breaking down the steps of research

• know what you want to find out. Ask your self the appropriate questions which you want answered.
• Narrow down your research - decide what media texts you will use to find out about the your subject in more detail.
• First use a very general source of knowledge (e.g. wikipedia) to get an understanding and your first peices of information. This source should lead you to pages with more deapth on the topic.
• Use double click ad planner. This allows you to see audience profiles and who/how many people use each website. Check out the statisticks to come to a conclusion about the demographic of your audience.
• Look to see if they are american websites or UK websites.
• analyse how people got to those particular websites. this tells you their interests.
• hunt for directories
• write up the research process and information you have collected.

Other forms of research

below find a list of reseach techniques I have not yet explored, followed by their benefits and draw backs:

Experiments:
This form of research could produce factual data to collect, and would give you detailed information. The more people you run the experiment with, the more reliable your out come is. For example, the results from one person can not represent everyone in their demographic.
Experimental research can be difficult to organise, as you need controlled variables and a lot of people to partake. Also, when people are taken out of their natural environment they may give different results.

participant observation:
Although this form of research allows the observer to experience the product/task first hand, it only allows them to see if it is siutable for them. An observer testing a product may not take into consideration the needs of others. For example, very short sighted people have different needs to someone with perfect vision.

rhetorical analysis:
The idea behind this research is the study of the language used in media texts. It shows what the people selling the product think of the audience. However it is not the most useful form of research because it is more interesting to find out how the audience reacts to different forms of language. It produces difficult data to collect.

Historical research:
This form of research compares old products with ones produced in the modern day, it allows you to see how asspects of it have changed over time. This could be useful when researching change in societies atitudes and how media representation has changed.

comparative analysis
This seems a very obvious form of research, it can be very useful as it gives you very specific answers. However the process of chosing products to compare is almost biast in itself. Also how many products you chose to compare will effect your results. It would be useful for audience reseach. Results from from comparative analysis are often very opinion based.

competitor:
competitor analysis gives a fuller view of the market, what you are up against, what you need to be better than and what you differ from.

one on one interviews

After carrying out a one on one interview with my class mate I have discovered the pros and cons to this technique of research. I believe it is much more effective than a questionnaire as you can get answers with much more depth to them. The data you collect can be more specific. This is a major advantage of the research, however the answers may not be completely truthful. The interviewee is very aware that they are not anonymous and may be embarrassed or worried they will get in trouble if they answer honestly.
Also, if your interviewee does not give very full answers, it may become difficult to sustain the interview. One on one interviews should be recorded as you may forget the answers or not be able to write everything down in time. Taking notes while someone is talking could appear rude and look as if you are not paying attention.

questionnaires

Questionnaire- (aim – to find out about downloading and streaming habits among a particular age group)


Gender
Male ____
Female ____

Age: ________________

Personal Income (£ a year):
0-5000
5001-10,000
10,001-15,000
15,001- 20,000
20,001- 25,000
25,001-30,000
30,001-35,000
35,001-40,000
40,000-50,000
More than 50,000

Please circle which of the following media forms you would buy a hard copy of (eg. on CD, DVD):

Music Games Film


Please circle which media forms (if any) you download legally :

a. Music Games Film



2. Please circle which media forms you download without paying:

a. Music Games Film


3. On average how often do you download music without paying? (please tick appropriately)

Every day ___
More than once a week ________
More than once a month ________
More than once a year _______
Never__________

4. On average how often do you download films without paying? (please tick appropriately)

Every day ___
More than once a week ________
More than once a month ________
More than once a year _______
Never__________
5. On average how often do you download games without paying? (please tick appropriately)

Every day ___
More than once a week ________
More than once a month ________
More than once a year _______
Never__________

Do you feel there is a difference in quality between illeagal downloads and material you pay for?
Yes____
No_____


1. Do you feel guilty about downloading material without paying for it?
Yes _____
No_______



2. Do you use music streaming sites such as Spotify or Sky Songs? Please state which sites you use.
__________________________________________________________________________________


3. Do you use television on demand websites? If yes, please state which sites you use.
___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________


4. Do you share downloads? ________________ If yes, please state who with:

b. My family
c. My friends

Today we were given a questionnaire with many mistakes in it. Above, find the version which I began to improve.
Although questionnaires are a reasonably easy form of market research, there are many disadvantages to using them. It is important the questions are chosen carefully and are phrased in a way so the data is easy to collect. for example, although closed questions prevent the person filling it in from going into much detail, they allow you to collect quantitative data which is easy to analyse.
With open questions it is important to think about how much room you leave for people to answer in. a limited amount of space will encourage a short answer.
Another problem with questionnaires is finding people to fill them in. You may hand 100 surveys to a range of people but only get 10 back because people can not be bothered to complete them. As well as this, if the questions involve a topic people do not want to talk about, you may get untruthful answers or none at all.
It is a good idea to offer incentive for people to complete the survey. This is often done through the chance to win a prize or be entered for a competition. It is tempting to put this on the page when it is not true. BUT YOU SHOULD NOT LIE!

layout of the question is very crucial as it must be clear and easy to understand. people filling it in are doing you a favour, they will not bother if it is difficult to understand.

the importance of media audiences

People put a lot of time and effort into researching audience figures for different media products. This information is vital to the development of the station/program/magazine etc. Some reasons for this are:
-To prove the air time is worth the money= If a channel can prove they are pulling in huge audiences for a certain program, they can charge a lot of money for the air time they sell to advertisers. companies will pay less if they think they will be reaching less poeple.

