Codebook is now at Substack!

New year, new home for my newsletter on polling and social science trends.

Hello friends! I’m so thrilled to announce that Codebook is officially moving over to Substack.

In cryptography, a codebook assists someone in decoding something that has been encrypted so that it becomes understandable. And in the social sciences, a “codebook” is what a researcher prepares to accompany their data so that other researchers can interpret it, defining the variables in the data set and what the values really mean.

It is truly an exciting time to be working at the intersection of polling, media, and social science research. What I love about the opinion research field is the ability to get really good at listening - to hear what people are thinking and feeling at a deep level - and then to share what I’ve heard with the rest of the world.

We’re in a moment where it feels like there’s a real dearth of listening going on. We have plenty of ways to speak our mind but it isn’t clear who is hearing us. Lots of Americans feel unheard, leading to so much frustration and exhaustion at our politics. Opinion research and polling, when done well, are a valuable way that people can listen to what others think and try to do more to understand them.

That’s been my mission in my career, and that’s what I’m hoping to continue doing here with Codebook.

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll publish from time to time whenever a study or survey comes on my radar that I think worth sharing. I’ll only pop up in your inbox if there’s something really fascinating that is worth your time. And as this community of subscribers grows, I’m hopeful there can be more features added down the road.

Thanks for reading and subscribing here at Codebook - I’m looking forward to what’s to come.

Kristen