Mass Media Research: An Introduction, 8th Edition Instructor’s Manual (стр. 9 )

Suppose that you are a researcher who wants to know the relationship between viewing violent TV programs and adolescents’ perceptions toward school life. You randomly select subjects from metropolitan cities and small towns. You hypothesize that heavy viewing of violent TV programs may negatively affect adolescents’ perceptions toward school life. However, your findings show the totally opposite. (Heavy viewers of violent TV program show less negatively perceived school life than light viewers exposed to those programs.) What further analysis might you do? Why? A researcher tries to find out how parents’ income and teachers’ skill affect elementary students’ learning the Internet. A 2 X 2 ANOVA was used to investigate the above topic. Parents’ income was divided into high income and low income. Teachers’ ability was divided into high skill and low skill. In this case, what effects should you consider in interpreting how the two independent variables affect the dependent variable?

Chapter 13 - Research in the Print Media

Overview

This chapter focuses on the historical background of print media research, and examines the several types of research methods used by newspapers and magazines. Much of the early research in newspapers and magazines was qualitative in nature. As the importance of readership emerged, quantitative research techniques became common in print media research. The reasons for this trend were (1) the growing availability of basic data; (2) the development of more sophisticated research tools; and, (3) the increase in institutional support for research.

Since 1960, newspapers and magazines were competing with other media such as television and radio for audience attention and advertiser investment. This situation greatly spurred the growth of private sector research. Most newspapers with a circulation of at least 100,000 now have an in-house research department. With the advent of diverse media in a market, the importance of research in newspaper and magazine companies is increasing as they try to get more profit. Moreover, the advent of online newspapers and magazines has prompted a new research area as traditional newspaper and magazines try to assess the competition from the Internet and examine how on-line versions relate to the traditional papers.

Newspaper and magazine researchers conduct six basic types of studies: 1) readership; 2) circulation; 3) management; 4) typography/makeup; 5) readability; and, 6) online media use. Research into newspaper readership is composed primarily of five types of studies: reader profiles, item-selection studies, reader-nonreader studies, uses and gratifications studies, and editor-reader comparisons. Readership research provides a newspaper company with data about who reads a publication, what items are read, and what gratification the readers get from their choices. Circulation studies examine the penetration levels of newspapers and magazines in various markets as well as various aspects of the delivery and pricing systems. It also investigates the effect on readership or subscription rates or variables that are unrelated to a publication’s content.

Due to expanded holdings in newspaper companies and increased media competition, management research has been a growing area. Through management research, newspaper companies obtain valuable data on management, organizational structure, employee job satisfaction, and effects of competition and ownership on newspaper content. Typography and make up research measures the effects of news design elements--particularly typeface and page makeup. Using this approach, researchers have tested the effects of different typography and makeup elements, including amount of white space, presence of paragraph headlines, size and style of type. Readability research considers the sum total of all the elements and their interactions that affect the successes of a piece of printed material. Several formulas (Flesch reading ease formula, Fog Index, SMOG Grading, Cloze procedure) provide researchers with valuable information about the reading difficulty of a document.

Qualitative methods are becoming increasingly common in print media research and are often used to pretest version of new publications.

Finally, on-line newspapers and magazines are relatively recent phenomenon. Diverse approaches are needed to get more information about online versions of printed media.

Exercises

Select your local newspaper or university magazine. Using Item-Selection studies, try to find the relationships between readership and particular items. See if the owner of your local newspaper has a research department. If so, invite the research director to speak to the class about the publication’s research efforts.

Multiple Choice

Newspaper and magazine researchers usually conduct all the following types of studies except:

a)  Readership

b)  Circulation

c)  Management

d)  Government policy

Research into newspaper readership is composed primarily of the following types of studies except:

a)  Reader profiles

b)  Reader-non reader studies

c)  Cultivation effects

d)  Uses and gratification studies

A growing research area in the last two decades has been newspaper management practices. What makes this area grow?

a)  Newspaper companies reduced heir holdings

b)  Media competition became more intense

c)  Media managers are very popular jobs for college students

d)  Government tried to protect media industry from foreign ownership with strong regulations

To measure readability, researchers use several formulas such as:

a)  Fog Index

b)  Likert scale

c)  Interquartile Range

d)  Holsti’s percentage of agreement

Which statement below is an example of the findings of typographical research?

a)  A smooth surface, or topography, is most pleasing to read

b)  Small illustrations attract more readers than do large ones

c)  Roman type can be read more quickly than other faces

d)  Readers prefer to read type set in Italics

Which of the following techniques for using research in journalism did Philip Meyer develop?

a)  Database journalism

b)  Spreadsheet journalism

c)  Precision journalism

d)  Valid journalism

True/False

Newspaper and magazine research became more empirical because of the growing availability of basic data, the development of more sophisticated research tools, and the increase in institutional support for research. (T) The item-selection study is used to determine who reads specific part of the paper. (T) A uses and gratifications study is used to study all media content in order to understand readers’ motives and personal and psychological reward. (T) Circulation research investigates the effect on readership or subscription rates of variables that are unrelated to a publication’s content. (T) Magazine readership research tends not to use online reader panels because of small number of participants. (F)

Fill in the Blank

A (reader profile) provides a demographic summary of the readers of a particular publication. (Readability) is the sum total of all the elements and their interactions that affect the success of a piece of printed material. The (SMOG) grading is quick and easy to calculate: The researcher merely selects 10 consecutive sentences near the beginning of the text, 10 from the middle, and 10 from the end, and then counts every word of three or more syllables and takes the square root of the total. (Psychographic studies) usually ask readers to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with a large number of attitudinal statements. (Editor-reader comparisons), a group of editors is questioned about a certain topic, and their answers are compared to those of their readers to see whether there is any correspondence between the two groups.

Short Answer

1.  Discuss how the online version of newspaper relates to the traditional paper.

2.  What is lifestyle segmentation research?

3.  Discuss why newspaper management research is growing.

4.  Virtually all newspaper advertisers place their advertising in newspapers without ever conducting research about the quality of the ads or the types of messages the ads convey to readers. Why do you think this is true?

5.  What techniques could be used to study the lifestyles of online newspaper readers?

Chapter 14 - Research in the Electronic Media

Overview

The chapter describes the importance of research in the electronic media by introducing ratings and non-ratings research in chapter 14. Since radio became a popular mass medium in the 1930s, broadcast research has developed dramatically in sophistication and volume. When commercials began airing on radio stations and radio began to attract large audiences, advertisers naturally wondered how many listeners were exposed to their messages and how effective the messages were. It became the responsibility of broadcasters to provide empirical data about the size and characteristics of their audience.

However, advertisers and broadcasters quickly realized that they could not get accurate information about audience size and lifestyle patterns, and more information and precise data were needed. To respond to this demand, two companies (Nielsen Media Research & Arbitron) provided local television stations, local cable systems, advertisers, their agencies, and radio stations with ratings data by means of several methods of data collection: audimeter, diary, telephone coincidental, and the people meter.

There has always been controversy about broadcast ratings because of many uncertainties about measurements of audience size and their characteristics. However, until further refinements are made, ratings as they currently exist will remain the primary decision-making tool in programming and advertising.

In the rating research section, the chapter discusses how to understand the ratings and interpret terminologies such as Rating, Share, Cost Per Thousand, Metro Survey area, Average quarter-hour, etc.