Other forms of research

Experiments (test a theory to see if it is true)- Good: this type of research is a way to get first hand Primary research without going through a list of different sources to find some information. Bad- However the result of an experiment can be biased to the view of the person carrying out the test. People won't be in their natural environments and would give 'not normal' results.

Participant observation (the researcher participates in the activity in order to better understand it) - Good: This type of research is an in depth and straight forward way to analyse a study. Bad- Biased to your own point of view, in a practical way it would be difficult to observe and take part in a study, would not be able to gain all the appropriate experiments.


Historical research (looking at the history and development of something, or studying old examples of something and comparing with contemporary examples)- Good: This technique will help the researcher gain a greater understanding of the subject, providing results which can be compared to current results, which could help predict the future. Bad: Any informational will be few and far between, a lot of it will be out of date and irrelevant to people and life style today.


Rhetorical analysis (analysis of the techniques used to persuade the audience; can tell us something about the audience and the purpose of the text)- Shows what the makers of the media product think of the audience, doesn't take into the way individuals react to this, to general over audience.


Comparative analysis (research that compares/contrasts behaviors/media products) - Good: Comparing to the competitors is good to study genre and product then identifying who your audience is.


Competitive analysis- close analysis and rating of a range of competitors products) - Good- gives a fuller view of the market, what you're up against, what you need to be better than and different from.


Objective- unbiased study

Subjective- using your own opinion


Stages of dub step research

Asked him questions which will be needed to answer through the research...
• What is the history of this niche audience?
• Where online does this audience hang out?
• What peripheral interests are shared among this group?
• What types of offline publications are there?

Decide the different aspects of research that will be relevant for the research.
• Websites
• Record labels
• Artists
• Blogs
• Forums
• Radio stations
• Magazines

Used Wikipedia to gain a bases of information (in this case the history) to build the research plan around.

Then he listed out all the search engines, searches and websites which would help with the research. Each search/website is partnered with a definition of how and why it will be useful!

Went on Double click ad planner

US or UK?

Find a list of websites that people look at as well as dubstepforum.com

Uses and Gratifications Theory and one one interviews

Why do people use the media?

1. Entertainment

2. Integration and social interaction

3. Personal identity

4. Information

We one to one interviews with another person in our class, this turned out to be difficult task as we had very little time and hadn't prepared any questions before hand.The subject I chose to interview about mobile phones, this involved asking questions such as 'what phone do you have'?, 'Are you one contract and how much do you pay' I tried to ask questions which Sam could give me an extended answer such stating why after saying yes or no. It was good to get answers from face to face because i was able to get an honest answer and a overall a relieble result.

Correcting a 'very average' audience research questionare!

The aim of our lesson for to study a very average questionnaire, correcting each of the question's to how we see necessary. The point was to make them more detailed and specific to anyone answering it, it was also important that each question can gain as much information through provoking one answer. The questionnaire lacked certain demographics which are important in gaining detailed and informative results, the demographics include such things as Age, gender and occupation. I believe it's important to learn the income bracket of the people filling the questionaire, it can help us understand whether it is the rich or poor population that are are downloading illegally. Another question you can ask is whether people downloading music can tell the difference between (in quality)legal and illegal music, and their motivation behind downloading.

Online activity

BBC three's most popular programes this week

* Ideal - Series 6 5. The Lapse
* Him & Her 2. The Birthday
* Don't Tell the Bride - Series 4 5. Tom and Lottie
* Cherry Has a Baby
* Edinburgh Comedy Fest Live Episode 2

Glamour magazine

526,216 Total Average Net Circulations / Distribution per Issue

The company grew dramatically over a short period of time, but has slowly decreased in recent years. This is because of the rise of Internet magazine reading all pressure on people financially due to the credit crunch.

We looked at audience figures, and then talked about why companies go to all that trouble to find out these statistics. If they can find that they have a large audience, they can see to advertisers for a higher price. It also can tell them if the show is successful or not, deciding whether to continue or expand the programmed or show.

As a task we got into focus groups, as Lucy as the boss, she quizzed us on the best ways to advertise to us young people. Most of these advertising techniques were from using the internet, including viral marketing, pop ups, competitions, texting, pop undress and banners. It was interesting to come to the conclusion that our focus group preferred viral marketing than to any of the others, this because it received friends and blogs which we are always on. It was hard however to gain a definitive conclusion because of the amount of us doing the focus group at one time. Although it was a good mix of genders in the group, I found it hard to get my own opinion across, being outnumbered in some cases; my view was overruled by a majority. This meant that the result didn't necessarily represent our group as individuals but as one whole.

Websites took at...

www.bdcresearchblog.blogspot.com

www.audiencedialogue.net/qual.html (research methods)
www.newmediastudies.com/stats.htm (list of new media statistic websites)
http://www.barb.co.uk/ (UK TV audience figures)
http://www.abc.org.uk/ (UK magazine and newspaper readership figures)
http://www.rajar.co.uk/ (UK radio listenign figures)
http://www.alexa.com/ (volume of traffic on specific websites)
www.google.co.uk/trends (search term trend information)
http://www.nmauk.co.uk/ (UK newspaper marketing and figures)
www.guardian.co.uk/media (large archive of media related, searchable articles)
www.game-research.com (gaming industry trends, debates etc.)
www.internetworldstats.com (global internet usage statistics)

Why and how does the media use research?

people involved in the new release of a new magazine need to know certain information they fing through market research. eg. they would need to find out:

• their competition
  
• target audience
• distribution (advertisments, how much you should charge?)
• content (what will be in it, and whether it will be appropriate for the target audience)
• Selling to your target audience is just as important as important as selling to your advertisers

Market research is very important but only if you get it right, good and accurate market research can save a company a lot of money and time, bad MR can cost you.

We looked at IPC (a famous publisher) and their ways to entice adverticers (market reseach) through the popular NME magazine.

• The sheet shows a list of demographics, showing age, gender and social class

The NME audience catagory says ABC1 which is quite high, although not entirely accurate, this tells advertisers that rich people read the mag and would be willing to buy expensive products. This encourages adverisers to pay more to advertise there products in the NME magazine.

social grade	occupation
A	higher managerial, administrative or professional
B	intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1	supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional

Psychographics are the audiences interests, beliefs and views on things. It is a way to identiy a more specific audience catagory, this could be a middle class man or woman, working class, student or children. There is different levels of researching this, some will go into depth and try to guess exactly what the reader is thinking, or just discussing what music they are into. Often high budget Psychographics are very cheesy and can be a massive generalisation, where they have identified a specific person or group which will read there magazine. Large companies will higher other companies to do this research for them, these people are called media researchers.

Social Media Research

We studied an article which describes the successes of social media within several different companies. The article begins with what it is like to do media research and how it is useful.. 'Listening to the buzz of conversations on social media is a hot area in online marketing, so it’s no surprise many brands are taking this a step further and not only listening to social media conversations but asking some market research questions of their target audience'. However it does warn readers that media research isn't perfect 'The word of caution - social media doesn’t reach all strata of society, so some traditional research methods are still needed for a full picture'.

“We used to send out thousands of questionnaires, then it took weeks for them to come back and us go through them. We used to have boxes and boxes to process,” she says. “Now we put out a questionnaire and get far quicker responses- Low-cost, near-instant feedback and answers you can go back and clarify are proving a useful mix of features for brands that believe they can find their target audience in social media. My Immediate reaction to reading this is that although these people have been employed to carry to target advertisers and audiences accuratly, it seems that we (their audience0 are doing their work for them.


http://www.nma.co.uk/features/social-media-research/3016672.article