Readership research: the ideal survey - a suggested design

Alan Smith

Paper given at the International Readership Symposium in Hong Kong, February 1991. The author proposes an `ideal' readership survey which could be piloted to provide a template across countries.

The ideal readership survey

- a suggested design

Alan Smith

Developing the ideal readership survey... two functions (defining a media 'product', and providing a basis for planning and trading).... linking exposure with 'valued' readers, creative variables and time effects.

Media researchers often forget that advertising is essentially a very simple activity - large scale talking to people. Hence in drawing up the objective for the ideal readership survey, we need only to think about the various ingredients, those which judgement suggests are likely to influence the impact of any conversation. This overall objective can be expressed as follows:

"The...

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