Understand the nature and purposes of research in the creative media industries

Understand the nature and purposes of research in the creative media industries

Types/methods of research

Primary research/self-generated research

Primary data is information collected by people themselves for their own purpose.  These purposes may be to obtain a first-hand ‘picture’ of a group or society, or to test a hypothesis (an untested theory). When making my new Film Poster I made some questionnaires to get feedback to see if my poster would increase sale rates. This was quantitative research; however there was an open question at the end where the person could give their own opinion.   

Secondary data is information that has been collected or created by someone else for their own purposes, but which other people can then use. I took statics from IMDB of film sales and how much money was spent on product marketing, all this information was secondary data. Secondary research can be published in all forms, from in magazines to published books and even shown on TV.

Quantitative data refers to information in a numerical form. This data will be able to be shown in graphs and charts. Examples of quantitative data include Programme Ratings, Hits on Websites, and Sales of CDs & DVDs ETC. I retrieved this data by using my questionnaires. Quantitative data is mostly just yes or no questions, for example "do you like films?" this would give a yes or no answer and from the number of yes and nos gathered I can make a graph or table.

Qualitative data refers to data in the form of words rather than numbers.  It concentrates on presenting the quality of the way of life described rather than on presenting statistics; it focuses on giving a ‘feel’ for what something is like.  Much of this research consists of word-for-word quotations from those being studied. Examples include Film Reviews, Game Reviews, and Attitudes to Media Products ETC. Qualitative data can provide rich descriptions of people’s feelings and experiences. It can also refer to other types of data which is non-numerical (e.g. photos). At the end of my questionnaire I made I had an open question which is qualitative research because they can give their own opinion. An example of an open question could be "Whats your favourite film and why?" this allows the participant to go into more detail about why they like a film, instead of just saying which film they like. Unlike Quantitative data, Qualitative data cannot be gathered in mass samples due to it being Qualitative and not being able to turn there answers/opinions into figures which can be displayed in graphs.

Data gathering agencies

BARB is the official source of television viewing figures in the UK. They continually develop new ways of measuring what you and the rest of the UK are watching. http://www.barb.co.uk/ BARB's website is very useful for different companies who want to advertise, this is because BARB collects data and displays it on there website to show how many people at what time watch different programs. Therefore a business who want to promote their new product will try to buy a time slot to advertise when more viewers are watching, so they can promote to a bigger target audience.When choosing our profitable films and our films that “bombed” we used IMDB, this website stores all the statistics of what films made, who stared in it, the producers, literally everything about the film.    

Purposes of research:

The purpose of research is for many things, making sure you have the right target audience is vital in the media industry and research helps do this. Demographics and Geodemographics are useful for finding the target audience and if you product has a chance of being profitable. Also when you know your target audience you then have to worry about other competitive products and if your product will appeal more to your audience and if the product will be profitable. Research is key, I used questionnaires for research to see what my target audience liked and how my poster appealed to them, this gave me a clear insight to what I needed to changed and how I could increase market sales just by making sure my product was directed towards the right target audience. Research is vital in the media industries and must be done to perfection. As explained above data gathering agencies are very useful when it comes to research, using these agencies can able you to promote your film or product to a huge audience and not just a big audience but your wanted target audience. Doing this could increase you sales and increase profit, this is why research is so important.  

 

Production research
 

This research is used after you have decided on your product and your target audience, production research is about costs, one main cost would be advertisement, usually 30-60% of the total cost of the product e.g. a film will be spent on advertisement. Other things such as Technological resources (Expensive equipment, cameras, cranes etc.) , personnel ( Actors, Film Crew, Make-up Artists etc.) and locations ( different places around the world, Booking hotels, Supplying food etc.) have to be taken into consideration. All this research has to be done to make sure everything that is needed will be in the budget and that you will be able to make a profit. Production research is about making the best but being able to control your costs. As explained there is a huge amount of mony spent in the media industies and keeing count of costs being spent is difficult and the last thing you want is to go bust when making a film. When research has been done, you can spend your money wisely, for example most companies spend a lot of there budget on avertising, this is because you need to warn the target audience that you have something to sell them, without doing this limmits the amount you are going to sell and could effect your proffits dramatically. 

Assessing research data

Reliability

To get to the truth of the matter and to do so consistently, however many times the research is repeated. If the question means different things to different people then it is not reliable as it can be interpreted differently and generates inconsistent answers. All completed questionnaires or interviews must be the same. In short, a reliable method is one, when repeated, which gives the same results. I gathered information by using questionnaires, I got good feedback on my new poster, from the results I believe they may have been rushed and may not have been taken seriously. However the data I gathered from my new poster was good and 90% of the participants said they would watch the film based on my new poster.    

Validity

The ability to find out what the researcher was supposed to find out; to produce the information that is required. In short, the truth. When I made my questionnaire I used some open questions to gather some valid data and to find out what the public really like/dislike about my poster, this data I collected will be valid due to them being able to say what they want and not being limited to yes/no answers, therefore this data is valid.

Representativeness and generalizability

Due to my questionnaires only going to a small group of people they cannot be representative of the population however they can be representative of boys aged 16-18 in ENSF, if I handed my questionnaire to a much bigger scale It would become representative and generalizable. However I can say that generally my new poster was liked more than the original.