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2 - The Measurement of Media Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2015

Donald F. Roberts
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Ulla G. Foehr
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
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Summary

In this chapter, we present the methods and procedures used to gather information about U.S. youth's media behavior leading into the twenty-first century. The study examines young people's leisure time exposure to television, videotapes, movies, video games, newspapers, magazines, books, radio, audio recordings (CDs and tapes), and the computer. The chapter briefly introduces a few of the obstacles that militate against collection of accurate information when surveying youth. It goes on to describe how we addressed those obstacles by collecting data from two distinct samples of youngsters and by constructing questionnaire items that made as few demands on memory as possible.

At its core, this book is about time – the time children and adolescents spend with various media. Although at first glance measuring media time might seem a relatively straightforward task, over the past several decades social scientists have come to view it as difficult at best. For example, because television typically comes packaged in convenient half-hour segments, TV exposure might seem, theoretically at least, relatively easy to measure. It is tempting to assume that when asked how much television they view, individuals will simply think of what programs they watched (or usually watch) on a typical day, add the half-hour and hour segments together, and thus arrive at an accurate answer. Moreover, we are used to seeing highly precise statements from organizations such as Nielsen Media Research regarding the average amount of television viewing time in U.S. households. Such accuracy would seem to attest to the apparent ease with which TV viewing can be measured. Unfortunately, we all too often overlook the fact that although the Nielsen ratings provide accurate statements about how much time household TV sets are in operation, their estimates of time spent viewing by different individuals within the household are open to question.

In their book entitled Television, George Comstock and Erica Scharrer (1999) note that, particularly in recent years, the measurement of TV viewing time has become quite controversial.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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