Methodologies and techniques in audience measurements

Seminararbeit , 2014 , 7 Seiten

Medien / Kommunikation - Multimedia, Internet, neue Technologien

Audience measurement is a necessity in the field of media and communication because the number and levels of audience influences the performance and profit of the media business. This essay seeks to outline various methodologies and techniques that are used in measuring audiences in the media. The paper went to an extent of classifying audience measurements in terms of the type of media e,g. Print, television etc.

Content

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGIES USED IN MEASURING AUDIENCES

TECHNIQUES USED IN MEASURING AUDIENCES FOR BROADCASTING, PRINT, OUTDOOR, CINEMA AND INTERNET MEDIA.
BROADCASTING MEDIA (RADIO AND TELEVISION)
PRINT AND OUTDOOR MEDIA
CINEMA
INTERNET

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION

Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites (Pena, 2004). Sometimes, the term is used as pertaining to practices which help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening rather than just how many people are listening. In some parts of the world, the resulting relative numbers are referred to as audience share, while in other places the broader term market share is used. This broader meaning is also called audience research.

This paper will briefly explore different angles to assess various methodologies and techniques in measuring audiences for broadcast media, print, cinema and internet various examples will be given to enhance the exposition of my in-depth analysis. Methodologies simply refer to the methods followed in a particular discipline which in our context is research.

Measurements are broken down by media market, which for the most part corresponds to metropolitan areas, both large and small (Buzzard, 2002). The need for audience measurement is currently largely a function of this changing media environment (Fourie 2003; Gane 1994)

METHODOLOGIES USED IN MEASURING AUDIENCES

When researcher conducts research into media audiences, they are usually interested in an entire population or universe (Kent, 1994). The nature of population differs from study to study; because the entire population is very huge researchers need to estimate the audience from the subset that is called a sample. This is called sampling and it is widely used in the field of social sciences as one of the methodologies used in estimating/measuring audiences.

The quality of a sample has tremendous influence on the accuracy of the audience measures obtained (Mytton, 1999; Kent, 994). Audience measures are to be trusted and accepted if they are based on a probability sample or a good approximation thereof.

Another methodology would be social surveys. A survey is a quantitative beats, Robert Groves (1986:389). A survey is a predominantly a quantitative methodology and the data’s are reported in a form of tables, graphs and other statistics such as frequencies, standard deviation, correlation coefficient and so forth. This essay will explain whether questionnaire survey is appropriate or not in researching media related issues or problems and conclusive premises will be given to support the chosen side.

Questionnaire survey is a versatile methodology that can be applied in a variety of context to investigate multiple of topics, it is a matter of asking question to people and expecting answers from them for data. Questionnaire survey is not appropriate to many research topics and might not be the best approach to study some of the topics to which is sometimes applied for example research on media audience issues

TECHNIQUES USED IN MEASURING AUDIENCES FOR BROADCASTING, PRINT, OUTDOOR, CINEMA AND INTERNET MEDIA.

BROADCASTING MEDIA (RADIO AND TELEVISION)

Under broadcasting media which are radio and television sampling can be applied as one of the technique to find or to measure the existing audience. It can be easy to measure television audience in contrast to radio due to the fact that the unique nature of radio makes it to be complex and difficult (Twyman, 1994)

The measurement of television audiences has graduated from the conventional and relatively simple method of surveys and diaries to metering (Kent, 1994). The technical characteristics of the television makes it ideally suited for metering. Meters are very good because they provide us with both the details and precision required in the commercialised television industry.

For an example peoplemeter panels have become the universal standard method for measuring television audiences in more than 70 countries (Gill, 200). Households in case of peoplemeters are studied over a long period of time using sample provided (Danaher & Balnaves, 2002). However audio metering was first introduced on radio before television.

Under broadcasting media one can also talk about social survey since it is applicable to both radio and television questionnaires survey is one of the oldest and best known ways of investigating social phenomena, such as audience behaviours (Kent, 1994) questionnaire surveys can either be self-administered or completed by means of interview.

When it comes to self-administered survey that is where an audience will answer the question asked by the researchers perhaps online or on a piece of form allow without anyone’s input. In terms of interview TV and radio listeners can be called for observable interview or though telephone interview.

Diaries can also be used in measuring broadcast media. The diary is another self-report method widely employed in measuring audiences in an attempt to overcome the lack of accuracy associated with social surveys. Diaries are distinguished by the fact that they capture data on audience behaviour on an individual basis over a period of time (Kent 1994). In most cases respondents are instructed to record a particular form of behaviour (e.g. listening to the radio and/or watching television) every time that it occurs within a given period – often a week, two weeks or longer.

PRINT AND OUTDOOR MEDIA

There is consequently similar pressure on the print industry as on the broadcasting industries for detailed, valid and reliable readership data. Here also, readership estimates have become the “currency” for the trading of advertising.

For print media the audience size of a newspaper or magazine is usually measured in terms of the average issue readership, which is the number of different people that reads a particular issue averaged across issues (coverage). It is necessary to establish the regularity or frequency of their reading (frequency). Frequency is usually indicated by the probability of contact with a particular issue. Frequency will usually correlate with other features of the audience. It will, for example, be more likely that people who purchase or subscribe to a particular newspaper or magazine would be regular readers.

