Research Techniques

Research Techniques

Types of Research

Research is crucial in the creative media industry as it can be used to see if your product is financially viable, and it can be used to find a range of information relevant to the content you are creating. Finally research can aid with planning of technical requirements for a production.

Primary Research

There are lots of different types of research methods that a researcher has at his/ her disposal. Primary research is research that you undertake yourself. Primary research can be collected in a multitude of ways such as: questionnaires, interviews, observations, focus groups and media analysis. Some of these categories can even be broken down even more. For example there is participant observation which means observation that you take part in, and there are closed questionnaires and open questionnaires. Closed questionnaires are questionnaires which normally only provide a couple of possible answers. Whereas open questionnaires allow the respondent to elaborate on their answers as much as possible and go into detail. Primary research that I have undergone in this unit could be the questionnaires which I created. An example of a cinema research company could be Dodona Research (www.dodona.co.uk). Dodona research describes themselves as ‘a research and consulting firm specialising in the cinema industry’.  

Secondary Research

Secondary research is research that has been found by someone else. So essentially it is when you use someone else’s research. The main ways of collecting secondary research are by: using internet sources, reading books and journals, using archives, and through contacting organisations.  The main internet source that was used to help me find secondary data was the website IMDB (www.imdb.com). IMDB stands for internet movie database, and provides endless amounts of information about all things filmic. An example of a research organisation that works in radio could be RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research). RAJAR (www.rajar.co.uk ) are the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is research collected in the form of numbers. It allows the researcher to find patterns and trends in their results. A good way to undertake quantitative research is by creating closed questionnaires. Closed questionnaires are questionnaires which only have a few possible answers. These questionnaires enable the researcher to get standardised results which are particularly numerical. A company who do use quantitative research methods could be Cult Movie Research (www.cultmovieresearch.com) who have questionnaires with closed questions on their website. For the Tv advertisement assignment we created questionnaires to gather peoples opinions on our advert, this is an example of quantitative reasearch.  This type of question is particular good for gathering quantitative research as it produces results which can easily be collected numerically.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is research that is in the form of words or in written form, this is normally because the research is hard to express numerically. Qualitative research includes material like film reviews and fan blogs. People’s opinions are normally conveyed in qualitative research. For example if a question in a questionnaire asks ‘why’ it will be a qualitative research method. Websites such as Rotten Tomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com) provide qualitative research in their film reviews. Also qualitative research could be questionnaires which require long written sentences to answer them. A good example of qualitative research is the question shown above.

Data Gathering Agencies

BARB (Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board, www.barb.co.uk ) is a prime example of a data gathering agency. BARB provides official viewing figures for UK television audiences. BARB is important because they can assess how well various programmes or channels have performed. A data gathering agency that deals with films could be Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com). Box Office Mojo has a large array of information and data which can be accessed. It has information on films profit and movie release dates. Finally, RAJAR as described previously, are a gathering agency that deals with radio listeners. They find out how many people tune in to certain radio stations at certain times.

Purposes of Research

Audience and Market research

Audience and market research looks to find: consumer attitudes and behaviour (trends), information about competition and competitors, views and ideologies, and supply and demand for a certain form of media e.g. a film. When conducting market research you have to consider demographics (statistical characteristics of a population). For example, when trying to market a film you have to consider who your target audience is, this is where demographics come in. When considering your target audience you have to think about: gender, age, race, subcultures, class, religion and Geographic’s (where people live) as these are all attributes that can effect who will go and see your movie. People’s beliefs and values can also effect who will go and see your film, e.g. someone who believes in passivism isn’t probably going to want to watch a martial arts or action film. A market researching company could be Ibis World (www.ibisworld.co.uk ) who conduct cinema research.  

Production research

Before creating a film or any form of media you have to consider a variety of different things. This is where research comes in. Production research is research which deals with everything involved with a films production. The following are areas which are researched in production research:

Content- Finding out whether the films content is going to be appreciated by the target audience.

Viability- Discovering whether or not the production is likely to succeed.

Placement media- Researching to find out which time and which places are best to advertise in. For example if you are creating a horror film you would research into what TV shows you should advertise the film between, and what time you should advertise it.

Cost and Finance- You would conduct research to find out a rough budget that your media product will need. You would also look into how you could finance your film. An example of a company that provides film funding could be MGM film funding. (www.mgmfunding.com )

Locations- You would look into where the best place to film your media production. Companies like film locations.com have details of film locations and there cost (www.film-locations.com).

Personnel- Finally you would research and try to find people that could help make your production. Movie Staff.com (www.moviestaff.com) is a good example of a company who have personal available to hire.

Assessing research data

Validity

When researching you would have to consider whether the information is valid. Validity is how accurately can you apply your findings to the real world. Also when dealing with validity you have to remember that people aren’t always honest and sometimes say what they think other people want to hear. For example if you were conducting interviews and asked someone ‘what’s your favourite genre of film?’ they might say ‘horror, the scarier the better’ just because they think it will impress you. Furthermore people don’t always tell the truth. These are all things that you need to consider when finding out if the information you have found is valid.

Reliability

If something is reliable it means that you can repeat the same research, under the same conditions and gain same or similar results.  When doing audience research you would compare questionnaires to see if they’re reliable.  Normally it’s difficult for qualitative data to be reliable as the information is all in written form and cannot be repeated very easily.

Representativeness and generalisability

If the research is representative it means that it portrays a true picture of the target audience. Audience research panels often are a representative type of research as they involve people from all walks of life. Generalisability is the process of applying the research to the wider population.