first he brakes down his research into things he wants to achieve.
then he does a broad research by doing some background research into the history of dubstep
then he analysed the dubstep communtiy in detail looking at the Dubstep Demographics.
Research your topic in detail, make yourself familiar with research techniques and search engines results and make a note of communities and popular sites along the way.
Through the internet he wanted to find online communites that would focus on dubstep.He looked for groups on
·Websites
·Record labels
·Artists
·Blogs
·Forums
·Radio stations
·Magazines
Step By Step:
Give Yourself a Brief History Lesson
Cruise SERPS (search engine results pages) and make a note of communities and popular sites
Have a look at some of the more popular publications
Check out related searches for other ideas
Check out some websites you have researched popularity through DoubleClick Ad Planner
Experiments: Pros- the pros of using experiments is that your findings are valuable as well as factual. Your results aren't assumed or from a secondary source your are there to witness things for yourself and are able to draw valuable conclusions. However to get an effective result you must have an opposing side to compare your results to or else your findings will be biased.
Cons- Doing an experiment as a form of research could be seen as being artificial. Meaning that you had to prepare and set up an experiment as opposed to finding something in a real life situation.
Participant Observation: Pros- The benefit of undergoing participant observation is that you get a clearer understanding of what your researching. You are personally participating in your research as opposed to just reading it or researching it online.
Cons- The cons of participant observation is that not only could you get hurt depending on what your researching i.e researching gangs but you could also get influenced to undertake what your researching. For example if your researching the affects gangs have on the crime rate and you participate in a gang then you may be persuaded to be apart of that gang.
Historical Research: Pros- Historical research is useful when trying to compare previous theories with present theories. You can be able to draw valuable conclusions between the way people think, act or behave. In addition to that you are able to find the root cause about what your researching therefore making your research context more sufficient. You will be able to research how the past affected the future.
Cons- Your historical findings can not be argued because its happened years and years ago. You can not go out and find the person whose theories you would like to argue because they may potentially not be around any more. In addition to that another con may be that your findings may be out of date if your researching a modern topic.
Rhetorical Analysis: Pros- By using rhetorical analysis we are able to see what type of techniques works for a certain group of audiences. It can give us an insight as to what they depending on what they respond to.
Cons-Rhetorical analysis shows you what the makers of the products think of the audience and that doesn't help us because the audience would respond differently to it which is no use to us.
Comparative Analysis: Pros It can give very specific answers
Cons-It can be very biased because its down to your opinion who you choose to compare as opposed to something being given to you
Competitor: Pros- Gives you a better view of the market and what your up against. It helps you determine your audience and how you would go about attracting them.
Cons- You may just fall into one category, you may just focus on the audience you are attracting as opposed to those you aren't. You could potentially be to focus on the competition as opposed to your own target audience.
After undergoing this one on one interview task I found that this method of research is somewhat more reliable than a questionnaire. You get a more in depth answer, by there full opinionated response you can get a further insight as to what they think and why they think that way; a questionnaire isnt that in-depth. In addition to that in a interview you can go further into what your aiming to find because, according to their answer, you then think of more things that you can ask which wasnt really your intention to ask. The answers are more specific and in-depth.
The cons of doing an interview is that you are too reliable on another person; they may not feel like answering you properly or they might feel uncomfortable answeing personal questions face to face; they are no longer anonymous. In addition, when doing an interview your technique of recording down answers are completly unreliable; you have to contain answers by memory which you could possibly forget later on when concluding your findings.
When doing the interview with my classmate, she tend to go off in a tangent and talk about things which werent relevant to what we were aiming to find. this could possibly be a con when doing it professionally because not only does it take up both of yours and the interviewees time but it also looses money.
