audience, population, market, and so forth will be used interchangeablely in this chapter). Questions that then arise as to why this radio show is slotted at midnight, or why  this  feature  is  being  reproduced  regularly  in  your paper, will have a strong answer. This might not seem like such an important question to worry about, but remember, whether we are managing an NBS outlet, a base  or  ship  newspaper  or  a  public  affairs  office, credibility is paramount. Answering a query on why the news hour is set at 5 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. may then be backed  up  with  hard  data.  This  will  prevent  the rumormongers  of  the  world  from  supposing  the  earlier time slot is to let your news team off earlier in the day. An   audience   survey   can   provide   valuable information that fits into five categories. They are as follows: l l l l l Determining  the  approximate  size  of  the “potential”  or  “available”  audience Defining  the  viewing/listening/reading/thinking habits  of  the  audience Identifying  possible  program/personnel/policy changes Identifying the demographics of your “typical” audience  member Demonstrating the public image of your shop as a  provider  of  information/entertainment TYPES OF SURVEYS Learning  Objective:  Recognize  the  various  types  of audience  surveys. It is often assumed your base or station’s audience is a typical group of military people. What is that? Is this base an OUTUS duty station and, therefore, home for a larger percentage of women because they are serving their sea time? What percentage of families on your base has children? Is there a limit to family size for this type of duty station? The list can truly be endless with these types of questions, but with basic knowledge of your particular situation, you will get a feel of what questions are pertinent for your area and which ones are not. The important thing is to know your audience. This section offers ways of gathering audience data that are often overlooked  as  well  as  more  traditional  collection techniques. INFORMAL  SURVEYS Surveying  for  every  piece  of  information  is  costly, time consuming and often unnecessary. It is unnecessary because  the  data  may  already  be  compiled  for  you.  As an example, the question of how many children are there on your base and what are their ages is a legitimate question for a number of reasons. Suppose you want to invest the time to produce a children’s show for Saturday mornings, or say you would like to know the possible crowd size for a children’s event you are planning for the weekend of the military child. Your knowing how many likely participants or viewers is a must. This type of information is already available to you if you are dealing with military or DoD personnel. Public  opinion  researchers  call  this  information “aggregate data,” and it is defined as information already onhand about the individuals within the audience with which we are concerned. The alpha listing at your local administration section can be made available to you and will  list  all  of  the  military  members  of  your  command along  with  their  social  security  numbers  and  addresses. Depending  on  the  relationship  with  your  command  data processing and administration offices, you might be able to further break the data on the individuals into various categories that are of interest to you, such as married, single,  number  of  dependents,  living  location,  rank,  and soon. All of this type of data is “raw,” meaning you are simply  finding  out  basic  demographics  about  the population   with   which   you   are   dealing.   General demographics of ships and military installations are easy to obtain.  Demographics of foreign populations are questions  you  must  clear  with  your  chain  of command before attempting to discern. Realize,  there are special concerns for the military person trying to do research on foreign populations. Content Analysis Content analysis has been defined as a technique for making  inferences  (educated  guesses)  by  systematically and  objectively  identifying  specified  characteristics  of messages.  Press  clippings  and  broadcast  monitor reports, all available from commercial services, have long been used as the basis for content analysis within the  journalist  paradigm.  Remember,  content  analysis only provides data on what is being said or printed. It does not provide any indication of what your audience is actually viewing, reading or thinking. Content analysis has often been criticized as nothing more than research into what editors and publishers think. Jimmy Carter’s election win in 1976 is a good 9-2