In the absence of electronic metering devices for measuring readership, readership research is mostly dependent on more traditional research methodologies and techniques (Brown 1994): Face-to-face interviews – Both qualitative and quantitative interviews are employed in readership research. However, it is seldom possible to involve adequately representative samples in the case of qualitative interviews. For instance structured questionnaire interviews are consequently employed to obtain comparative national data for the most important publications published in a particular country. Personal interviewing conducted by fieldworkers whether qualitative and/or quantitative.

When measuring both outdoor media and print media questionnaire surveys as already indicated, can be used, various types of surveys have become commonplace in readership research. Although telephone surveys are widely used in the USA and Europe since they have limitations in developing countries Brown (1994).

Under print media readership surveys are associated with a number of techniques, namely: “Through-the-Book” (TTB), “Recent reading” (RR), “First Reading Yesterday” (FRY). “Through-the-Book” (TTB) − this is one of the oldest techniques, but is currently in limited use. The technique involves that interviewers show respondents a particular issue of a newspaper or magazine, taking them through it page by page. “Recent reading” (RR) − this technique is different from TTB in the sense that it relies on respondents recalling of having read any issue of a particular publication rather than on the recognition of a particular issue. “First Reading Yesterday” (FRY) − respondents are questioned on the newspapers and magazines that they saw “yesterday”, that is the day before the interview. (Smith, 1995)

In outdoor media for many European countries, audiences for posters are measured in terms of the number and frequency of people that pass the sites where the posters are displayed as well as whether posters are well-positioned for visibility to create opportunities for passers-by to see them. Cover and frequency are often estimated on information about the travel habits of a probability sample of inhabitants. The geographical area involved may be a town, city and/or larger area, even a country as a whole. Typically, respondents are questioned about their journeys in the recent past – the 34 previous day, the last few days or the latest week.

CINEMA

Since its emergence as a commercial medium at the beginning of the 20th century, cinema has captured the hearts of audiences all over the word (Chilton & Butler 1994). However, whereas going to the cinema used to be the social event of the week, cinema lost its grip on audiences with the advent of television in the 1950s. Since the mid-1980s, however, cinema regained some of its popularity due to sustained efforts to produce quality films and investment in new and refurbished cinema venues

Methods and techniques that are employed in measuring cinema audiences (Chilton & Butler 1994) includes: Cinema admissions, Audience Composition, Audience by Film. Under Cinema admission this is where number of ticket disseminated will be counted to get the precise data. In terms of Audience composition, questionnaire surveys are the acknowledged method to conduct research on the composition of cinema audiences. Questions on cinema-going are usually included in large-scale national surveys and focus on the following: frequency and recency of cinema-going as well as information on the particular films that respondents recently saw. Apart from information on the composition of cinema audiences in general, information on the audiences of particular films is also needed by both the advertising and cinema industries. There are manifold reasons for this need. Child audiences are, for example, more important and more active during school holidays; this is therefore called Audience by film

INTERNET

Internet is a mass medium. According to Webster and Lin (2002), the visiting of an internet website can be thought of as a kind of mass media behaviour similar to reading a particular newspaper, choosing a particular television and/or programme to watch and/or listening to a particular radio station.

According to Danaher and Balnaves (2002), there are currently two converging approaches to the measurement of internet audiences: a site-centric and a user-centric approach. In the site-centric approach, all internet traffic going through a particular server is monitored. For example, in the case of a university website, every time somebody goes to view it, the call to the server is logged and counted. It seems very simple. However, apart from the fact that this method does not provide any information on audience composition, there is a lot of bogus internet traffic out there.

In the user-centric approach, major global ratings companies are currently using internet measurement software as a data collection method (Danaher & Balnaves 2002; Webster et al 2006). This system is predominantly home-based. A selected panel of respondents − usually very large panels with several thousands of respondents are requested to download software to monitor online web and other internet activities. When a panellist access their internet browser, a drop-down menu comes up with the name of each member of the household aged two or older.

CONCLUSION

Audience measurement involves complex and expensive endeavours; I found out that there are different methodologies and techniques in measuring audiences of various mediums such as surveys, sampling and also the use of new media technologies such as metering devices. I manage to explore different angle to try and find out how this measuring techniques work and I can conclude by saying that some of them are very much effective whereas others are not

REFERENCES

Fourie, P.J (ed). 2009 . Media studies. Volume 3: media content and media audiences. Cape Town: Juta

Fourie, P.J(ed). 2007 . Media studies: Media History, Media and Society, 2nd Ed. USA: Thompson Wadworth

Chari, T.J. 2002. Global Media Structures. Harare: ZOU

Brown, M. 1994. Estimating newspaper and magazine readership, in measuring media audiences, edited by R Kent. London: Routledge: 105-145.

Buzzard, KSF. 2002. The people meter wars: a case study of technological innovation and diffusion in the ratings industry. Journal of Media Economics 10(4):273-291.

Chilton, R & Butler, P. 1994. Measuring cinema audiences, in measuring media audiences, edited by R Kent. London: Rutledge: 177-195.

Danaher, P & Balnaves, M. 2002. The future of ratings measurement. Media International Australia 105, November: 40-48.

Fourie, PJ. 2003. The future of public broadcasting in South Africa: the need to return to basic principles. Communication 29(1&2): 148-181.Friedman

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• Hochschule: University of Venda
• Veranstaltung: Media studies
• Autor: Lutendo Nendauni (Autor:in)
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2014
• Seiten: 7
• Katalognummer: V351440
• ISBN (eBook): 9783668381513
• ISBN (Buch): 9783668381520
• Sprache: Englisch
• Schlagworte: audience measurment, print media, media, tv