difference argues for the recognition of such differences so that they might achieve a higher degree of affirmation. Typical is the multiculturalist argument that liberalism ?privatizes? non-liberal ways of life and denies them the public recognition and support that they deserve. Liberal universalism fails on this view to give sufficient and equal standing to the varying characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of individuals. A related complaint argues that the civic identity privileged by liberal institutions and practices has unintended ?spillover effects? on people?s other nonpublic identities. If, however, these unequal costs of subscribing to liberalism are an ineliminable part of liberalism?s success in making it possible for adversaries to live side-by-side, then they can be defended as reasonably priced. That is the position defended here.