-To know the success of the station= For example, if a pilot of a show gets very low ratings, the station will have to think weather it is worth investing more money to continue producing it.

-If your performing on a sucessful show you can ask for higher pay.= An actor who started in a brand new drama which has massivly grown in popularity over the series is likely to ask for a pay rise because they know that their work is getting the station more viewers, which means more money.

Focus group
I was the observer of a trial focus group which was run by Lucy. I took note of how well this form of research worked and what we found out from it. the demographics of the people in the group were very similar. We are all the same age and there was only one boy in the group. This, unsurprisingly, meant that the group often had the same opinion on issues raised. The research was useful however, because we discovered that to reach this target audience, viral advertising would be the most effective. The group also gave reasons for this. The opinion is that if a friend sends you a link, you will open it because you tust there is a reason they have sent it to you. I would say there were many disadvantages of this form of reaseach; because it is a group activity peoples opinions may be swayed by others and some members of the group may be much more dominant so others dont get a chance to talk. Also questions are not answered in as much deapth as they could be. However a big advantage is that people will feel more relaxed with other people in the same situation. it is less intence than a one on one interview so people are more willing to share ideas.

Why and how does the media use research?

people involved in the release of a new magazine need to know certain information, they find it through market research. e.g. they would need to find out:

• their competition
• target audience
  
• distribution (advertisments, how much should you charge?)
• content (what will be in it?)

it is vital to do market research, but it is also extremely expensive. It is worth investing in research as you need to be able to prove the magazine will be popular so advertisers will want to buy pages.

I looked at the information NME uses to entice advertisers. This IPC magazine have used statistics and persuasive paragraphs to prove they have a good fan base and strong audience who is worth advertising to. As well as this they use quotes from fans as hard evidence to back up their claims and make it acceptable to charge high prices to have space on one of their pages. NME claims to be read by ABC1 demographic. This is benefitial to the magazine as it means more expencive products will want to buy page space as they know they audience has money.
Someones demographic are the facts which outline the person. demographics include; age, income, gender, nationality, sexuality.
Psychographics are the audiences interests, beliefes and views on things. It is questionable weather NME should assume they know how their readers think, however clearly they feel they have enought evidence to back up their statements.
phsichographics and demographics are the media worlds way of dividing up the population into catagories. A lot of research is put into finding out peoples phsycographics and from it magazines have created detailed ideas of what they think people are really like. for example 'the upmarket woman' has many steriotypical characteristics such as wanting to be indipendant and internet shopping.
Social media research-
In the current technological evolution, social media research is growing in popularity. The artical 'social media research' by Sean Hargravedescribes how big companies such as coca cola use mediums such as facebook and twitter to do research. This has become the easiest and most effective way to draw information from a young audience. Sean Hargrave explains how this form of research can help a company save huge amounts of money and effort. ' Rather than recruiting panels in a face-to-face setting or licking thousands of stamps to send out questionnaires..... get near-instant feedback for minimal cost'. Despite proving to be extremely benefitial to companies, social media research can not reach as wide a demographic as face to face interviews.

FIRST RESEARCH LESSON (methods) 8th september

There are two different types of resarch, primary and secondary. primary, directly finding the source of information for yourself. this could be through surveys, focus groups, direct contact with producers of the media, chat rooms, observation (empirical research)...etc. focus groups gather opinions of products (e.g. films/clothes) from an audience.the creators of the products then alter it acordingly. one on one interviews can be more effective than focus groups as the interviewee will not be swayed by others opinions and more in deapth questions can be asked. Secondary research indicates sources of information which are supplied by someone else finding the information before you. for example the internet (media gardian), newspapers (telegraph technology section), the radio, podcasts or a non fiction book.
it is useful to use more than one method of research as you get more acurate information. using just one source is likely to be biased.

content analysis

we carried out a research activity which involved looking at if magazines represent ethnic minorities fairly. our group counted the number of white people in 'Style' magazine and compared it to the number of people from ethnic minoroties which were pictured. we found that there were over 200 white people featured in the magazine, and only around 12 who were not. as we were not givern precise instructions on how to carry out the research, different groups approached it in different ways. as well as counting the number of people representing each race, we looked at which models were the most dominant on the pages. for example, the front cover model was a white celebrity and other races were did not appear on the pages untill at least 15 pages into the magazine. Also the people pictured from ethnic minorities were often printed smaller and maybe in the background of the image. to improve our research we would need to decide on a collection of specific variables we were going to take into acount. should we count each nationality seperatly or split it into just two sections, white and other? also we noticed that almost 100% of the adverts contained white models. adverts are suppose to represent how people should aspire to be. does this make the magazine and our society subconciously racist?
Our technique to collect the quantative data involved counting the people on every page. as the magazine hase over 200 pages, this was quite tedious. Another argument is that the images should represent the nationalities in the UK. as there is only around 7.5% of ethnic minorities the country this obviously means that the majority of the models will be white, however it does not mean they should be bigger and more glamorous on every page.