A Call For Research Participants (Updated)

Update, 12/4/15, 9:10am PT: I'd like to thank everyone who participated in these research interviews. This is important for our education, and for the students who are gaining knowledge by conducting this work.

The same group is conducting a quantitative survey to further flesh out the qualitative interviews they've already performed. If you have five minutes to take it, we, and they, would appreciate it very much. Here is the link.

Your input is extremely valuable. Thank you for your time and insight!  

Academics call it "research karma" when you volunteer to participate in a research project; next time, it could be you on the other end of that call for participants, after all. Well, here's a chance for you -- "you" being someone who identifies as an enthusiast (which you almost certainly do if you're reading Tom's Hardware) -- to build up some research karma.

A class at the University of Missouri School of Journalism is conducting a study looking at online readership, technology journalism, and the content consumption habits of enthusiasts. Tom's Hardware has been working with the class to help frame what a tech enthusiast is and has also talked with the group about how an enthusiast tech publication works.  

The researchers are collecting participants on their own, but for one aspect of the research, they would like to speak with several Tom's Hardware readers about their content consumption habits as it pertains to tech news, reviews and other forms of tech-related content.

If you're interested in helping out, all you would be committing to is a 15-minute conversation with a researcher, and possibly the need for an email follow-up. All participants will remain anonymous in the report. Respondents must at least 18 years old.

If you're interested in being interviewed for this project, please send an email to the professor in charge of the course and the project, Dr. Clyde Bentley.

As a disclaimer, Tom's Hardware is not sponsoring this project, although we are involved somewhat in helping it get going (and, obviously, recruiting some research participants). Because this is for an academic course, there is no money changing hands at all. To be clear, though, we will be benefiting from this research insofar as the results will help us do our work better.

Also note that this is different than the pop-up surveys some of you have seen (and filled out--thank you!) on Tom's Hardware. This study is not looking at Tom's Hardware specifically, but at enthusiast tech media generally.

So, again, if you want to accumulate good research karma, let Dr. Bentley know that you're game.

Seth Colaner is the News Director at Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.