Today our primary focus was on questionnaires as a form of research technique. We analysed some of the pro's and cons of using questionnaires. We realised that the only way a questionaire would be accurate and reliable as a source of information is if its structured properly and has a balance. We looked at a very bad structured questionnaire and realised that if we were to use that questionnaire, we wouldnt be able to get the information we needed. Questionnaires need a balance between open and closed questions. If a questionnaire if just primarily filled with closed questions (yes or no questions) we as a researcher wouldnt be able to draw conclusions from our findings because the answeres doesnt have any detail to it. For example, did you walk your dog today would be a closed question but if you were to ask 'on average how many times do you walk your dog a day' you would get a more in depth answer there for allowing you to either compare or relate one persons findings to another. Balance is very important, as well as not having too much closed questions a questionnaire shouldnt have too much open questions because having too many open questions could cause inconvenience to the interviwee. No one really wants to do a questionaire where they have to write a detailed answer to every question.
Another important thing that Ive realised whilst viewing this bad questionairre is that the l;ayout is also crucial in getting what you want out of a questionnaire. If your asking a open question you must have enough space for the question to be fully answered in detail. However you must have the righ amount of space because you dont want peoplpe to ramble on or donot say enough.
Your questions must be relevant to your aim. A lot of questionnaires has questions which tends to go off topic therefore loosing interesest in your interviewee. You must keep the questions relevant to your subject as well as sufficent.
Pro's: questionaires is a very cheap way to find information from a wide audiece. It gets to a lot more people at one time with having any extra cost.
According to layout and content, questionnaires are very easy to understand and get your opinion across in a very simple structure
Cons: if structured wrongly you may not get the information you were aiming for.
People may just throw away questionnaire because they are not forced to do it, its strictly an optional thing.
In a nutshell, questionnaires can be reliable if the structure and content are right.
Ratings / audience figures are important to companies because it gives them an insight as to how they can further develop there product according to audiences comments and reactions. If they were to totally disregard what there audience wants then they would loose audiences as well as money.
Reason 2: The increase/decrease of money. By knowing what your tv shows main target audience is, the more they can attract them, therefore making more money. If a tv show knows that there peak target audience is increasing they can then ask for more money from the makers in order to create a bigger and more modernised production.
Reason 3: Ratings show what times a show will get the most viewers, whether its on Mondays or at 12 o'clock etc. Ratings are important in this situation because it allows tv shows to put on there best production at that particular time, resulting in them increasing there yearly gross.
Focus Group
Our focus group was very well organised however not a lot of people fully contibuted to the discussion. AS a whole though we did come to a ocnclusion of combining contextual advertising with pop-ups. We came to this conclusion after disscussing the fact that when pop-ups come up on our screens we tend to ignore it and click out of it however if the pop-up was to display an image of something we were interested in such as our favourite actor or musician then we would notice it more causing us to then search up what we saw. The only way that a pop-up would be relevant to our personal likes is by contextual advertising which would have a memorised automated service of things we constantly research.
As a form of research technique I believe that the focus group worked really well. Although many people didnt contribute it allowed everyone to view things from a different perspective besides there own. For example, I had a really strong view on pop-ups being a good idea but then Rashid explained that it could be a good idea however if we do ........ His opinion made me reconsider mine therefore creating a broader selection of opinioins. This, however could potentially be a disadvantage because although we will be exploring other opinions besides our own we would not advance from just opinions. We would not get to factual comments or figures therefore clouding our judgement and research findings.
Another advantage to using this research technique is the use of memory. Sometimes people may say things which may be really relevant to your research topic but you may forget it by the end of the session so its really helpful to have an observer there writing down key points to the discussion so that at the end you can always refer back to it.
Examples of things you would research for the release of a magazine through market research are:
Target Audience/ How many people are going to buy it/Printing
Who your Competition is?
