THE QUALITY OF THE MEASUREMENT OF INTEREST IN THE POLITICAL ISSUES PRESENTED IN THE MEDIA IN THE ESS Lluís Coromina Willem E. Saris Daniel Oberski Survey Research Centre, ESADE Business School, Universitat Ramon Llull. Av. Pedralbes, 60-62. 08006 Barcelona (Spain) It is simply impossible to know all about the world by one’s own experi- ence. Therefore, the media has an important role to play in informing people about events that occur and the interpretation of these events. However, people do not have to pay attention to this information. There is a significant difference between people’s interest in a topic and fol- lowing it in the media. Given the importance of the media for opinion building in Europe, the European Social Survey (ESS) included ques- tions about the media in its questionnaire (Newton 2000). In this study we concentrate on the measurement of “Interest in Political Issues pre- sented in the Media”. In the context of political orientation, this variable plays an important role. We evaluate the quality of the measurement instrument and the compa- rability of the measures across the European countries involved in the ESS. External validity of the instrument will be studied by examining whether relationships suggested in the literature for this measure are indeed found. 1 The basis for the IPIM measure The aim of this paper is to study the quality of measurement for the “Interest in the Political Issues presented in the Media” -denoted by IPIM- and its compara- bility across countries participating in the European Social Survey (ESS) in three different rounds. The IPIM measure evaluated in this study is developed on the 1 ASK, 2008, nr 17, strony ????????? Copyright by ASK, ISSN 1234–9224