Assessing reception and individual responses to media messages: relevance, computer techniques, quality and analysis of Real-Time Response Measurements (RTR–M)

Abstract

Media messages have an important impact on political attitudes and behavior. Hence, the question arises - how is media content received at an individual level? This question is difficult to investigate with the social science research methods currently available. Measuring an individual’s real-time reaction to auditory or visual media content using computers, i.e. real-time response (RTR) measurement, can be a fruitful approach to address the question. This article describes various RTR techniques, discusses the reliability and validity of RTR measurements and outlines strategies on how to analyze RTR data.