Document Type
Oral Presentation
Department
Mathematics and Statistics
Faculty Mentor
Naoko Yura Yasui, PhD
Keywords
news, media, social media, data, statistics, audience engagement
Abstract
Due to the pandemic, people have started relying more on televisions, news, social media, and other news outlets for guidance. Moreover, with the increasing amount of news, data, and information there is also an increase in the amount of misleading statistics. People’s opinions and decisions significantly depend on the data, statistics, and information that they are exposed to, as well as their sources. For this project, we want to look at how information and its sources are affecting the decision made by the general public for the usage of the Portland Transit System. It is very important to know why people are or are not using the transit system in this pandemic. This project is designed to investigate how the general population’s decisions to use or not use public transit systems may be affected by data, statistics, and information that they are exposed to, and whether the decisions may correlate with types of sources of news that they rely on, such as television, radio, newspapers, and social media. We are working on a survey where students, faculty members, and staff at USM could participate and answer multiple choice questions. Responses will be analyzed to see which of the answers correlate with each other and how we could use this information to encourage people to use Public Transportation.
How risk-related statistics, as reported in news and social media, are linked to the use of the public transit system - transcript
Open Access?
1
Included in
Applied Statistics Commons, Categorical Data Analysis Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons, Graphic Communications Commons, Mass Communication Commons, Mathematics Commons, Social Media Commons
How risk-related statistics, as reported in news and social media, are linked to the use of the public transit system
Due to the pandemic, people have started relying more on televisions, news, social media, and other news outlets for guidance. Moreover, with the increasing amount of news, data, and information there is also an increase in the amount of misleading statistics. People’s opinions and decisions significantly depend on the data, statistics, and information that they are exposed to, as well as their sources. For this project, we want to look at how information and its sources are affecting the decision made by the general public for the usage of the Portland Transit System. It is very important to know why people are or are not using the transit system in this pandemic. This project is designed to investigate how the general population’s decisions to use or not use public transit systems may be affected by data, statistics, and information that they are exposed to, and whether the decisions may correlate with types of sources of news that they rely on, such as television, radio, newspapers, and social media. We are working on a survey where students, faculty members, and staff at USM could participate and answer multiple choice questions. Responses will be analyzed to see which of the answers correlate with each other and how we could use this information to encourage people to use Public Transportation.
