To summarize, though:

the Japanese sample exceeds 5,000 ads collected in six one-month waves over the course of the past decade.

The basis of each wave is the systematic construction of an "ideal week". These weeks are built out of one month of four hour broadcast blocks for each 20 hour broadcast day on each of the four nationally-affiliated non-commercial stations broadcast in Sendai, Japan.

• Sendai is the most populous urban center in Northern Honshu, the largest of Japan's 4 islands

Following recording, each block is:

• assigned a number

• then, utilizing a random number chart, placed in its appropriate position
  • i.e. in terms of day of the week and time

• this is done until all blocks during the seven days of that ideal week are filled in

From this 7-day pool, every ad is extracted and dubbed onto a "second-generation" tape

A team of 3 to 5 trained researchers then undertakes a qualitative content analysis of these ads

• Coding is structured, adhering to a coding sheet possessing more than 80 codes
  • These codes have been developed inductively over the course of the decade

Comparable American and Malaysian samples have also been assembled

• This data appears only on these pages in passing

• Moreover, these data sets are comprised of less numerous waves

• nonetheless, they adhered to roughly the same method of sampling, set-building, coding and analysis

• Both of these data sets number in the hundreds