How to evaluate emotional experiences in television drama series: Improving viewer evaluations by psychophysiological measurements and self-reports

This paper describes experiences with new methodological approaches utilized in early viewer evaluations of a public service television drama series. We would like to challenge self-reports as the only source of data in viewer evaluations of television drama series. Based on two viewer evaluation studies of drama series, we outline the results and pros and cons of electroencephalography (EEG, EMOTIV Epoc, 14 channels) and skin conductance (SC, varioLAB-mini) measurements tested in combination with in-depth interviews and written self-reports. The main contribution within this study is how a one-hour television drama can be measured in an applied research setting. We suggest a research design consisting of skin conductance measurements combined with written self-reports as the preferred method for viewer evaluations of television drama series.