What is the focus of the AudienceScapes survey research program?

The Quantitative Research:

The AudienceScapes team partners with local research organizations to conduct detailed face-to-face interviews that are designed to give a nationally representative view of:

Media Use
ICT Use
Word-of-Mouth Communication Habits
The Role of "Opinion Leaders" in Communities
Levels of Trust in Various Information Sources

In addition, the surveys gather data on the level of access to (and use of) information on key development topics - in this case, health care, personal finance (including mobile money) and agriculture. These modules provide an opportunity to "slice and dice" the data demographically in order to determine how various subgroups of the population are most likely to obtain, accept or share information on such topics.

For example, in case studies used in the AudienceScapes analytical reports of the surveys, the data are employed to help determine effective ways to design programs aimed at:

Expanding the Use of Mobile Money and other Financial Services
Communicating Information on Maternal and Infant Health to Young Rural Women
Communicating HIV/AIDS Information to Young Urban Males
Discussing Tubercolosis with the Urban Poor
Sharing Livestock Information with Small Farmers via Radio
Giving Farmers More Access to Information About Markets and Finance

But Development practitioners and their local partners don't need to rely on our analysis of the data - they can go direct via our Custom Data Query Tool. It requires no technical expertise and allows users to :

View the response results for any question or single variable in the Ghana and Kenya surveys (and Zambia by summer 2010)
Run cross-tabulations of any two or three variables in the surveys
Compare question responses between surveys
Create basic graphics based on the responses
Export response and crosstab results in Excel

Users of the data query tool may also request the raw datasets (in SPSS format), provided that they are being used for legitimate development purposes and not for commercial application. The AudienceScapes team also requires that any data used in publications, presentations or other external use be clearly cited to the AudienceScapes project.