ANNENBERG SCHOOL TAPS KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS FOR INNOVATIVE HEALTHCARE SURVEYS FUNDED BY NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Project extends groundbreaking collaboration, defines role of online discussion in molding policy opinions

Menlo Park, CA; December 15, 2003: The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication has contracted with Knowledge Networks to expand the School's innovative work with online citizen discussion through a new series of studies funded by the National Science Foundation.

The new project will use a sequence of Internet-enabled surveys and online group deliberations to explore factors that shape public views on pressing healthcare issues.

During the 2000 presidential election, Annenberg professors Vincent Price and Joseph Cappella contracted with Knowledge Networks for their "Electronic Dialogue" project, a pioneering effort that yielded unusually rich public opinion data by following survey respondents for a year and gathering their views through both Internet surveys and monthly small-group discussions online.

Knowledge Networks offers the only fully developed research platform for this sort of very useful research. According to Price, who holds the Steven H. Chaffee Chair of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, "With the invaluable experience gained from our 2000 project, we can now put group-discussion formats to work in a particularly important public policy domain—health care. In the new project, we will be studying ways to maximize discussion and decision quality in online deliberations about the health care system, focusing on issues such as the cost of prescription drugs, consumer choice, or the fiscal health of Medicare."

One novel aspect of the Annenberg project is its combining of several respondent panels with different memberships:

• health care policy "elites" who have a significant stake in the issues and some measure of influence over policy outcomes;
• members of health-care "issue publics," for whom health matters are personally important, and who pay greater-than-average attention to healthcare issues; and
• ordinary citizens who take a more-or-less passing interest in healthcare.

Each group of respondents will take part in a carefully designed series of surveys and group deliberations, including

• an initial benchmark survey,
• regular periodic surveys on particular issues,
• online group discussions (among 9 or 10 panelists), and
• a final wrap-up survey.

The project's goal is to develop real-time information about how various critical segments of the public process key healthcare issues, and possible differences in the way they frame healthcare problems. The study grows out of the Annenberg School's ongoing interest in approaches to e-dialogue and educational or "deliberative" survey methodologies.

The Annenberg School for Communication offers students a firm grounding in various approaches to the study of communication and its methods drawn from both the humanities and the social sciences. It is an intellectual common market built on more than forty years of interdisciplinary dialogue. The School houses communication theorists and researchers, including social scientists, historians, and critics. The purpose of the Ph.D. program is to prepare students to make professional contributions to communication scholarship, research, and policy.

Knowledge Networks delivers quality you can use—superior methodologies, design, and analysis that give you an edge when it comes to understanding consumers and making business decisions. KN's unmatched consumer research resources include the only projectable Web-based consumer panel. The company leverages its expertise in brands, media, advertising, and analytics to provide insights that speak directly to clients' most important marketing issues. In addition, Knowledge Networks has built a substantial practice in government and academic research, an area notable for its rigorous methodology standards.