THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF RESEARCH IN THE

CREATIVE MEDIA INDUSTRYBY FAYE THOMPSON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Types, Methods And Purposes Of ResearchChapter 3 Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

This assignment is going to be a breakdown and analysis of the corresponding techniques and methods of research used in the creative media industry.

Research is an aspect of the creative media industry - as well as a vast majority of other industries, that is one of the most fundamentally important if not the most important aspect of beginning to plan a production. The reason research is so important is due to the fact that media is one of the most competitive industries to work in, the three main industries surrounding media are the television, radio and film industries, all of which are highly competitive. Research is very important in the creative media industry, as gathering information in regards to audience consumption is a key part of research to aim its productions to the key demographic of viewers.

Good understanding and comprehension of research techniques and skills are vital to a number of roles in the creative media industry. For example, if you were working on the pre-production of a film, you would have to research and understand the time period behind it to be able to achieve the correct dialect and visual look you would need to achieve to have it be periodically accurate. If done correctly, it would be more engaging and immersive to the viewers in comparison to a sloppily researched and badly written and visually represented production.

There are 2 main types of research used in the creative media industries, they are as follows:

- Quantitative: Quantitative research is highly structured research based on mathematical and numerical data. Examples of Quantitative research would be

taken from polls and surveys. In the creative media industries, examples of quantitative data would be taken from programme ratings, and box office figures. One of the most popular forms of Quantities research is customer satisfaction surveys, this can give good reviews to use when marketing their product or production. This type of research is based on statistics and diagrams. Quantitative research is also used to implement audience thoughts and feelings into numerical values for hard facts and figures that can be used to showcase the effectiveness and allure of a product, it can be used to profile and aim a product at a key demographic to therefore get the best sales from it. But the fact that quantitative research is all based on figures and numerical values mean’s that sometimes the values are not always up to date.

BARB, or the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, is highly useful to broadcasters in order to gauge the success of their program schedules with the use of quantitative research in the form of their highly accurate statistics. As well as this, those in advertising use BARB to see the level of exposure their advertisements received. But that is not all BARB does. BARB has a carefully selected audience panel that incorporates every household type and demographic in the UK.

They carry out very accurate quantitative research that provide very accurate measurements and statistics, these can be viewed on the BARB website.

(http://www.barb.co.uk/)

A company much like BARB, is called RAJAR, but instead of providing the official measurement of UK television audiences, RAJAR, or Radio Joint Audience Research, obtain quantitative statistics, and provides the official measurement of radio audiences in the United Kingdom.

(http://www.rajar.co.uk/)

- Qualitative: Qualitative research is generally gained primarily and in an exploratory fashion. For example, qualitative research could be opinions and motivations and provides insight to better develop ideas to create a good product. In the creative media industries qualitative research would be taken through consumer opinions in the form of film reviews or responses to media coverage. Qualitative research is more focused on the quality value to consumers rather than the numerical value of a production, it is also important in evaluation to assess the key demographics thoughts and attitude in response the product, an example of this could be when researchers would ask an audience at the end of a preview screening of a film to fill out a questionnaire to get feedback on the product.

Qualitative research is important, and extremely beneficial, due to it looking beyond numerical charts and values, and getting a much more personal and emotive feedback, it taps into people’s individual experiences and therefore means that researchers and producers can look at the product more naturally and with a consumers outlook. However qualitative research may be

incomplete or have missing information, for example, questionnaires can be aimed in favour of a certain outcome and manipulate the audiences opinion, such as saying, ‘Some people think this about this product, do you feel the same?’ This is immediately manipulating the reader to agree with the question. A better way to get genuine feedback from an audience would be wording it as, ‘How do you feel about this product?’ Therefore the question is more clear and concise, and since the question isn’t biased it provides more accurate results. Qualitative research has its advantages and disadvantages, as does any research, qualitative research can be very time consuming, possibly lasting months or years, in which time the audiences opinions may have changed, therefore shifting the productions success in the long run.

Examples of qualitative research:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0sHkcwPCnI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDVMUrNb_Y

(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqEeDAUf4Mg0GgEN658tkA)

There are different methods and sources of research, such as:

- Primary Research: Primary research is generally produced by researcher’s singlehandedly and has more attention paid to focus groups. Primary research is generally taken by surveys and interviews. This is due to the fact that primary research is defined as research that you get yourself. In the creative industry some examples of ways primary research would be gathered would be audience panels, questionnaires and surveys.

