LBJ School News Brief

February 3, 2004

John Horrigan

In addition to serving as a senior researcher with the Pew Internet Project, John Horrigan (center) is an adjunct professor of government and is assigned to the UT in D.C. Program at the Archer Center. The program-a joint effort of UT Austin, the UT System Office of Federal Relations and the Archer Center-offers qualified UT students the opportunity to study and intern in Washington, D.C. Shown with Horrigan are UT Arlington student Esda Beverly (seated, far left) and UT Austin students Diana Ramirez (standing left), Yudith Vargas, Mario Roldan, and Eva Boster (far right).

Measuring the impact of the Internet
Ph.D. grad John Horrigan analyzes technology’s role
in society

As a society, we are just starting to see how the Internet can transform institutions such as government, business and even political campaigns. And as our use of the Internet expands, there will be an increasing demand for credible information about how information technologies are affecting our lives, says John Horrigan (M.P.Aff. 1988; Ph.D. 1996), a senior researcher with the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington, D.C.

According to Horrigan, he first became interested in the impact of the Internet while working as a graduate assistant for a policy research project conducted in 1994-95 at the LBJ School. Directed by the late Professor Susan Hadden and Professor Lodis Rhodes, the project focused on universal telephone service in Texas.

“Susan’s interest at the time was how the concept of universal telephone service would fare in an era of advanced networking technologies such as the Internet,” Horrigan recalled, adding that Hadden was a “big influence” on his education and career. As for Rhodes, Horrigan said he still bounces ideas about the social dimensions of information technology off of him.

In the years following the completion of his master’s degree, Horrigan served as press secretary and legislative assistant for U.S. Congressman J. J. “Jake” Pickle. “The M.P.Aff. served as an entree to politics for me,” he said. “In that environment, the degree gave me the tools to handle a wide variety of policy issues."

Later, while working on his doctoral degree at the LBJ School (1992-96), Horrigan worked as a consultant with Texas Perspectives, Inc., an Austin-based economic consulting firm specializing in regional economic modeling. Following graduation from the LBJ School’s Ph.D. program, Horrigan went to work as a consultant and staff officer for the National Research Council.

“The Ph.D. has enabled me to do policy-relevant research,” he said, adding that the Ph.D. program’s emphasis on research methods and interdisciplinary nature have served him well. “My dissertation and course work had a big dose of economics, which I draw upon still, but in my current position I need also to be knowledgeable about scholarship in sociology and communication.”

Today, Horrigan works for the Pew Internet Project, which provides nonpartisan, nonadvocacy information to the public about the Internet's impact on people's lives. Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, most of the research is based on random digit dial telephone surveys.

“We are opportunistic and able to move quickly in response to emerging trends,” he said. “For instance, after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began its campaign of lawsuits to discourage music downloading online, we fielded a survey to see if it had an impact. We found a steep drop in online music downloading—from about 29 percent of Internet users in 2002 who said they download music online to 14 percent who said they did that in December 2003. Given that we have no dog in the music downloading fight, that study really helps inform public debate. If policymakers see the RIAA suits having their intended impact, they might, for instance, think twice about changing copyright law in response to digital copying technologies.”

Horrigan explained that by making this information freely available to the public—and working hard to get press coverage—the Pew Internet Project has become a trusted source for public and private decisionmakers for data and analysis about the Internet.

“There's a good bit of commercially oriented research on the Internet's impact on business models and the economy, but relatively little that focuses on how technologies for networking affects families or how people interact with government, health care providers and their communities,” he said.

Horrigan noted that, historically, this country has been committed to policies that make communication technologies widely available to all members of society, but the best way to make those technologies accessible has always been a subject of policy dispute. He also identified two trends that he believes will further deepen the Internet’s impact on society.

“The first is wireless broadband—the ability to access e-mail and Web data using a compact device that is untethered to place,” he said. “The other is truly high speed Internet.”

Predicting that a second Internet revolution will occur when most Americans go online from home with high-speed connections, Horrigan warned that as a society “we will have to have a debate about the trade-offs between pervasive information technology and personal privacy.”

by María de la Luz Martínez

Related Links
Community Informatics (2003-04 policy research project)

The Evolution of Universal Service Policy in Texas (publication)

Technology-Based Solutions to Workforce Service Delivery (publication)

Joining the global telecom community: Students represent U.S. at International Telecom Youth Forum

3 February 2004

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