In this essay
I will describe and investigate the advantages and disadvantages of different
research techniques and show an understanding of the nature and purposes of research.
Also, to be able to present results of research in the creative media
industries. There are lots of different types of research including: primary
and secondary, audience, market and production research and qualitative and
quantitative research. Primary research is a group of original data that
researchers have to look for, for example, questionnaires, audio recordings and
in depth interviews.
Primary research is often used when in an
interview and is more reliable because the researcher has to look for his own
information. For example an in depth interview consists of open questions,
which gives the researcher a wide range of answers and information from the
interviewee. Advantages of this type of primary research is that you can interview
and research what and who you want and in your own time. May. T (2002) “the
interviewer is freer to probe beyond the in a manner which would be appear
prejudicial to the aims of standardization and comparability. Information about
age, sex, occupation, type of household and so on, can be asked in a
standardized format. The interviewer, who can seek both clarification about
elaboration on the answers given, can then record qualitative information about
the topic” This quote relates to what I said, it shows that by interviewing
another person, the information given from the interviewee could be beyond your
expectations.
Secondary Research is different to primary
research. Where as primary research is information taken from an interviewer or
a questionnaire, secondary research is already existing information. RAJAR a reliable website that shows how
many listeners are listening to a radio station. It is very up to date and gets
updated every week or so, which what makes it reliable information. This is a method of collecting data that has already
been collected by some one else. This consists of getting information from
books, magazines, journals, newspapers etc.
McQueen and Knussen (2002) states “The
scope of secondary data will often exceed what the individual might achieve on
their own” This is showing that secondary research is useful, quicker and
easy to research, however the information you find may not be as reliable as
primary research; but doing secondary research is better than doing no research
at all.
Audience research is a type of research that
categorizes the people the product is aimed at. ‘BARB’ shows the viewing
figures of different television programmes each week. It is very useful to
advertisers in terms of audiences, as it gives numerical data and advertisers
can quantify the audience. They can look how many people are watching a certain
a programme and where to put an advert at the right time. It is important for
advertisers to get the advert in the right place at the right time. For
example, an advert about a piece of furniture would be placed on TV in the mid evening
schedule in between soap operas, as the whole family at this time will be
watching the TV and the target audience at this time would be potentially
married or single people. Haralambos and Holborn (2008) states “Audience analysis. This approach overcomes
some of the problems of earlier approaches by focusing on the mass media” This
quote supports what iv shown, as it proves that audience research is very
useful to market researchers because without the research, market researchers
will find harder to find the audience analysis.
Qualitative
research is a source of non-numeric data and a text-based source of information
where as quantitative research is the opposite. Quantitative research is type of numerical data. Research companies
like BARB are useful to market researchers as it shows the viewing figures of
specific television programmes. Different researchers use this information and
put them into bar charts, graphs etc. Market researchers, may feel that
quantitative research is useful and easy for them to get to get information
for, as well as this, researches may think that it is a very reliable source of
information. McQueen and Knussen (2002) state, “Discourse analysis is carried out using either a piece of text,
transcript of spoken words, and it can be combined with other qualitative
methods.” This supports what I have shown because; quantitative research
may be used in different ways but can be used in other methods of research like
qualitative research; it isn’t what is said, it is how it is said.
Qualitative research is a text based source of
information and different to quantitative research because this type of research
is non-numeric. Qualitative, is a source of primary research, so it is very
reliable. Semi structured interviews are often used as a type of qualitative
research in open questions. This could help in any lots of different types of
interviews such as: Structured, semi structured and grouped interviews. McQueen
and Knussen (2002) state, “Structural questions which invite the
interviewee to explain how things happen”. The quote took from Mcqueen and
Knussen supports what I have shown. This is because it shows that if the
interviewer asks structured questions that have been said or written in depth,
you will get relatively structured answers from the interviewee. This will be
useful because, instead of getting simple answers like yes or no, an in depth
answer gives you more of an idea of what the person thinks and understand a bit
more about there views on that particular subject.
Production research is research that looks into
all the different issues that is within making a product. For example, when
making a television programme such as Made in Chelsea, you would have to look
into the issues of copyright, location, facilities, financial and the set dates
and times you have been given. Copy write issues could be for example, using a
company in the programme like ‘McDonald’s’
or another brand without their permission. In a television programme like ‘Made in Chelsea’, or the ‘The only way is Essex’, if you get
caught for copy write, the company responsible will cause many difficulties and
could also affect the company’s deadline. When making a production or
television programme, the importance of all the paperwork involved is extremely
essential. Recces, call sheets and production schedules are important, as well
as the risk assessments, the cast and crew and equipment used. If the company
is caught copy writing, it could end the production due the fines they need to
pay, with just a little mistake like copywriting a lot of paperwork gets
involved when its not really needed. So it’s the company’s responsibility to
make sure they avoid copy write.
Marketing research involves researching what
the audience are interesting in. One of the most useful market research
websites would be RARJAR. RAJAR surveys are used to find out how circulation
figures each radio station has; this is useful for market researchers because
they can see which radio station has more viewers and will help to find out
which radio station the listeners prefer.
Megan
Duffield
Bibliography
Haralambos and Holborn. Seven edition
Sociology – (2008)
May. T (2002) Social Research. Open
University Press, Buckingham.
McQueen and Knussen (2002) Research
Methods for Social Science, an introduction. Prentice Hall. London.
