“Dark Answer” Factories or Four Negative Features of Modern Opt-in Online Panels

Abstract

In 2018, the Laboratory for Social Research Methodology (The Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting, RANEPA) held a series of expert interviews with managers and experts from companies operating in the online research market. The topic of discussion was the online opt-in panel as the most popular and dynamic method of conducting online surveys. There are four negative features that characterize modern Russian online panels. First, there is a prevalence of legal descriptions of facts and social phenomena as opposed to experimental means of observation. Formalism and standardization of procedures work to redefine social and methodological facts into legal ones. According to the latter, quality is determined by compliance with a preestablished procedure and legal norms, but not with common sense or scientific criteria. Second, panel surveys are oversaturated with falsified data and answers formulated in an ironic, playsome manner that does not meet the requirements of the survey industry. The basic psychological state of all survey participants is distrust towards each other’s sincerity. The game of obscuring mistrust is peculiar to the culture of falsification aimed at legitimizing the established order. Third, there is an already formed institution of evading errors, ignoring and silencing regular shifts, editing and cleaning arrays without preserving the original traces of falsification. Finally, the main actors of the research market demonstrate the mechanics of blackout data and significantly reduce the heu-risticity of the information received. The critical description of the online panels presented in the article aims to rethink the development of digital research in the survey industry, identifying challenges and opportunities for the methodological culture of data collection and analysis.