Readership research

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The readership research is within the media research a systematic sampling to study the structure of readers of newspapers and magazines, their reading habits and range of the print media is.

criteria

Two criteria that are necessary for readership research are the survey of the readership (readers have read or leafed through which media at which intervals) and the fluctuation of the readership. The number of readers per issue and their reading behavior on the copy and its individual pages are also determined. This also includes the reading time and frequency as well as the reading intensity and the interest of the reader.

Use

Readership research is used by the editors to check the acceptance of the editorial offer and, if necessary, to adapt the offer to the needs of the readership. Basic information for advertising within print media or for advertising the print media itself is also provided.

Methods

A wide variety of methods are used to research reading behavior. The “classic” methods are based on a survey of the readership. The disadvantage of this method is that it does not reflect actual reading behavior, but only the behavior articulated by the people interviewed. However, experience has shown that respondents can only inadequately reflect their reading behavior. The reason for this is that the act of reading is in many cases an unconscious, habitually occurring process that the interviewed readers can only remember very poorly. This means that all survey methods have a more or less limited use for the editing of a newspaper or magazine.

More modern methods try to record reading behavior without questioning readers afterwards - e. B. means of an eye-tracking camera ( eye tracking ). With this method, the eye movements of the reader during the reading act are recorded by a camera and projected onto the newspaper so that what the reader actually read in the newspaper can be determined afterwards. The disadvantages of this method lie in the great technical effort involved in collecting and evaluating reading behavior, in the lack of representativeness of the results for the entire readership due to insufficient sample numbers and in possible distortions - due to the laboratory situation of the readers observed.

The most modern method for recording reading behavior is Readerscan . In this process, the reading behavior is recorded by means of a scanning process during the reading act. The data are evaluated fully electronically, so that the data on reading behavior are available to the editorial staff just a few hours after the newspaper appears. The disadvantage of the method is that the actual reading can be recorded, but only to a limited extent is the fleeting scan of pages with the eyes.

literature

  • Tina Schneider: Outline of readership research . Theoretical foundations and empirical research . VDM, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-639-08801-4 .
  • Günther Rager et al. (Ed.): Newspaper journalism . Empirical readership research . UVK, Konstanz 2006, ISBN 978-3-89669-503-1 .
  • Hans-Erdmann Scheler: Replicas . Selected articles on readership research . Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-932247-13-2 .
  • Media terms trade journals . Frankfurt 1982, ISBN 3-7657-1178-0 .
  • Eva-Maria Hess: Methods of Readership Research . Munich 1962.