ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the performance of three commonly used types of questions – open-ended, check-all and forced choice – for capturing retrospective online news exposure, combining both survey and web-tracking data. It examines the performance of these different survey questions considering both systematic and random error in two unexplored non-US contexts: Spain and the UK. Results show that the check-all question produces on average the most accurate – i.e. less biased – estimates of observed exposure. Some motivational and cognitive factors underlying bias in self-reports are explored. Findings reveal that the characteristics of outlets are associated with systematic error. Finally, we find that media systems matter for accuracy – where media fragmentation is high (Spain), accuracy is low across all questions; where it is low (UK), accuracy is high across all questions. In the final section, we highlight the methodological and theoretical contributions of our study and provide some recommendations.

摘要

本文评估了三种常用类型的问题——开放式、全选和强制选择——结合调查和网络跟踪数据来捕捉回顾性在线新闻曝光的表现。它检查了这些不同调查问题在两个未探索的非美国环境中的系统误差和随机误差的表现：西班牙和英国。结果表明，检查所有问题平均产生了对观察到的暴露的最准确（即偏差较小）的估计。探索了一些潜在的自我报告偏见的动机和认知因素。研究结果表明，网点的特征与系统误差有关。最后，我们发现媒体系统对准确性很重要——在媒体碎片化程度高的地方（西班牙），所有问题的准确性都很低；低的地方（英国），所有问题的准确性都很高。在最后一部分，我们强调了我们研究的方法和理论贡献，并提供了一些建议。