Assignment 1Katie Aspin

Research Techniques For The Creative Media Industries

Unit 3

Introduction What is research?Research is a way to find things out, by looking

through books,on the internet or even asking someone who

knows about the subject you are researching.What is research for?All types of creative media need careful

planning to be successful, you need to know your audience, your market and the purpose of the product. Research in media helps a production team to understand these area’s.

Types Of ResearchQuantitative is a type of research based on

hard facts and figures. Examples of this type of research are: program/channel ratings-. 5 USA +1 the top programme for the week was Law And Order on Tuesday at 4:16pm with 51,000 viewers. But in the week 5 USA had more viewers than 5 USA+1 with 1,652,000 to 228,000 viewers for the week November 26th to December 2nd. http://www.barb.co.uk

Qualitative research is opposite to Quantitative as it is based on opinions, attitudes and reviews rather thank hard facts and figures. An example of this can be rise of the guardians it has a mixed set of reviews from critics and movie goers alike while twilight breaking dawn part 2 mixed results but closer towards the good side. On the over all ranking from www.rottentomatoes.com rise of the guardians has a better viewer satisfaction than twilight breaking dawn part 2.

Methods and Sources of Research

Primary research – Primary research is where you go out into a community (online or local) and interview the public or hand out questionnaires, surveys. Then analyse the data into graphs. Examples: Could include getting a focus group of people at the ages the product is based at e.g. teens/adults/children/elderly letting them look, use and get them to fill in a questionnaire to do with the product. E.g. do you like the product? Is it easy to use?

Once you have Collected the answers put them into a chart showing your results. (http://freeonlinesurveys.com)

You can also back up your results by using someone else research for a similar product.

Secondary research is using information that has already been gathered by someone previous, and inputting it into your own research.

Example: documentaries, are based on secondary research, as well as primary research. In the documentary Egypt's Golden Empire the production team uses archeological facts as well as examples. When they talk about mummifying they show an example/artifact, (the mummy and organ jars) and they use archeological facts (what they read off the walls of the tombs and from the book of the dead after they learned the language), and scientific facts (from ct scans and x-rays they have preformed).

Purpose of ResearchAudience Research – is about collecting and

analysing information about a target audience for a particular product depending on the type of market. To have a successful media product, its important to aim for the right audience or your project will falter.

With the competition for getting a share in the audience becoming even more fierce knowing your target audience is is becoming increasingly more important. So it its critical that you carry this research out.

Market research – is about collecting and analysing information about the particular product’s market. It involves looking at competitors products and seeing how they are doing in the market.

Producers often undertake this research into great detail because they are interested in what the market looks like, who are their main competitors and what the competing products are like. They are also interested in the economical factors and the potential revenue earned by a specific product.

Production research – is about collecting and analysing information and content for the production of the media product. It can be very complex so this type of research needs to be comprehensive, it involves finding suitable equipment and facilities as well as a suitably trained crew, personnel and talent. Finding all this is one thing but you need it to be within the budget you have been given. The pictures depict a film crew, facilities and a casting audition for an agency.

Conclusion

In conclusion research in the media industry is important, because it can help production teams make their programme flourish.

Research in media industry comes in two different types :

Qualitative and QuantitiveWhich is then split into two different methods:Primary and SecondaryAnd then three different purposes: Audience, Market and ProductionAll of these if done correctly will help a media

project flourish in the right market.