The Impact of Varying Reference Periods in Survey Questions about Media Use

Data from a representative, national sample of American adults are used to examine the impact of varying reference periods (the “past week” as opposed to a “typical week”) in survey questions about mass media use. Results from a split-sample experiment comparing the alternative question wordings suggest that providing respondents with the more specific and recent time period (i.e., the “past week”) results in significantly lower overall reports of usage across a variety of media. Results further suggest the potential atypicality of the narrower time period, which might in principle adversely affect the validity of responses, is not a serious concern.