OKLAHOMA: NSF EPSCoR Social Dynamics Team Conducts Policy Landscape Mapping
S3OK OK NSF EPSCoR Social Dynamics Team Conducts Policy Landscape Mapping. Dr. Kristin Olofsson, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma State University, and a team of researchers and students collaborated to map policy landscapes of each of the four Focus Areas of the S3OK project. In policy landscape mapping, the team identifies who is involved in the issue, who is affected by the issue, related goals within the focus area, and the narratives told by those individuals about the issue.
“Our work recognizes the inherent complexity of the policy issues and capitalizes on that complexity by adopting a systems approach. We use content analysis of a variety of sources, such as write-in survey answers, newspapers, Twitter, public meeting minutes, focus groups, and many more,” Olofsson said.
“By undercovering who is involved and how they are involved, along with their policy positions and priorities, we learn more about the scope of the issue,” Olofsson added.