Reading analysis #2

Julio Aguilera

RA #2

Professor Andrews

October 26, 2010

                                                     Election Awareness

After conducting a survey intended for 50 NDNU undergrad and grad

students I came to a conclusion that the media provides enough information out

there to make internet users aware of the current election in the state of

California. As an avid internet user I am aware of what is going on nationally and

globally, but this survey helps me better understand the interest in my peers on

the election from a different point of view. After only receiving 42 responses

through text I went ahead and used that information to analyze the true purpose

for internet use around people my age.  

I discovered that must of the students find some time away from their

studies and extra curricular activities to surf the web. By using the results from

the survey by the largest margin I can comfortably say that the majority of my

target audience were between the age of 22-25, the highest result for hours

spent on the internet daily were less than 3, the majority of the audience was

aware of the election with 29 knowing its next month, and a remarkable number

of 39 were aware of the proposition 19 being on the ballot. The numbers show

me that although websites such as Facebook may be somewhat distracting to

students, it’s still a method for media, and something must be working to allow

college students to be aware of their own states election. I believe some home

pages such as Yahoo!, AOL, or even YouTube do a very good job and keeping

their websites fresh to all current media available, and sometimes that quick

glimpse at a news article is enough to make students aware.

            In relation to younger students I feel like the need to be self-aware is

necessary for the older student, as many try to inform themselves of the current

activities around them. I see that the need to be aware of the election for the

student is more acceptable in the older student, perhaps as a conversational

topic. Or simply to know what is going on in their state, the correlation between

the age groups was different and leads me to conclude that the results are the

way they are because people chose to be informed, and not because they

accidently find out.