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Intelligent Information Infrastructure Project:
Working Paper
Of Public Cyberspace: A Survey of Users and Distributors
of Electronic White House Documents
Roger Hurwitz and John Mallery
Fri Apr 1 1994
(Draft)
Abstract:
Since January 20, 1993, the Clinton administration has
distributed press releases and other documents over the Internet. Recently
adaptive surveying technology was developed and mused to collect information on
the recipients of the document, the means of their distribution and the uses made
of them. On the basis of responses from over 1600 recipients and distributors,
we estimate 40,000 people either receive White House documents daily via
mailing lists or retrieve them at least several times a week from servers,
newsgroups and bulletin boards. The recipients tend to be young (85%under
50), male (80%), educated (50%have advanced degrees), and affiliated with
universities (40 - 50%), government institutions (10%) or high-tech
companies. Fewer than 10 publicly accessible mailing lists and servers
provide documents to over 80%of these users; but some recipients are served
by closed company networks which regularly distribute the documents. Only
15%of respondent say they personally pay to get the documents, and we
estimate that fewer than 15%of total actual recipients retrieve the
documents from forums on commercial information networks. Most respondents
use the documents to follow issues of interest or get a more direct view of
the political process, but 20%report the documents they receive relate to
their work.
This report describes research done at the
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, as part of the Intelligent Information Infrastructure
Project, funded by Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department
of Defense under contract MDA972-93-1-0037.
Copyright Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994