Be Careful with Results of AP "Survey"

I saw the headline, "AP About to Release Results of Young Media Consumers Survey," and immediately thought that this is the kind of the thing I should be blogging about. I took a look at the article, which explains that young media savvy consumers have no media consumption rituals and that they often get their news information via e-mail (as opposed to the Internet). The article also noted that the survey found similarities between young media consumers in America, India, England, etc.

Just one problem. They only "surveyed" 18 people living in six different countries or regions! That's not a survey -- it's a questionnaire given out to some friends. How can you possibly draw any conclusions between habits of people in different countries when -- at most -- 12 people are from that country? The Baron usually doesn't focus too much on methodology, but this has to be a typo. It's completely absurd.

No comments:

Post a Comment