Distribution; Advertisements
Finances; How your gonna fund it in relation to the target audience
Content (what is going to be in it)
Selling your magazine to your target audience is just as important as selling it to your advertisers
I looked at TV Easy made by IPC Connect and analysed the different ways they describe and categorised their audience in order to attract there sellers. The first thing recognisable to the advertisers were there target audience. It was clear that audiences of Soaps were targeted through the use of bold images and content on the front page (i.e, Exclusive Information on soaps such as Eastenders, Corrie, Emmerdale etc). Demographics played a huge part in the clarity of what audience their targeting. The demographics (age, gender,sexuality; facts) states that TV easy are appealing to an audience of an average age of 44, predominately females, and of a somewhat wealthy background (ABC1). It is questionable as to why people of a wealthy background would buy a magazine, mainly about Soaps; which is seen to be something that displays the life of 'normal' characters. However, the attraction of being able to buy something which the 'norm' wouldn't could possibly be seen as an attraction or satisfaction for the fact that they are different.
Psychographics (how the audience feels, their interest, their attitudes, their beliefs) Physcographics and demographics are the medias way of dividing up the population into categories. Magazine editors mostly send a team out to research what they think their target audience is like, how they feel etc and from that results, they then get ideas on how to attract them, content within the magazine and how to sell it to their advertisers.
Social Media Research
Social Media Research has evolved into an effective and reliable form of research. Companies such as Lynx and Coca Cola are discovering social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as a form of communication to an extremely huge audience allowing them to give them feedback about there thoughts on the product and how they can improve if possible. Technology as a whole has evolved, an has since gained a huge fan base; with the millions of people joing multiple social networking sites. Instead of having to carry out primary research on an minimal amout of audiences they get the opportunity to commute to millions of people at once. From audiences reactions and thoughts to these products, advertisers are then able to know how to market and advertise their product. Although this form of research has seen to be affective the article 'Social Media Research by Sean Hargrave' states that social media doesn’t reach all strata of society, so some traditional research methods are still needed for a full picture.
I believe that this research is a great way of communicating with a variety of audiences at a faster speed. Its a cheap way of getting the physcographics of audiences, its economic and good value for money. Its target audience is prodominetly teenagers and I believe that products such as coco cola could do with opinions from the people who mostly buy their products.
Primary Research- Direct form of research, something you find yourself. Primary Research used in the media institution is: Surveys, Interviews, Questionnaires, Market Research, Focus Groups (when a group of people get together to discuss chosen subjects, people are chosen in relation to their target audience), One on One interview (a much personal and in depth type of research method; different from the focus group), Observation (observing peoples), Empirical (any sort of research that is observable i.e behaviour, i.e I'm doing some empirical research), Direct contact of producers of a media text, Chat Rooms
Secondary Research- Research found indirectly from the source, information that you get from someone else. SecondaryResearch used in the media institution is:
Books, Internet, Specialized Articles (Media Guardian; Telegraph and Technology Section)
Radio 4 (Media Show)
Podcast, Films
Why do we need more than one research method?? Using more than one source makes the research more reliable. We can find research from secondary research which we didn't find in primary to back up our research. The research is more accurate and reliable.
Done an exercise in relation to content analysis. Looking through magazines and finding out if magazines represents ethnic minorities fairly. My group found that in our magazine the ratio of white people to black people were about 7 to 1. People were represented unfairly; in the beginning of the magazine all adverts promoting brands like Chanel or Gucci were modeled by white people but by the middle of the magazine you were introduced to black people as make up artist and helpers. Although we had some findings, in regards to research our findings weren't accurate. We only analysed one magazine and made assumptions. We didn't know what the overall ratio of ethnic minorities were in magazines. We could have improved our research by viewing other magazines and comparing our findings. We could have also improved our research by analysing a variety of ethnicity groups when carrying out or quantitative research. If we were to look at the ratio of black people to mixed race people to Asian people etc we would of had a clearer and more in depth result. What was good about this research was that is was very simple. It didn't require any sort of hard work or money. For such a quick technique it resulted in a lot of information. What was bad about this research technique was that although it was simple, results were somewhat complicated. Because the research wasn't so in depth we had to make up our own accusations as to why we think things are done as opposed to having concrete information.