Primary research is accurate and specific to the topic at hand, however it is time consuming and may have a low response rate, leading to inaccurate results. You could base primary research on participant’s attitudes and mannerisms as well as answers in interviews or other settings. A very beneficial and relatively easy way to gain good primary research is by employing the help of a group of potential customers, better known as a focus group, and letting them air their thoughts and feelings about a product in order to get detailed and personal feedback that would be very beneficial to marketing a product and discussing it. Primary research is extremely good to use when a researcher wants to focus on a specific topic and gain the feedback in a more natural way.

I, myself, employed the use of primary research recently, with Christmas coming up. I have had my eye on getting a new camera. But in order to find a dependable and reliable store from which to order the camera from, I asked around the people I knew that were very big into cameras where they would recommend I buy a camera. Shea and Adam gave me feedback on the places they have gotten cameras and equipment from that were reliable and efficient in getting their product out. The feedback I received from them pointed me in the direction of Amazon, Currys PC World, And Eglobal.

https://www.eglobalcentral.co.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItaaawcDz1wIVS7HtCh398QVxEAAYASAAEgJksfD_BwE

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_6?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=camera&sprefix=camera%2Caps%2C171&crid=1P2RAINPMYA9T&rh=n

%3A560798%2Ck%3Acamera

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/cameras-and-camcorders-38-u.html

- Secondary Research: Secondary research is a collation or synthesis of existing data, which can be taken from things such as books or government statistics. Quantitative and qualitative research are also a key part of secondary research. Secondary research would be gathered in the creative media industry via hits on a website, or by demographic circulation figures.

Secondary research is easily assessable and cheap to conduct, however the information gathered may be outdated or incomplete.

Example of secondary research:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

- Market Research: Market research is a research technique used in the creative media industries to get information on what the consumer audience wants, and provide invaluable feedback to the industry which help aim products that are most favourable to the key demographic of consumers in order to outshine and identify any industry competitors. It is also key in knowing where to advertise your product, because you need to decide where to advertise your product carefully in order to guarantee it reaches the correct market audience and leads to the productions profits increasing.

A well-known example of this is comparing the X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. 2004 was the year the first season of the very popular show, the X Factor was aired. In 2007 the first season of Britain’s Got Talent was aired, Britain’s Got Talent’s success was due to market research being conducted into the success of the X Factor where the producers and researchers of Britain’s got talent looked into the audience and ratings they could attract. They then decided that the audience it could attract would be profitable, and thus created a similar, but not identical show that would attract the large audience that viewed the X Factor, this meant that they had the same key demographic, and meant Britain’s Got Talent was definitely going to be successful and lead to Britain’s Got Talent subsequently stealing the views that would originally just be funnelled into the X Factor.

- Audience research: Audience research is a key component of market research. The creative media industry relies on its audience to consume and buy its products in order to keep the creative media industries flourishing. In

order to best know where to market a product, you need to have an in depth idea of who the audience is. Therefore the demographics of your audience are very important to factor in, from socio-economic factors to personal factors, such as: How old are the audience you’re aiming the product at? What are their backgrounds and interests? Are they going to want to buy your product? Religion, gender and their class are also important to factor in as well as other important aspects.

These are all factors you have to consider when doing audience research. Audience research typically uses qualitative and primary research, this is order to help determine the success of a production. A good example of audience research that is close to home is to showcase the success of the popular Irish show Mrs Browns Boys. The reason that Mrs Browns Boys is so popular in Ireland is due to important and in depth research having before conducted before production even started, such as geodemographic research having been conducted on individuals in Ireland. It also used psychographic research in order to see the audience’s opinions and views were in order to be able to tell what jokes or humour would have the best comedic impact on the audience.

- Production research: Production research is vital to making a product or production, as it helps calculates cost effectiveness, production costs, the profit margin, and the commercial viability. These are crucial to know if they

key demographic is correct and if the profits would be substantial enough to be able to release the product to the public.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, research techniques and methods are vital to know in the creative media industries, as they play a huge part in post-production to create a successful product. The creative media industry employs the use of many different aspects and types of research to make a product correctly and successfully in order to profit from it and fully understand the audience and impact their production has all around the world, and this is essential in the creative media industry in order to financially and correctly continue making other products in the future.