The Nature and Purposes
of Research in the
Creative Media Industries
Hope Lincoln
Methods of Research - Primary
Primary research is the research that doesn’t already exist. This can
include creating surveys and questionnaires for your target audience
to find out what they are looking for in a product. As well as these
techniques, phone interviews can also be used as primary research as
you are generating your own information.
Methods of Research - Primary
The advantages of primary research are:
• More focused research – You can do this in your own time and
although you may have a deadline, you have more time as you can
work from home which could help focus as it’s not as tight.
• Address specific research issues – This means that you can fit your
own needs. With other methods of research, you may have to dig
around a lot to find what you are looking for but with primary
research you can just go out and get the type of information without
any digging.
• Greater control – You can control how your own information is
collected. This means you don’t have to worry if you don’t
understand a certain type of survey or something as you can just
create something else.
Methods of Research - Primary
• Surveys – These are good as you can get vague ideas of what your target
audience wants and then you can build on those answers. It could also be
bad as you could build on those ideas but create something that they don’t
like as you didn’t have much to go on.
• Questionnaires – These are good as you can ask specific questions to your
audience which will make for a more successful product as you get the
answers you need in detail. The downside of these are that people may not
fill it out or put much detail into it as they could be busy and not have time
to do such things.
• Textual Analysis – This is when you will write an analysis about
something. For example, if you were creating a drama you would find an
existing show and analyse a clip of it.
This would help as it would give the producer more of an insight of what
they have to create.
Methods of Research - Secondary
Secondary research is the collecting and summarizing of existing
information. This can be anything from statistics to newspapers.
Journals and magazines can also be counted as they include opinions
and views.
Methods of Research - Secondary
The advantages of secondary research are:
It will take up less effort and time as the information is already
there to be found. Secondary research is probably more popular
as the work has pretty much already been done, it just takes a bit
of digging to get what is needed.
Another good thing about secondary research is that you will be
able to find what you are looking for. If a producer needed
information for something, they would be able to Google it and
they would be able to find it easily is they were specific in their
search.
Methods of Research - Secondary
Newspapers are a good place to find secondary information as a
lot of people will send in reviews and opinions to get their point
across. This means you would never be short of this
information. A downside is a lot of people don’t send in serious
reviews which could make it difficult to find correct
information.
Magazines are also a good way of finding the same
information, making it an easy way to get professional opinions.
A bad thing about this is that they are often disagreed with, so if
you went with the opinions in magazines you might create an
unsuccessful product as more people wouldn’t like it.
Quantitative Research
Quantitative data is anything that can be counted. These would
include; graphs, charts and anything with numbers. This sort of data
can be gathered by asking people to fill out simple questionnaires. This
sort of research would be valuable to a director as it would let them
know what the bigger market for their product is, and they would be
able to make it more successful and popular as it is the more popular
type. To get this sort of information, you would have to ask closed
questions such as: What is your favourite genre of video game?
Statistics – Producers would be able to look at
websites such as BARB, website that gives you
quantitative information of the TV shows that have
been played over that week. It gives you the highest
ratings of the week which is good for a media
producer as they can gather inspiration from the
highest rated programmes which will help them
create a more popular product. A consequence of this
is the statistics may be out dated or not fit the
audience wanted, leading to an unpopular product.
Qualitative Research
Qualitative data is anything that you can’t put on a graph. These
things include; thoughts, feelings and opinions. You can gather this
sort of information by setting up focus groups and asking people to
fill out surveys. These things would be useful to a director as it
would let them know many different opinions on the product they
are creating and then they could try and do something to fit
everyone’s needs. The type of questions you would need to ask to
gather this information are open ones. For example: Why do you
prefer a certain genre of video games rather than others?
Articles are a popular type of qualitative research as
they express multiple opinions. A producer could look
at an article for something similar to what they’re
creating and explore the opinions and making any
changes based on them. A downside of these are that
the opinions given may not fit the producers target
audience, which could lead to them changing ideas for
no reason.
Data Gathering Agencies
Data gathering agencies are very useful to media producers as
they create primary information that can be used to find out all
different types of things such as viewer statistics. There are
many different agencies.
NRS;
NRS, which stands for National Readership Survey, is a
company which is joined between IPA (Institute of Practitioners
in Advertising), NPA (Newspaper Publishers Association), and
PPA (Periodical Publishers Association). Beginning in 1956, it
continues to provide the most respected audience research in the
UK. Over 250 major British magazines and news brands are
covered on the survey. The survey also creates new ideas –
ensuring maintenance to its high status. By configuring the most
popular news brands and magazines, the National Readership
Survey can help aspiring media producers as they can see what
is more popular with their target audience.
Data Gathering Agencies
BARB;
This stands for Broadcasters Audience Research Board. It was created
in 1981, replacing an older system to chart viewing figures.
Commissioning specialist research companies such as:
Ipsos,
MORI,
Kantar Media,
RSMB.
Together they provide the data representing the viewing charts of the
UK’s residents. BARB is owned by many different companies such as
the BBC and Channel 4. It is also partly owned by The Institute of
Practitioners in Advertising. The information charted by BARB is
essential to media producers hoping to create any type of TV show as
they can see which category and genre are most popular.
Audience Research
Audience profiling is when the producer will find out about
their audience before they begin production. This is effective as
it will help create a better fitted product as it will be something
that fits viewers. The type of information gathered will be things
such as:
- Age.
- Gender.
- Occupation.
- Financial Background.
Audience Research - Demographics
Demographics is when the chosen audience will
be classified by their socio-economic and personal
traits, such as social standing and occupation. It is
the statistical data that relates to the target
audience and separate groups with in.
This differs from geo-demographics as this is
when somebody will analyse a specific area and
look at the demographics in that concentrated
area instead of generally.
This type of audience research is useful as if a
producer is only targeting a certain type of
occupation for their product, they will be able to
do specific research on just that area instead of a
more general option.
Audience Research - Psychographics
Psychographics is information more specific than
demographics. It is when a producer will gather
more personal information – what their interests
are and what type of products they prefer. For
example, if their audience members are more
active, the producer would then try and create
something that would reflect that in their own
product.
Demographics and psychographic profiles can be
incredibly useful to producers when they are used
together because they can then produce
something for a niche audience, if that is what
they are looking for. They can do this as with a
demographic, they can look at one category like
age and then go on to explore the general interests
within that group.
Market Research
Market research is different to audience research, as instead of
looking into who they want to buy and view their product, the
media producer will look at existing products out there already.
The things that will most likely looked into, is the highest
grossing product available and what the reasons for that is and
what the most popular genre of the product they are creating is.
It is important to use this type of information in the media
industry as without it, your product is mostly
going to be unsuccessful if there is no market
or audience research done beforehand.
Production Research
Production and market research as product research is when a media
producer will gather material and content to actually develop new
products. It helps to confirm viability of products before they are
made. It also checks the availability of the product – if a product is
created that is incredibly similar to a large group of of other things,
there might not be space for it in the market as there are too many
options. Production research also helps uncover suitable recording and
production locations if they are needed.
This type of information is
important as it is all crucial to be able
to create something. If none of this is
taken into account, the points written
earlier, the product could fail
to sell as there would be no where to
film and produce, and also it could
get lost in other products if they are
too similar.