Weekly Mini Surveys
You are being invited to take part in a research study looking at people’s experience of online election advertising during the campaign for President. The study will involve your completing a short weekly survey leading up to, and in the week after the election, in which we will ask you about your views and experiences of the digital campaign and the adverts on Facebook that you are seeing. Each weekly entry should take approx. 10 mins of your time.
Your participation in this research is entirely voluntary, and you are free to withdraw from the study at any time by emailing DiCED@manchester.ac.uk.
The research is funded by the European Commission, and is part of an international study that will compare online election advertising in the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Poland.
Before you agree to take part in the study would like to give you some further information about why and how it is being conducted, what happens to your data. Please take time to read this information and to discuss it with others if you wish. Please contact us at DiCED@manchester.ac.uk if anything is not clear, you have any questions or if you would simply like more information.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Full Participation Information Sheet
About the research
- Who will conduct the research?
Professor Rachel Gibson from the University of Manchester and Dr. Katherine Dommett from the University of Sheffield will conduct the research with Who Targets Me. Both are established political scientists who have conducted several national and international research projects on online campaigns and elections and published widely on the topic in a number of international journals and books. See www.rachelgibson.info and http://www.katedommett.com/
- What is the purpose of the research?
The research is designed to understand to how new forms of online and digital campaigning are affecting our democracy in terms of the information citizens receive and whether this affects how they think about politicians and parties. You have been asked to participate given that you live in the U.S., use digital media and are likely to experience the campaign both online and in the ‘real world’. The weekly survey component of the project is important in that it provides us with a richer over time picture of what the U.S. electorate is seeing and sharing online during the campaign for President and how this is affecting their understanding of the key issues and who they may choose to vote for.
- Will the outcomes of the research be published?
The results of the research will be published primarily in the form of academic books and a range of peer reviewed journals. Shorter reports on key findings may also be published on the project website https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/diced/ and in occasional pieces written for the news media as articles or blog posts.
- Who has reviewed the research project?
The project has been approved by the University of Manchester Research Ethics Committee
- What would I be asked to do if I took part?
As part of the study you would be asked to complete a weekly mini survey leading up to, and in the week after the election. Who Targets Me would send you an email with a link to the weekly survey. The weekly survey would ask about what you have been seeing on you Facebook feed in the previous week and you thoughts and opinions on what you have seen. Some of the questions will be open for you to write as much or as little as you would like. We anticipate each weekly entry in total would take a minimum of 10 mins of your time. If you agree to participate in the surveys’ we will ask you to complete a consent form for the collection of the weekly survey information. You may of course choose not to participate. This will have no implications for the working of Who Targets Me browser extension that you have installed, and no detrimental or adverse effect on you or your participation in any future Who Targets Me research panel.
- Will I be compensated for taking part?
To compensate you for your time, upon completion of the study you will be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win the following:
1x £500 amazon gift voucher
5 x £100 amazon gift voucher
(So now you will have two chances of winning! )
- What happens if I do not want to take part or if I change my mind?
Your participation in this research is entirely voluntary, and you are free to withdraw from the study at any time without providing a reason by emailing Diced@manchester.ac.uk. At your request, any information you have supplied to that point will be deleted/destroyed and will not be used to inform the research. Please note that it will not be possible to remove your data from the study after it has ended, as it will have been anonymised and we will not be able to identify your specific data. This does not affect your data protection rights. If you decide at this point not to take part, you do not need to do anything further.
Data Protection and Confidentiality
- What information will you collect about me?
The weekly surveys will collect information about your views and experiences of the Presidential election and particularly information about the campaign on your Facebook feed. No additional personal information will be requested, just your opinions. The information collected will focus on:
- The types of content – ads, news stories, links from friends that you recall seeing on your Facebook feed and how you felt about these.
- Issues – the types of issues you think were most discussed or promoted on your feed and how important or relevant you thought these issues were for you in helping you make up your mind about who you might vote for?
