Sunday 17 June 2012

Types of research - Purposes and examples

Introduction

In this post, I am going to be researching and looking at the different types of research used within the media industry. while i am recording my findings and results, I am going to be explaining what is research, the purpose and terms of it, and the types of research.


What is research and the purpose of it

The purpose of research is to help find evidence and carry out trials, experiments and questionnaire to help find information to back up a point. Research also helps people find out facts, opinions of a demographic and find out the status of a element.

a few definitions of research are;

(1) "Research and experimental development is creative work undertaken systematically to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humanity, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications.... It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories."

(2) "Research is all about addressing an issue or asking and answering a question or solving a problem, so… Identify an issue, question, or problem, find out what's already known about it, plan, cost, and do your study accordingly, write it up and submit it for assessment.

(3) "The systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions."


The three types of research in media
 
The three main types of research that I am going to explain in this post are audience research, market research and production research.

The terms that we need to be aware of when carrying out audience research are;
  • Audience data - the information collected from the responses of the target audience
  • Audience profiling - categorizing and organizing the audience's demographic elements (e.g. gender, social class, age, etc).
  • demographics - a section of the population sharing common characteristics, such as age, sex, class, etc (4)
  • geodemographics - the characteristics depending on the geographical location, size and scale of a target audience group (e.g. national, local, global, international, continental, etc).
  • consumer behaviour - is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy a product. (5)
  • consumer attitude - the reaction and likes and dislikes of a consumer towards a product/servicee
  • audience awareness - what factors and methods will grab the audiences attention and awareness (e.g. positioning, design factors, etc)
The terms that relate to market research are;
  • Product market - the type of "market" a product, service or medium is targeted and established into. e.g an children market, an female adult market, a OAP market, etc.
  • Competiton - Merriam-Webster defines competition in business as "the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms". (6)
  • Competitor analysis - analysing and researching  methods which are the SWOT of a competitor's techniques. (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats).
  • Advertising placement - the techniques and strategies used to place and position products, services and adverts which will be of great effectiveness in attracting customers.
  • Advertising effects - the effects used to help enhance the message of the advertisement to help attract more customers.
Finally the factors which are used within production research are;
  • Content - In media production and publishing, content is information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. (7)
  • Viability - the research intended to find out the costs and expenses needed and in return how much income they return. (finance)
  • Placement media - the place, position, frequency and quantity of where a company places media and the feedback/retention/awareness they recieve from it.
  • Technological resources - Technological resources are such things as software, designs, music or text. These resources are owned like physical resources and are known as 'intellectual property'. Intellectual property laws allow people to own ideas and have rights over them. (8)
  • Personnel - taking account of the people/employees involved when carrying out production research
  • Locations - considering and researching the settings and locations when carrying out production research.

Types of research

The main types of research I am going to explain in the following posts are the Quantitative, Qualitative, Secondary and Primary methods of research.

Quantitative research: Quantitative research is data which is in the form of numerical figures, statistics, ratios, etc. This is data that can be measured and gathered into a model/graph. Quantitative research usually asks the target audience questions which have choices (e.g. tick-boxes or multiple choice) and the answers are usually in figures or numerical form.

Qualitative: Qualitative research is when you gather information in a more in-depth and explanatory way. this means you ask your target audience "open-ended" questions, which is when you allow the customers to give their opinion in a more detailed manner and they are able to have a choice on what they wish to write/respond.

Secondary: Secondary research is when you can buy and gather information from a different source, depending on the type of information you wish.

Primary: Primary research is when an organisation or individual carries out their own research from scratch and carry out their own experiments and surveys to help gather data which will be useful for their project/tasks/company.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, research is to help find evidence and carry out trials, experiments and questionnaire to help find information to back up a point. Research also helps people find out facts, opinions of a demographic and find out the status of a element.

The four main types of research are Primary, Secondary, Qualitative and Quantitative. For media production, the three important sectors of research are audience, production and market research.


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