Sampling Techniques Reveal Media Psychology the First

¶ … Sampling Techniques Reveal

Media Psychology

The first study of focus regards perceptions of news media bias and how individual and interpersonal factors affect those perceptions. The sampling method used in this study is non-probability. The researchers worked in conjunction with an international marketing company. The company contacted a massive quantity of people via mail inquiring for participation via mail and via telephone; they had more than 500, 000 participants. The researchers and the international marketing company solicited people based on census data so as to reach intentionally reach & sample a diverse population of participants. They collected data using surveys and questionnaires. The authors were concerned with drawing participants across levels of income, gender, race, and marital status. They made more than one adjustment to their sample group before sending out the questionnaires. They used the census data to draw on populations across age, population density and household size.

The method they used is called the stratified quota sample method. If they had also considered incorporating data from Nielsen ratings, their study could have used probability sample methods, too. In fact, if somehow they had access to data that reflected news media consumption by topic and by method, probability sample methods could have provided them with a lot of useful and interesting data regarding perception of news media bias. People who consume certain types of media and certain quantities of media would be more predisposed to perceiving news media bias than people who consume little news media or a single form of news media. Incorporating such data would make the sampling procedures more rigorous; the data would provide a clearer and wider context within which they understand their conclusions.

The second study of focus is about inferences of political attitudes and behavior. The sampling method used in this study is probability. The researchers establish the tradition of face-to-face interviewing of probability samples. They discuss how technology, specifically communication technology has affected or skewed interview probability sampling since 1970. They investigated two simultaneous surveys with political questions rating attitudes on scales. They studied identical questionnaires in two different sampling methods and they studied all the questions about the same topic in comparable ways. They primarily collected their data through face-to-face interviews. The researchers admit that the sample did not adequately represent the population. The researchers feel this way because though much of the data was collected face-to-face, the data they were most interested in came from the Internet, where user demographics can be much harder to accurately determine. Perhaps in this case, random sampling would have helped this study. They already got a little bit of a random sampling from their Internet participants. Random sampling may have also provided a clear or wide political attitude spectrum upon which they could evaluate their findings.