Katy Reynolds

POLS 856

Professor Sun

29 April 2017

Task #3- Data Analysis

Research Questions:
I first ran a correlation study to analyze the relationship among the dependent and
independent variables, and secondly ran regression to analyze the data and determine the
answer to my primary research question. My research questions and hypothesis were
essentially correlating studies trying to determine what the relationship between media
consumption and voter turnout is. My project’s primary research question is:
 Do citizens that consume television and internet during elections more
likely to vote than citizens that do not pay attention to or consume that
specific media on a regular basis?
My additional research questions posed correlation questions as well such as:
 Do certain social demographic factors such as age and education impact
people’s access/ usage of media?
 Do certain economic demographic factors such as family income and
social class impact people’s ability to access/ utilize media?
Correlation:
I chose to conduct a simple correlation and then a partial correlation test in order
to control for the demographic factors in the study including age, education, family
income and social class. I will compare the results from the bivariate correlation study to
those of the partial correlation to determine whether or not the additional demographic
variables have an impact on the results.
I wanted to control for these variables in order to get a more accurate picture of
how the two main independent variables (consumption of television and internet)
impacted the dependent variable (voter turnout). I chose to control for these demographic
variables because age and education level could have an impact on whether or not people
choose to use different forms of media and if they are educated enough to choose to
follow political topics through the media. I chose to control for family income and social
status because I felt that those variables could also have an impact on if people could
afford to follow political topics frequently through technological mediums. These
demographic variables needed to be controlled in order to greater determine the effect of
the other two independent variables on the dependent to properly test the hypotheses.
In the bivariate correlation study, Pearson’s correlation showed -.144 for viewing
political elections on television and -.154 for viewing political elections on the internet.
The .01 level indicated in the footnote with the two asterisks tells us that the probability
of getting a correlation coefficient this big in a sample of 5,510 people if the null
hypothesis were true (there were no relationship between the variables) is very low. All of
the significance levels are below the standard criterion of .01 indicating a “statistically
significant” relationship exists. The data shows that frequency of viewing news on
television and on the internet are very close in number, -.144 television compared to -.154
internet.
The partial correlation table shows us that with the age, education, family income
and social class controlled for, that the frequency of watching news on television is -.142
compared to without controlling for the demographics at -.144. This tells us that the
demographic variables have little impact on whether or not people watch political
campaign news on television. The same is true with watching news on the internet.
Without controlling for the demographic variables, internet frequency was -.154 and with
controlling, it was -.155. There is very little difference. I chose to utilize a zero-order
Pearson correlation study because I only wanted to control for the variables age,
education, social class and family income in order to answer the research questions. I
chose a two-tailed approach because I had a non-directional hypothesis.
By analyzing the correlation data, we can answer the additional research questions
posed in the study:
 Do certain social demographic factors such as age and education impact
people’s access/ usage of media? –No, less than .001 difference.
  Do certain economic demographic factors such as family income and
social class impact people’s ability to access/ utilize media? –No, less than
.002 difference.

Simple Correlation Results:

Correlations
Frequency of Frequency of
viewing news viewing news on
Voted in 2012 on television per internet per
election week week
**
Voted in 2012 election Pearson Correlation 1 -.144 -.154**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 5510 5505 5505
**
Frequency of viewing news Pearson Correlation -.144 1 .102**
on television per week Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 5505 5908 5907
Frequency of viewing news Pearson Correlation -.154** .102** 1
on internet per week Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 5505 5907 5908
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Partial Correlation Results:

Correlations
Frequenc Frequenc
y of y of
viewing viewing
Voted in news on news on
2012 television internet Educat Family Social
Control Variables election per week per week Age ion income class
a
-none- Voted in 2012 Correlation 1.000 -.142 -.155 -.208 -.227 -.189 .153
election Significance . .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
(2-tailed)
df 0 5143 5143 5143 5143 5143 5143
Correlation -.142 1.000 .112 .381 -.061 .004 -.026
 Frequency of Significance .000 . .000 .000 .000 .748 .065
viewing news on (2-tailed)
television per df 5143 0 5143 5143 5143 5143 5143
week
Frequency of Correlation -.155 .112 1.000 -.017 .270 .222 -.134
viewing news on Significance .000 .000 . .230 .000 .000 .000
internet per (2-tailed)
week df 5143 5143 0 5143 5143 5143 5143
Age Correlation -.208 .381 -.017 1.000 .005 .064 -.143
Significance .000 .000 .230 . .705 .000 .000
(2-tailed)
df 5143 5143 5143 0 5143 5143 5143
Education Correlation -.227 -.061 .270 .005 1.000 .415 -.287
Significance .000 .000 .000 .705 . .000 .000
(2-tailed)
df 5143 5143 5143 5143 0 5143 5143
Family income Correlation -.189 .004 .222 .064 .415 1.000 -.325
Significance .000 .748 .000 .000 .000 . .000
(2-tailed)
df 5143 5143 5143 5143 5143 0 5143
Social class Correlation .153 -.026 -.134 -.143 -.287 -.325 1.000
Significance .000 .065 .000 .000 .000 .000 .
(2-tailed)
df 5143 5143 5143 5143 5143 5143 0
Age & Education Voted in 2012 Correlation 1.000 -.087 -.095
& Family income election Significance . .000 .000
& Social class (2-tailed)
df 0 5139 5139
Frequency of Correlation -.087 1.000 .153
viewing news on Significance .000 . .000
television per (2-tailed)
week df 5139 0 5139
Frequency of Correlation -.095 .153 1.000
viewing news on Significance .000 .000 .
internet per (2-tailed)
week df 5139 5139 0
a. Cells contain zero-order (Pearson) correlations.
Regression:
Variables:
After running correlation tests to answer to analyze the relationship of the
variables included in my project, I determined that the demographic variables have little
impact on the dependent variable or the other two independent variables being considered
(internet and television). I chose to run regression in order to query data to answer the
primary research question of how television and internet viewing during political
campaigns impacted voter turnout. My two predictors in these regression tests were
frequency of viewing news on internet per week and frequency of viewing news on
television per week.
Variables Entered/Removeda
Variables Variables
Model Entered Removed Method
1 Frequency of . Enter
viewing news on
internet per
week,
Frequency of
viewing news
on television per
weekb
a. Dependent Variable: Voted in 2012 election
b. All requested variables entered.

