In Germany two continuous research services are available measurement the relative readership of the editorial elements in 30 major medical magazines. One service is private, the other one is part of the syndicated audience research organisation LA-MED. Both services apply, broadly speaking, the same method: The doctors are asked to mark, while reading, every editorial matter they look at in the magazine. The copies are mailed to the research institute where they are analysed. The editing house Medical Tribune, Wiesbaden, has been using the results of this research since 1976 in order to improve the quality of their publications. The editorial staff is regularly confronted to the research findings and practical consequences are drawn. The improvements mainly concern the formulation of headlines, the choice of pictures, the order in which articles are positioned through the book and, finally, the mix of topics to be treated. It has been possible over the years to draw some general conclusions out of the experiences gathered in applying this type of research to every-day-journalism.
The mapping of research data is a special type of multivariate analysis. Like segmentation or cluster-analysis it is a process of data reduction, conceived in order to reveal main structures behind a multitude of data. What distinguishes mapping from other multivariate methods is the fact that its final result does not consist in numbers . Instead of that the structures are expressed by the location of objects (or variables) in space. Mappings take advantage of the fact that we all are accustomed to read maps. The reason why the orientation by a map seems so easy lies in the fact that maps consequently apply the principle of analogy: what is distant in reality is distant on the paper too and vice versa. The principle of analogy is also the key idea behind mapping. In fact we could describe it as a means for transforming digital data into analogy-type information. Detailed numerical information on media audiences is of course necessary for the practical work of media planning. But media mappings may be useful too because they offer quick orientation and help present the media-"landscape" to people who are not familiar with the technical side of media research and media planning.