The nature and purposes of research
in the creative media industries.
Introduction
When making any kind of media production, it is very
important to do research before hand. You would need to do research on similar
products to get an idea of what kind of adverts are popular and so you would be
able to make sure that whatever your making will be suitable towards the target
audience of the product.
Primary
research
Primary research is when you find out all the information
and research in your own ways. It means you get all information straight from
the source instead of finding it after it had been published by another person.
This means you would have to conduct your own interviews and surveys to get the
information needed instead of looking in a book or on the internet.
“Primary
research is any type of research that you collect yourself.” – official
definition
An example of primary research would be a questionnaire.
A questionnaire is a good form of primary research as it allows you to write
the questions in a way in which you know you will get the best answers to help
you with creating your production. It also means that it will be peoples first
handed responses and they will not be copying the answers from other people
because it will be coming from them personally.
When planning out what kind of video we wanted to make
for the depict task, my group and I had to do our own research. For this we
looked into what kinds of videos would fit the criteria of the other videos
which are on depict and decided on who our target audience would be. My group
decided on doing ‘how much does your outfit cost’. This meant that we had to do
primary research for each of our participants to find out how much their
outfits cost and how they feel about the way wearing branded clothes has an
impact on someone’s life. To do this, we conducted small individual interviews
for each of the people in our video and took into consideration what they were
saying, which then allowed us to get a wide variety of responses to the main
question of our video.
Link to depict video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=s-yNKYFhU5c&feature=emb_title
Secondary
research
Secondary research is when you find your information
using sources which have already been published. This includes books, magazines
and posts online. It means that the information that you are getting is coming
from someone else’s point of view which could sometimes be considered to be
slightly one sided if the research is on a controversial or political subject,
so it is always best do look at a variety of sources.
“Secondary research or desk research is a research method
that involves using already existing data.”- official definition.
An example of secondary research would be going on the
internet to find information. This is a popular source of research as most
people post their discoveries and opinions on the internet which means there
would be a number of different sources you could get information from. Another example
of secondary research would be looking through a book. Books often have the answers
to things and would be a perfect example of secondary research as they have
been written by someone else. This means that the information you would be
reading hasn’t come straight from them but has still got their information
across.
A time when I had to use secondary research when making a
production would be when making my brand rebranding Prezi. For this I had to do
research into the company of unilever an then into more detail on my chosen
brand, tresesme. I had to look into the kinds of adverts they usually make and
who their products are typically aimed towards. I took time to get to know the
brand and what the company stands for to make sure that although I was
rebranding it, I was still following a similar route and not losing what their
main goals in sales are. I got all of my secondary research done by looking
online at other adverts the brand treseme had done and used webpages such as
Wikipedia to help me get a better understanding of the brand itself.
Some examples of secondary research you would find inn
the professional industry would be BARB (broadcasters audience research board)
which is a website telling what time certain programs are on and the audience
numbers, databases, newspapers, books and the internet.
I would say that using primary research would be more
helpful than using secondary research as it would allow you to be able to make
your product more suited to the target audience as you have asked them
questions and included them when making it. This could then also be seen as a
con though as it may not be as accurate of a response in comparison to a
professionally written report.
A pro of using secondary research would be the fact that
as it has been previously written and published then it is more likely going to
be accurate and true information whereas if you were to conduct primary
research, there is a chance the person you are asking is lying or hasn't completely got their facts right. A con which
both kinds of research may face could be biased answers for example if someone were
against a company, they would provide information which made the company seem
worse than it was, this means it could then be done the other way round where
someone would hype up the company even if it is not that good. This means that
when collecting both secondary and primary research, it is important for you to
collect as much data from different sources as you can to get the most accurate
results.
Quantitative
research
Quantitative research is research which is based on the
analysis of numbers in contribution of a media production. It is usually used
by doing surveys or questionnaires to be able to get a variety of responses and
a larger number to create an overall statistic from.
“Quantitative research is research measured in numbers and
usually obtained through questionnaires.”- official definition.
An example of quantitative research would be a
questionnaire. This means that the people behind the research would put out
questions to choose between, for example which tv programme is better and give
them a small selection for the participates to choose between. They would then
calculate the results from all of the people who participated to get an overall
answer to the question and use the statistics from the questionnaire to allow
them to know which tv programme is better.
When creating my own media productions, a way that I collected
quantitative research was by putting together and sending out a survey. I then
collected the information from the survey and was able to gather what was
needed to make my production. The answers amount of feedback on each of the
answers is what had an impact on the way I made changes to my production.
Here is an example of a survey I made to conduct quantitative
research - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JY8X2MY
Some examples of quantitative research in the
professional industry would be surveys, questionnaires, and interviews. These all
allow the companies collecting the information to ask a certain amount of people
the questions to get the exact amount of information which they would need to
be able to conduct any changes or be able to start creating the product knowing
it is going to be tailored to how the target audience would like it.
Qualitative
research
Qualitive research is the research to find what would be
the most fitted and suitable for your target audience and what needs to be
included in your production to fit the target audience and client requests.
Qualitative research is a method that gives more
information and is more concerned with the 'quality' of the responses than the
'quantity'- official definition.
An example of qualitative research would be to create a
survey. A survey would be a source of qualitative research as it allows the
people doing the survey to give in their feed back which can then overall help
with creating the product as you would know the kinds of things the audience
would like.
When creating a media production, I used a survey as a
way of collecting information and feedback. This allowed my target audience to
give their opinions on what they thought of my production and it allowed me to
be able to know what kinds of things they would want to see. It meant that I was
then able to tailor the product more towards them as an audience.
Here are some examples of the responses
I got-
A pro of using quantitative and qualitive research would be that it allows you to get a more personal response. It means that you are able to send it out to your exact target audience which then allows you to know the kinds of things the audience would want to see. A con of these research techniques would be that as they are allowing you to send direct sources for people to send their feedback, you may receive a lot of negative research or people may not be honest which would then mean the research would be off as it would not be true to what you expected.
Data gathering agencies
Data gathering agencies are agencies which collect
together statistics and creates a record of it. It collects data around the
consumption of certain media productions, for example television programmes, it
collects the data of when it is most popular to air a certain show and who the
target audience of it would be and when it would be best for them to watch it. A data
gathering agency is an agency that captures and records consumption of footage.
An example of a data gathering agency would be BARB. BARB
is the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. They record the statistics of
when shows are popular, who the target audience is and from that they decide
when they should be aired in order to assure they get the best viewing amount
possible.
Link to BARB website- https://www.barb.co.uk/
Audience
and marketing research
The audience is who the product is aimed towards. Marketing
is what is used to attract the audience into buying or watching their product.
The audience is any group of people who receive a media
text, and not just people who are together in the same place. The objective of
all new media marketing is to get consumers to interact with the brand,
engaging them in a way that increases awareness and correlates to sales.
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