The Nature and Purposes of Research in the Creative Media Industries
Types/methods of research:
Primary research is where you gather new data and information first hand. This can be time consuming but allows you to control variables and know how reliable the data is (whether extraneous variables affected the data or there were biases, such as gender or occupation). You can do this by either conducting questionnaire, an interview, experiments or surveys. You can also use other self generated content such as photographs, video and audio which you have used to document an event. For my documentary project, I conducted primary research with interviews from 2 CFS suffers, a Student Mentor who has had exposure from students with the condition and an Occupation Therapist who specialises in CFS and ME. I also suffer from the condition myself, so I really have had first hand experience when it comes to some of the symptoms and experiences this brings a suffere. Furthermore, I produced a Survey on SurveyMonkey to a film and media class with questions about the condition. (Link to CFS Survey)
Secondary research is where you use research, data and information gathered from others or that has already been completed. This is great as it saves time and money; however, you don't know first hand the validity of the results. You can gather secondary research from books, TV and Films (typically documentary styles), news articles, results of research conducted by others, government statistics, photographic documents, internet as well as web searches, forums, and audio material. I used a documentary on CFS on Youtube as well as an NHS website which gave information about the symptoms and managing strategies. (Link to Research Dossier)
Quantitative research is data that is in numerical form, measurements,statistics or some other form of mathematics. This type of data is great for producing graphs, working out percentages and ranges. You can collect this type of data from closed questionnaires, polls, viewing figures, sales of CDs and DVDs as well as program ratings. As my survey used both closed and open question, I could use the closed questions to work out a percentage of most frequently selected answer. From this I could work out, the majority of age range and if they had exposure to CFS in some form. I could then produce a graph to visually represent the data.
Qualitative research is data which contains opinions, motivations, emotions, scenarios and reasons to problems or solutions. This is typically produced from spoken responses or written answers where they can answer in detail (open questions). You can gather this information from interviews, reviews, surveys and questionnaires with open questions, response panels, discussion groups, responses on websites or in the comment section. Just anyplace where people can give an open response. The survey which I produced contained both open and closed questions. Therefore my participants could give an opinion, scenario or reason for their thought. This gives me thoughts of my participants and something more than just numbers.
Data gathering agencies such as BARB (Broadcasters Audience Research Board), gives us the UK's television audience measurement system, which focuses on who is watching, what are they watching, when are they watching, which screen are they watching on and how the content got to their screen. They interview a large range of volunteers from 5100 homes from all different types of demographics, house hold types, viewing platforms and geographical locations. This gives them roughly about 12000 people to interview to find out the previously mentioned viewing data which they use to generalise to wider population of the UK. You also have other companies such as Box Office Mojo which is a box-office online reporting service. They provide information for over 3 million movies, TV shows and 6 million cast and crew members. They collect and provide data ranging local movie show times, reviews/critiques, trivia, tickets, box-office data and much more. You also have many other companies who provide market research data such as djs , who you pay to provide you with both quantitative and qualitative data of your choice. You also have others who provide similar services such as MRS and Visionone to name a few.
Audience research is useful for working out where your film should be shown (to achieve the maximum targeted audience). Not only this, but channels also like to know what type of people, age, gender, Social class, known as demographics, are watching so they can sell advertising space to companies. Ways that you can find this data are through data gathering agencies such as ACORN, who give you information on the general demographic and psychographic of that area i.e by putting in a post code, as well as some estimation on how they like to spend their money and use technology. For example we have 'A:Lavish Lifestyles - (final summary) They use new technology for its practical benefits. The internet is used for practical research and news-gathering more than for shopping or social activity. Social media will be used for making business contacts rather than leisure activities. In short these consumers have the money to enjoy very comfortable lifestyles with few financial concerns'. You also have social gradings which are based on occupation, for example, B class would count as Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional which makes up 23% of the population. Whilst class C2 contains Skilled manual workers and makes up 21% of the population, according to National Readership Survey. They would then work out what type of class buys what type of product so companies can better target that audience. Another profiling system is psychographics, these are where you categorize people on their beliefs, aspirations, attitudes and other cognitive thought processes. This is founded by the idea that the brands, TV shows and film people consume reflects their personality, character and style of living. Here are some examples of Psychographic brandings: Mainstreamers, are people who find comfort in following the crowd and buying big, well known products, and value, 'value for money'. You also have Explorers, they are the opposite to Mainstreamers as they focus on being an individual, exploration and energy, (typically students). For my documentary, always had the intention of focusing towards students and therefore used CFS sufferers who fell in 16 -20 year brackets to be more relatable. And both so happen to be students as well. I also produced a survey which had a question with an whith age brackets. This allowed me to know that my audience would have fallen into the correct age range of my sufferers and I knew they were students as well.
