Radio Factual

In the following essay I am going to be looking at three different points: Types of Research, Methods and Sources of Research and Purposes of research. I will be looking at why these are useful and why there are used.

Types of Research

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is research that is text based; it is based on views, preferences and peoples opinions. This could be anything from textbooks to newspapers to reviews on websites such as IMDb – where people write reviews of films and also give them ratings, so IMDb is also a quantitative research method. Qualitative research is particularly important to the media industry because it helps to find out what groups of people or individuals think of a product. McQueen and Knussen (2002) said that “qualitative research approaches explores and describes explains and predicts” McQueen and Knussen are saying qualitative data that is text based can be presented in a way to show a persons opinion.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is research that is based around numbers – numerical data. Information that is based around numbers can be found in places such as BARB (Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board), which is used to look at the viewing figures for TV. RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Limited) which is used to find out how many listeners radio stations/shows have. And movie ticket sales – box office takings. As quantitative research is number based, it is usually presented in charts and tables. Before a new product is released onto the market companies will look at previous viewing/listening figures so they can find out their target audience.

Methods of research

Primary research

Primary research is research that has been gathered by yourself for example using techniques such as conducting a questionnaire, interview and a survey. By using this method the information that is gathered is relevant to the subject that it is being collected for, such as to find out peoples views or opinions of a TV show. When research is collected this way it can sometimes be biased, if the person conducting the survey is biased then it probably wouldn’t be a fair gathering of results, so sometimes collecting information this way is not always going to be correct.

When an interview is to be conducted, it can be either structured or semi structured this is supported by May. T (2002) says that “semi structured interviews are said to allow people to answer more on their own terms than the standardized interview permits.” This implies that if a semi structured interview has taken place, it allows for more information to be gathered on the given subject, such as if peoples opinions wanted to be collected about a book or a film, they would give their opinions about it and the interviewer wouldn’t be trying to put words in the interviewees mouth.

Secondary research

Secondary research is research that had already been collected by other people then written and posted on the Internet or published in books. A problem with collecting information this way is that people have different opinions about things and it can have differing perspectives.

Also secondary research will assist in finding out more information that you wouldn’t be able to find on your own, as it can be difficult to gather research for large groups of people by just using primary research methods. This is supported by McQueen and Knussen (2002) that say “secondary data will often exceed what an individual might achieve on their own.” This means that information that is gathered from a secondary source is possibly going to be more academically rated higher than information collected by yourself, this is because they have a lot more experience and they are experts within the field of their chosen subject.

Sources of research

The purpose and nature of research are audience, marketing and production.

Audience

It is important to research audiences so the specific product, tv show or film will entertain the customer. When looking at audience research it is a good idea to research a specific radio station, the research company will look at a number of items such as what is currently selling well for example music. They will look at what genre of music people are listening to then use that to attract people to listen to their radio station. For example Smooth radio, they play the same songs from the same genre repeatedly to attract their target audience.

When researching an audience lots of things can be taken into consideration such as: age, race, sex, education level, income level, and many more factors. When you sign up to a website like Facebook, they ask you lots of different questions like ‘What TV shows do you watch?’ and ‘What sort of music do you like?’ questions on websites such as these can help audience researchers find out what a majority of people like then they can use this information to come up with new ideas then sell it to the world and then they can aim it at a specific target audience. The BARB website allows researchers to look at the viewing figures to decide whether a specific media product such a TV show is doing well.

The National Readership Survey is an example of demographic classication. And it is graded in two groups: ABC1 and C2DE.

A	Upper middle class	Higher managerial, admin. or professional
B	Middle class	Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1	Lower middle class	Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, admin, or professional
C2	Skilled working class	Skilled manual workers
D	Working class	Semi and unskilled manual workers
E	Non working	Casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners

Another way of looking at audiences is by looking at the BARB website. This website shows viewing figures for all the different TV channels. If a show has over 10 million views for example Downton Abbey, then researchers will take this information and decided that people are more interested in programs that have had a lot of thought and planning put into them. The main purposes of completing research is to find their specific target audience when then means it is easy to establish what product would fit into their audience range.

Market research

Market research allows people to make sense of the current market and what is selling well. For instance at a publishing company like Penguin or Bloomsbury, they would look at what genre of books are selling the best and are top of the market such as EL James and her Fifty Shades of Grey books. Then they would probably make a questionnaire or a survey and see what feedback people gave. In addition, they could also look online to see what was selling the best, but collecting information this was is not always reliable. When looking for new authors/books to publish, research is a vital key, as it reduces the risk of a title failing, and not researching where the publishing house or the authors wants it to get to such as into the top of bestselling books.

The first thing when researching is the audience – so this would be book readers. Researching other aspects such as age, gender, hobbies, jobs etc. this will help to gather a wider understanding on what people want. For example looking at what people are currently reading, by conducting a survey.

Market researchers look at what the current market trends are and what products are currently selling the best.

Production research

Production research is also another important step for researchers. Production research looks at points such as: financial issues, location and facilities. Also it looks at copyright issues that are important when a product is being created and if it has been copied in anyway. Production research is used to find out whether a project can be funded or not, or whether you have to find funds from sponsorship.

When planning to make a show or a film lots of different paperwork will need to be filled out such as: actor release forms, recces, shot lists, story boards, risk assessments, production schedule, all before filming can actually start. These are useful because everything you need would be written down and it provides structure to the day and everyone included knows what they are supposed to be doing and it is organised. For example a recce provides a visual observation link to the chosen location prior to the event.

Bibliography