Production Research

Production Research
When a company is creating a new product research is always necessary, research helps give information about what the product does or will do. The idea of this research is that the producers are fully able to see clearly what the audience want in that product, so they can then improve their product to help give the customers what they want or need.

Product research collects as much information or data they can find for a new product, this then helps the company release a more popular and overall better product, this also means they will sell more of that product as it will be more needed and therefore more successful. The research that the company has collected also helps with commercial viability and helps to plan the post production process. The information that is collected covers everything from suitable locations for filming to the most positive reaction from the audience.

When it comes to researching you need to look for:

• Staff 
• Cast
• Equipment
• Location
• Risk Assessment 
• Copyright
• and many more factors including marketing, advertising etc.

Audience Research

Audience Research
Audience research is about finding all about your audience. Demographics and psyco-graphics are the two types of audience profiling that the audience are put into. 

Demographics look at the audiences gender, age, ethnicity, knowledge of languages, disabilities, mobility, occupation, social class and sexual orientation, also based on how much you earn. Psycho-graphics looks at the viewers personalities, hobbies, lifestyles, opinions and behaviour. There is also another group named Geo-demographics this looks directly based on where they live. All these findings make it easier to release a product by understandin as much as possible about the audience.

Some companies find that information for themselves however, most usually get their information by data gathering companies.

Like other forms of research, both primary and secondary are used to find and collect this data. Questionnaires, focus groups, interviews and online websites are all ways to find this data. Using these techniques means they will receive a mix of answers, some that are indepth, and some that are shorter. This means they can get the answers that are needed.

This is an example of demographics of Ethnicity within England and Wales in 2001.

Market Research

Market Research
When planning on launching a new media product it is important to understand the market you are about to enter, this is why it's important to conduct Market Research. It provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, size and competition. 

Market research is essentially used to find the needed 'gap in the market', which means providing an area with something which is needed and not a lot of. If there is a gap in the market, it means its more likely for that product to succeed, because there's less competitors to work against. For example if an area already has a lot of music magazines on offer to them which are popular, making another music magazine would mean it would be harder to get a large audience, as there is already so many on offer to them already.

Also, market research would help find out what is or isn't popular in a certain area. So if you found that a certain genre of music is very popular within a certain area, but there wasn't many radio stations which surrounded that genre of music, it would be a good idea to create a radio show that focused on that specific genre because there is a high chance it would be popular, as there isn't any in that area and that genre is very popular. 

Market research is very important to the media because if someone is releasing a new media product without first conducting market research, they could be entering an area which is already full of other similar media products, which would mean it is more likely for that product to fail, because there was no gap in the market for another.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research

Quantitative research results in data and information that can be counted and measured. This data can then be made into tables, graphs, charts and diagrams that show the data clearly. Quantitative research involves both primary and secondary techniques to collect their data, for example surveys can be used to collect data which is primary research if they conduct the survey themselves. Or they can use data that has previously been collected, which would be secondary research. 

Data that is found includes ratings, circulation and viewing figures. For example to collect secondary research they could look at companies like the National Research Survey (NRS) who conduct primary research and sell the findings to other media companies. So if a company wanted secondary research they could buy the data and results from NRS. Other companies also do this, Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR) and also Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB).

However because this form of research relies mostly on statistics, which can be manipulated, quantitative research isn't always the most trustworthy. Also, from this research we can clearly see the numbers and data, however we cannot see what the viewers/listeners thought or what they like or didn't like, as that is Qualitative research. But it is the easiest to collect as you only really have to ask closed questions, which are faster than open questions. Also this form of research is easy to analyse.

Here is an example of quantitative research which was gathered from the Rajar website that shows quarterly listening for radio stations in the UK.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research creates data based on opinions, views and preferences. This research method is used to find out what individual people and groups think, feel and their opinion of a certain media product. To collect the data that is needed individual interviews are conducted and focus groups are set up to collect opinions, preferences and views.

This form of research is highly important within the media industry. Individual interviews and focus groups are both a type of primary research, as it involves collecting the data you need directly from the individuals yourself. An example of Qualitative Research would be if you wanted to collect primary research about a certain film, you could stand outside the cinema and ask the people who had viewed the film to fill out questionnaires. This would give you the data which you need, however the data would only be short answers and people may not take the questionnaire seriously, they may rush the answers. The best way to collect Qualitative Research would be to produce a focus group, as you would be able to speak to the individuals for a longer amount of time and ask more in depth questions.

Primary research is a great way of collecting the data that you need, however secondary research is another technique of collecting data. This involves using someone else’s previous research they have designed for others to use as secondary research. An example of this would be instead of standing outside a cinema with a questionnaire you could get the data from a film review website and collect the data from there. However this form of research isn’t very reliable because anyone could easily lie online or make a fake profile, or the film producers could pay the site to add more positive comments about their films, in this way the media can be easily manipulated.

Below is an example of secondary research, individuals opinions and views on the film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Secondary Research

Secondary Research
Secondary research is research which has already been found and published for others to find and use. Sometimes secondary research is needed in the early stages of research to find out what is already known about that subject and what new data is needed to be found. Although other times it may be the only research technique used. It is normally used for marketing research, it's useful because it allows the researcher to identify a new a new topic rather than one that has exhaustively been researched. 

Secondary research uses materials like books, magazines, journals, newspapers and others. Because the data already exists for people to use, secondary research is the cheapest form of research. Secondary research can be split into internal and external research. 

There are companies that collect data themselves then give the data collected for other people to use as secondary research, these companies usually sell the data they found to other media companies who then also use it as secondary research. These companies are; Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR), National Research Survey (NRS) and Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB).

This is a graph of the 'average weekly viewings' from BARB.

Advantages:

• Because somebody has published the data for people to use, it saves time.
• It is often cheaper than doing primary research and collecting all the data yourself.
• It may allow you access to data you couldn't get.

Disadvantages:

• The researcher has less control over how the data was collected
• The data found could actually be really old and so wont be giving you accurate answers.
• It can be quite expensive. 

Primary Research

Primary Research    

Primary research is original data that no one has collected before and that the researcher collects entirely themselves, usually collected once the researcher has collected some secondary data. Primary research can be done in many different ways for example questionnaires, direct observation, telephone interviews as and focus groups as well as many others. 

There are both advantages and disadvantaged to primary research.

Advantages:

• It gives the researcher the opportunity to get both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Gives the researcher a lot of control, it allows the researcher to focus on specific subjects. It also enables the researcher to have control over how the information is collected.
• This way the researcher can decide the size of the project, the time frame and the goal.

Disadvantages:

• Conducting primary research can be very expensive compared to secondary research, because with primary research the researcher has to produce everything themselves. So creating a questionnaire the costs would include the paper or any other equipment will be needed for the research.
• For the primary research to be done correctly, it requires the development and use of a research plan.
• Low response rate has to be expected with primary research.

      
This is an example of a questionnaire, one of the many ways to collect Primary Research:

Each method of collecting data has both advantages and disadvantages. For example, with surveys an advantage is that they're fast and easy, especially when targeting a certain audience. They're great for simple quick answers.

However a disadvantage to using surveys would be that responders may not answer truthfully or, customized surveys may contain errors which effect the answers.