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Fall Line Analytics Newsletter (September 2009)
The role of self-perception in targeting
Understanding this intersection is crucial to good research
Back in undergrad anthropology, we learned about the importance of the 'etic' and the 'emic' when studying cultures. The emic is the person's point-of-view from his or her own cultural background. It encapsulates someone's worldview or opinions with no external reference. The etic, on the other hand, is the view of culture or people from an attempted neutral or objective vantage point. The etic is how we attempt to critically evaluate actions or beliefs and compare cultures or groups of people to each other. Put more simply, the emic is how people see themselves and the etic is how 'we from the outside' see them.
These concepts are extremely important when analytically studying the views or actions of demographic or even psychographic groups. For instance, an ethnic group may vote a certain way, or buy a particular product, but we can't simply conclude "that's what those people do, compared to other groups". That's the etic viewpoint, and although it allows us to objectively establish the 'facts', the analysis is incomplete. We need to know why people do what they do, in their own language, and on their own terms. With this information, messaging and targeting becomes much more effective.
At Fall Line, we think about both the emic and etic viewpoints in our research. Of course, the etic viewpoint has its own biases, but we go into our projects with eyes wide open, realizing that just because we can correlate an action or opinion to a certain group of people, it doesn't always give us insight as to why it exists (causality). And although we can never truly understand 'the other', it's clear that research has to move in that direction - simply restating facts isn't enough. Therefore, we think about self-perception vs. external observation from the initial research design. We're going ask questions and look for things from the outset that can shed light on the sometimes-elusive emic viewpoint. For as most people know, change (and causing change) comes from within.
Precinct-level looks at Prop 8
Fall Line analytics is undertaking a joint-research project with the University of San Francisco, examining precinct-level results from Prop 8 from November, 2008. We'll be incorporating years of election results, and Census data for all California voting precincts... more
Good links to know
- •OECD Factbook Explorer - Great maps and stat-displays of international social and labor data
- •Color Converter - Useful tool to convert colors from one coding scheme to another
- •Policy Archive - Large online non-partisan policy research clearinghouse
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