Market research is also important to the media industry. Typically, films and Tv shows don't release their content if something else, which is similar, is coming out at the same time. They do this because there may be strong competitions between the two films, which could detract from the overall sales of either film (most importantly, your film). Therefore, one of the films is usually delayed to maximize profits and minimize competition later on. One example of this is from the Tulip Fever. The film was originally scheduled to be released on July 15, 2016 but was delayed until February 24, 2017; However, it was later pulled from the schedule, and moved to August 25, 2017. One reason for this happening was because there were other Tudor period dramas coming out around those release dates, and was therefore, rescheduled sale loss. I research CFS documentaries and the last film was released in 2015, Forgotten Plague. I looked at Firstshowing, and could not see any CFS related content coming in the next 3 months. I therefore felt that it would be a good time to make a CFS documentary.
For production research, I got into contact with my OT as I thought she could provide us with good detail of the condition from a medical perspective. I also received help from the college nurse who put me into contact with a CFS suffer who was open to helping me out with the documentary. I contacted one of my friends who has CFS and travelled down to Framlingham to film. I also felt that if I couldn't get the experience of the condition from other sufferers, I would have stepped in and centered the documentary around me as I have the condition myself and would have gave an insight to my experience. I was confident when it came to equipment as I knew the college had a well stocked supply which I was able to rent everything I needed from. The college also provided the editing software. As I was working on my own, I did ask a few favours from either classmates or photographers to be my behind the scenes camera operators. Most of the locations where in and around Lowestoft or Gorleston with the exception of Framlingham. Because of this, I was able to keep cost down other than just having to pay for fuel.
Primary research is where you gather new data and information first hand. This can be time consuming but allows you to control variables and know how reliable the data is (whether extraneous variables affected the data or there were biases, such as gender or occupation). You can do this by either conducting questionnaire, an interview, experiments or surveys. You can also use other self generated content such as photographs, video and audio which you have used to document an event. For my documentary project, I conducted primary research with interviews from 2 CFS suffers, a Student Mentor who has had exposure from students with the condition and an Occupation Therapist who specialises in CFS and ME. I also suffer from the condition myself, so I really have had first hand experience when it comes to some of the symptoms and experiences this brings a suffere. Furthermore, I produced a Survey on SurveyMonkey to a film and media class with questions about the condition. (Link to CFS Survey)
Secondary research is where you use research, data and information gathered from others or that has already been completed. This is great as it saves time and money; however, you don't know first hand the validity of the results. You can gather secondary research from books, TV and Films (typically documentary styles), news articles, results of research conducted by others, government statistics, photographic documents, internet as well as web searches, forums, and audio material. I used a documentary on CFS on Youtube as well as an NHS website which gave information about the symptoms and managing strategies. (Link to Research Dossier)
Quantitative research is data that is in numerical form, measurements,statistics or some other form of mathematics. This type of data is great for producing graphs, working out percentages and ranges. You can collect this type of data from closed questionnaires, polls, viewing figures, sales of CDs and DVDs as well as program ratings. As my survey used both closed and open question, I could use the closed questions to work out a percentage of most frequently selected answer. From this I could work out, the majority of age range and if they had exposure to CFS in some form. I could then produce a graph to visually represent the data.
Qualitative research is data which contains opinions, motivations, emotions, scenarios and reasons to problems or solutions. This is typically produced from spoken responses or written answers where they can answer in detail (open questions). You can gather this information from interviews, reviews, surveys and questionnaires with open questions, response panels, discussion groups, responses on websites or in the comment section. Just anyplace where people can give an open response. The survey which I produced contained both open and closed questions. Therefore my participants could give an opinion, scenario or reason for their thought. This gives me thoughts of my participants and something more than just numbers.