Model Summary:
The Model Summary shows that R is .201 and R Squared is .040 meaning that
these two predictors only count for 4% of the variation in people voting. There are many
other factors that go in to determining if people vote or not, and all of these factors help
explain the variation in whether or not people vote, but the R Squared number in this
model shows us that internet and television viewing only accounts for 4% of all of those
factors, and there are other factors not chosen for this study that account for the other
96%.
Model Summary
Adjusted R Std. Error of the
Model R R Square Square Estimate
1 .201a .040 .040 .393
a. Predictors: (Constant), Frequency of viewing news on internet per
week, Frequency of viewing news on television per week

ANOVA:
In the ANOVA table, we can see that the F value is 115.69 which is significant at .
001 because the value in the column SIG is .000. This F-ratio value shows that there is a .
1% that an F-ratio this large would happen if the hypothesis wasn’t true. Because the F-
ratio is as large of a number as it is, and because the F-ratio is a ratio of how good our
model is compared to its error (how bad it is) we can conclude that our regression model
results in significantly better prediction of whether or not people vote than if we simply
used the mean value of people voting.
The ANOVA table also shows the Sum of Squares. The Total is 883.16, meaning
that this is the total amount of variation in our data. The Residual Sum of Squares
(extraneous factors outside of the data) accounts for 847.6 of the total leaving only 35.64
to be explained by Regression (the factors in our study). This again supports the finding
that factors outside of viewing television and internet news during political campaigns
determine whether or not people vote more than the two dependent variables we are
testing. Because our residual is high, it means that the model does not fit the sample data
extremely well.
ANOVAa
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 35.641 2 17.820 115.668 .000b
Residual 847.516 5501 .154
Total 883.157 5503
a. Dependent Variable: Voted in 2012 election
b. Predictors: (Constant), Frequency of viewing news on internet per week, Frequency of viewing
news on television per week

Coefficients:
In the Coefficients table, B is essentially our Y-intercept in the statistical equation.
This means that the B value, 1.47 means that if zero television and internet was watched
during election campaigns, that 147 people would vote. Because the B values of both
independent variables are greater than their standard error measurements, our ability to
impact the outcome of viewing television and internet has a small, but positive impact on
people voting. Because the standard error values (.019, .005 and .004) are relatively
small, we can expect most samples to have similar means). Because the T values are
smaller than our SIG values for both variables, this means that neither predictor
(television or internet) are not significant predictors of whether or not people voted.

Coefficientsa
Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant) 1.469 .019 79.134 .000
Frequency of viewing news -.049 .005 -.130 -9.781 .000
on television per week
Frequency of viewing news -.048 .004 -.141 -10.612 .000
on internet per week
a. Dependent Variable: Voted in 2012 election

Conclusion:

After running correlation and regression and analyzing the results from the sample data, I
have developed the following answers to the research questions:
 Are citizens that consume television and internet during elections more likely to
vote than citizens that do not pay attention to or consume that specific media on a
regular basis?
o No. The data does not show that watching political news on television or
the internet during campaigns has a statistically significant impact on
whether or not people vote.
 Do certain social demographic factors such as age and education impact people’s
access/ usage of media?
o No. The data shows that there is little correlation between people’s age and
education regarding their use of television and internet consumption
during political elections.
 Do certain economic demographic factors such as family income and social class
impact people’s ability to access/ utilize media?
o No. The data shows that these factors do not have a statistically significant
correlation to people watching television or internet news during election
campaigns.
 Are people’s voting behaviors (such as whether or not they vote) impacted by
media usage and consumption?
o No. The data showed that there was not a statistically significant impact on
people’s voter turnout from their frequency of watching television or
internet news during political elections.