If you subscribe to Illinois Issues, you may already have received — or soon will — a readership survey from us. And if you’re a reader but not a subscriber, we want to hear from you, too.
We do know that you’re busy, but we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d take a little bit of time to let us know what you think — good or bad — about the magazine. We hope your thoughts about what we offer now and some of the recent changes we’ve made will help us hone in on where you’d like to see us go in the future.
The last time we surveyed our readers was about five and a half years ago, and we all know how much has changed since then. Technology and reading habits are much different, as is the economy. With this newest survey, we want to make sure we meet the needs of our current readers and are doing what’s necessary to continue to attract new ones well into the future. And we’ll ask some of the same questions we did last time to try to gauge how much readers’ opinions have changed, if at all.
The most recent survey contains the usual questions about demographics — age, gender, race, education level and income — but it goes beyond those and tries to give us an idea of what you’d like to see more of — or less of — in terms of content. We also hope to find out, for instance, what platform you’d prefer for our publication — in print, on the Web, through a smart phone or tablet app? Or maybe some other method of delivery that we haven’t considered?
We really do intend to take seriously what you have to say. We plan to use your answers as a major component in charting the future of Illinois Issues. That’s what we did with the last readership survey.
For instance, we learned — to our delight — that 91 percent of our readers rated the content of the magazine as excellent or near excellent, and that nearly two-thirds of them shared their copy of Illinois Issues with at least one other person. We also were able to gain other valuable insights that helped our publication to continue to grow.
In 2006, we also found that 99 percent of our readers voted in elections, and nearly four in five contributed to candidates, political parties or political action committees. Nearly 70 percent said they personally influenced the policymaking or lawmaking process in state government.
And we learned that 99 percent held a college degree, and that six in 10 had a graduate degree. We found that half of our readers had a household income of more than $100,000 and that a quarter earned more than $150,000.
We have used the knowledge we gleaned from the 2006 survey, along with other information from focus groups and elsewhere, to try to meet the needs and wants of our readers while staying true to our mission to provide unbiased, in-depth coverage of public affairs issues that affect Illinoisans. Now, it’s time to update our information.
This survey is being conducted by the Survey Research Office at the University of Illinois Springfield. A sister unit of Illinois Issues in the Center for State Policy and Leadership at UIS, the office is led by Dick Schuldt, who has been conducting surveys and polls at the university for 27 years.
“My purpose is to assist Illinois Issues in getting the information it needs to adapt to the current environment of technology,” says Schuldt, who helped the magazine conduct earlier surveys, “and in getting the in-depth analysis of politics and policy to interested members of the public.”
On Schuldt’s advice, this time around we decided to use a mailed survey with an optional Internet site. “To get at the readers with the kinds of questions we’re asking, the mail-out survey works the best and will get the best response rate. … We’re going above and beyond just subscribers because other people read it, as well,” he says, noting that the magazine is available in libraries, bookstores and is sometimes distributed during statewide conferences involving public affairs groups.
The validity of the survey, Schuldt says, depends on the number of responses we get back. Even though the number of readers is relatively small compared to, say, a survey involving the entire population of Illinois, we do need enough results to give us some solid indications. “So, subscribers and readers can really help us out by participating in the survey,” Schuldt says.
One complaint we did hear the last time we did this was that the survey took too long to complete. So this time around, we’re trying to keep it as simple as possible — it should only take a few minutes to complete. If you receive it in the mail, the survey will be contained in a four-page booklet. We’ve attempted to keep the same questions brief online, as well.
The surveys should arrive in the mail to our subscribers around the first of March, but anyone who doesn’t get one or who would prefer to fill it out online — or if there’s more than one Illinois Issues reader in the household — can go to the online survey. If you would like us to send out a printed version, call us at (217) 206-6084, email us at illinoisissues@uis.edu or write us at Illinois Issues, HRB 10, University of Illinois Springfield, Springfield, IL 62703, and we’ll mail one or more of them to the addresses you specify. And if you have family members or friends who also are aware of Illinois Issues, please pass the Internet address on to them or call, email or write us and we’ll get a printed survey form to them. We intend to report the results in the future, and the more responses we get, the better information we will have.
We are immensely grateful for everything you’ve done to help our magazine continue to improve over the past 36 years and the support you’ve given to help us continue along our path. We’re asking you to give us just a little bit of time and thought to make sure we will travel in the direction you’d like to see in the future.
Illinois Issues, March 2012