Data gathering agencies such as BARB (Broadcasters Audience Research Board), gives us the UK's television audience measurement system, which focuses on who is watching, what are they watching, when are they watching, which screen are they watching on and how the content got to their screen. They interview a large range of volunteers from 5100 homes from all different types of demographics, house hold types, viewing platforms and geographical locations. This gives them roughly about 12000 people to interview to find out the previously mentioned viewing data which they use to generalise to wider population of the UK. You also have other companies such as Box Office Mojo which is a box-office online reporting service. They provide information for over 3 million movies, TV shows and 6 million cast and crew members. They collect and provide data ranging local movie show times, reviews/critiques, trivia, tickets, box-office data and much more. You also have many other companies who provide market research data such as djs , who you pay to provide you with both quantitative and qualitative data of your choice. You also have others who provide similar services such as MRS and Visionone to name a few.
Audience research is useful for working out where your film should be shown (to achieve the maximum targeted audience). Not only this, but channels also like to know what type of people, age, gender, Social class, known as demographics, are watching so they can sell advertising space to companies. Ways that you can find this data are through data gathering agencies such as ACORN, who give you information on the general demographic and psychographic of that area i.e by putting in a post code, as well as some estimation on how they like to spend their money and use technology. For example we have 'A:Lavish Lifestyles - (final summary) They use new technology for its practical benefits. The internet is used for practical research and news-gathering more than for shopping or social activity. Social media will be used for making business contacts rather than leisure activities. In short these consumers have the money to enjoy very comfortable lifestyles with few financial concerns'. You also have social gradings which are based on occupation, for example, B class would count as Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional which makes up 23% of the population. Whilst class C2 contains Skilled manual workers and makes up 21% of the population, according to National Readership Survey. They would then work out what type of class buys what type of product so companies can better target that audience. Another profiling system is psychographics, these are where you categorize people on their beliefs, aspirations, attitudes and other cognitive thought processes. This is founded by the idea that the brands, TV shows and film people consume reflects their personality, character and style of living. Here are some examples of Psychographic brandings: Mainstreamers, are people who find comfort in following the crowd and buying big, well known products, and value, 'value for money'. You also have Explorers, they are the opposite to Mainstreamers as they focus on being an individual, exploration and energy, (typically students). For my documentary, always had the intention of focusing towards students and therefore used CFS sufferers who fell in 16 -20 year brackets to be more relatable. And both so happen to be students as well. I also produced a survey which had a question with an whith age brackets. This allowed me to know that my audience would have fallen into the correct age range of my sufferers and I knew they were students as well.
Market research is also important to the media industry. Typically, films and Tv shows don't release their content if something else, which is similar, is coming out at the same time. They do this because there may be strong competitions between the two films, which could detract from the overall sales of either film (most importantly, your film). Therefore, one of the films is usually delayed to maximize profits and minimize competition later on. One example of this is from the Tulip Fever. The film was originally scheduled to be released on July 15, 2016 but was delayed until February 24, 2017; However, it was later pulled from the schedule, and moved to August 25, 2017. One reason for this happening was because there were other Tudor period dramas coming out around those release dates, and was therefore, rescheduled sale loss. I research CFS documentaries and the last film was released in 2015, Forgotten Plague. I looked at Firstshowing, and could not see any CFS related content coming in the next 3 months. I therefore felt that it would be a good time to make a CFS documentary.
For production research, I got into contact with my OT as I thought she could provide us with good detail of the condition from a medical perspective. I also received help from the college nurse who put me into contact with a CFS suffer who was open to helping me out with the documentary. I contacted one of my friends who has CFS and travelled down to Framlingham to film. I also felt that if I couldn't get the experience of the condition from other sufferers, I would have stepped in and centered the documentary around me as I have the condition myself and would have gave an insight to my experience. I was confident when it came to equipment as I knew the college had a well stocked supply which I was able to rent everything I needed from. The college also provided the editing software. As I was working on my own, I did ask a few favours from either classmates or photographers to be my behind the scenes camera operators. Most of the locations where in and around Lowestoft or Gorleston with the exception of Framlingham. Because of this, I was able to keep cost down other than just having to pay for fuel.
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