The latest “Summary of Current Readership Research�, compiled by Erhard Meier for the Florence symposium shows that the overwhelming majority of national readership surveys use traditional interview methods such as face to face interviews or, at a lower degree, telephone interviews, as unique data collection method. The same observation can be made when looking at the techniques employed for special target surveys, such as businessmen … and women. However, both methods are confronted to a certain number of problems, which potentially create biases, which may affect the accuracy of the readership measurement. It seems that these problems are increasing with time. Personal in home interviewing faces increasing reject from potential respondents meanwhile interviewers have to struggle more and more in order to get access to flats in urban zones. Is it therefore still reasonable – either for methodological and/or financial reasons – to continue with personal in home interviews in urban areas such as Paris or London ?

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