- Activity – what types of content you engaged with and shared in your networks and whether you did anything political or campaign related using Facebook or other social media /internet channels.
- Targeting – the extent to which you have noticed any ads or content that has been targeted particularly at you or other voters, why you thought it was targeted, and how you felt about this.
With your permission, these data will be matched with your other survey responses and the ad data collected by the Who Targets Me browser extension you have installed, and any personal information you provided in setting it up, so that we can gain as full a picture as possible of how U.S. voters are experiencing the digital campaign. You will be asked if you agree to this matching in the consent form that you will be asked to complete before you take the survey.
- Under what legal basis are you collecting this information?
We are collecting and storing this personal identifiable information in accordance with data protection law which protect your rights. These state that we must have a legal basis (specific reason) for collecting your data. For this study, the legal basis is that you will have explicitly given consent and the specific reasons for collecting the data are that it is “carried out in the public interest” and is a process necessary for “historical research purposes”.
- What are my rights in relation to the information you will collect about me?
You have a number of rights under data protection law regarding your personal information. For example you can request a copy of the information we hold about you. If you would like to know more about your different rights or the way we use your personal information to ensure we follow the law, please consult our Privacy Notice for Research.
- Will my participation in the study be confidential and my personal identifiable information be protected?
In accordance with data protection law, The University of Manchester and Who Targets Me are the Data Controller for this project. This means that we are responsible for making sure your personal information is kept secure, confidential and used only in the way you have been told it will be used. All researchers are trained with this in mind, and your data will be looked after in the following way:
Only Who Targets Me and the DiCED study team will have access to your personal information, and it will be anonymised once the data collection period has ended i.e. up to 3 months after the U.S. election. Your name and any other identifying information will be removed and replaced with a random ID number. Only the research team will have access to the key that links this ID number to your personal information. We will retain your name during the course of data collection to ensure that we can contact you if you are a winner of one of the project prizes, or to remove you from the study, should you not want to continue to participate. We will keep the anonymized data for a period of up to 10 years. This is to allow for comparison of the data with subsequent elections in the project which runs until 2025 and then to permit post-project analysis for research articles and books that will be published from our work.
The data will be held by WTM initially and then transferred to the University of Manchester to be stored locally. It will not be transferred or sent to any other users or institutions. In addition to the University of Manchester and University of Sheffield DiCED project team members, DiCED project team members based at four institutions in the U.S., Germany, France (New York University, Hertie School of Governance, Audencia Business School and the University of Lorraine) will be given remote access to the data for analysis purposes. Any data made available to them will be fully anonymized.
Please also note that individuals from The University of Manchester or regulatory authorities may need to look at the data collected for this study to make sure the project is being carried out as planned. This may involve looking at identifiable data. All individuals involved in auditing and monitoring the study will have a strict duty of confidentiality to you as a research participant.
Potential disclosures outside of the Research team:
- If, during the study, you disclose information about any current or future illegal activities, we have a legal obligation to report this and will therefore need to inform the relevant authorities.
- Individuals from the University, the site where the research is taking place and regulatory authorities may need to review the study information for auditing and monitoring purposes or in the event of an incident.
What if I have a complaint?
- Contact details for complaints
If you have a complaint that you wish to direct to members of the research team, please contact: Diced@manchester.ac.uk
If you wish to make a formal complaint to someone independent of the research team or if you are not satisfied with the response you have gained from the researchers in the first instance then please contact:
The Research Governance and Integrity Officer, Research Office, Christie Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, by emailing: research.complaints@manchester.ac.uk or by telephoning +44 161 275 2674.
If you wish to contact us about your data protection rights, please email dataprotection@manchester.ac.uk or write to The Information Governance Office, Christie Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, M13 9PL at the University and we will guide you through the process of exercising your rights.
You also have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about complaints relating to your personal identifiable information Tel +44 1625 545 700.
Contact Details
If you have any queries about the study or if you are interested in taking part then please contact the DiCED research team at Diced@manchester.ac.uk