Purposes of Research

Research Log

Assignment 2 - Task 1 - Undertaking Research

Purpose of research

The main purpose of any research is to gain information of a particular topic of interest to what you're working on or producing. In this instance, I will be exploring the purposes of using research within the media industry and in particular for music video productions. 

Firstly, when developing an idea for a music video we are inclined to want to know what people think or would think of it as it progresses and reaches its final stages and obviously the final product. This is where the first purpose comes in, which is to understand who your target market are which will then lead you into gaining further insight into what their opinions are of your product. 

Getting a clear idea of who you're target audience will be comes from using research methods such as qualitative, quantitative , primary and secondary. 

To begin, for qualitative research which includes things such as opinions, ideas, values, interests, preferences and views of an audience on what they would like to see from a specific product. This could be an effective research method for a music video as it will enable us as the researchers to understand the audience who may well end up either watching the music video or not, and get their personal take on the product, covering areas which wouldn't be easy to cover using quantitative research as another method. For example, with our music video as it is a Rap/Hip-hop genre we are going to need to conduct both primary and secondary research such as questionnaires and existing rap music videos with reviews on them. This will allow for us to gain a deeper and more precise idea of what exactly we need to ensure we do when it comes to making our own music video. Questionnaires and surveys are vital when gathering information on a primary basis as it allows for us to gain the information specifically for our target audience which wouldn't be easy when for example looking at forums or reviews on a website which may be unreliable. 

Another primary research method is using focus groups or conducting interviews with participants whom are within our target audience. This is again a useful method in gathering qualitative research on your target audience as it is a first hand experience with someone who will (presumably) provide you with information in an honest way. Unlike a secondary source such as wikipedia which is publicly available for anyone to edit and change. 

Finally, another method which may be useful for our music video productions could be the use of reviews. This can come under both primary and secondary research as we could research into existing rap music videos an see what their reviews which would be the secondary research and for primary making our own review for our target audience to voice their opinions on both before and after making the music video, which will give us information about their preferences and views on the music video. 

The second method which is (in my opinion) as important as qualitative research, is using quantitative research which also covers the purpose of undertaking research in a media (music video) context. Quantitative research is focused on the quantity of an audience, and this includes how much of the audience watch a specific source for instance or how many people liked a music video and bought tickets to watch a gig. This is vital for researching into our target audience, we will research into secondary sources such as artists websites, forum websites, books, hit song websites, youtube, iTunes etc. These sources will be useful in determining whether our target audience enjoy a similar music video which then allows us to try and achieve a similar music video with similar or the same conventions. Another method of using primary research for quantitative research is using surveys with closed end questions, such as ratings. For instance, it could be that we ask a question like 'how much would rate the quality of the use of conventions in our music video?' this would then give the participants a chance to rate out of 10. Again, this is equally important as peoples opinions. 

The next method we will use is hit song websites, which we will use to research into the viewing figures of leading hit songs within the rap/hip-hop genre.  

Application + Evaluation - Open Ended Questions

-What is your gender?

70% of the participants were males, and 30% were females.

Our aim here was not to focus solely on females, because the artist is a female but rather to ask the opposite gender also. Therefore, having 70% of our participants being male was useful to us in allowing for a more varied response.

-What is your country of origin?

40% UK

10% Nigeria

10% Morocco

20% Congo

20% Somalia

Most of our participants fell within the UK (Europe) which shows that their response may not be tied to them living in the USA (that being the artist's country of origin). Also, the remainder of our participants fell in countries within Africa, such as Nigeria, Morocco, Congo etc. This also meant that they won't be influenced to answer according to where they lived, but rather how not living in the USA has made them like/dislike this song.

-Age?

3- 18 years
5-17 years
1-16 years

-What socio-economic class do you recognise yourself as being?

5- D

4- C

1- C2

Again, most participants where in the D category and the rest recognised themselves as C-C2's. This may or may not influence their responses, but it always useful to know what social class your participants fall into, so that you can make sure you're targeting the right group.

-Where is your area of residence?

70% Lambeth

10% Richmond upon Thames

20% Southwark

When posing this question , we assumed that everyone would write Lambeth as the school is in Lameth. This is the response we got as 70% said they lived in Lambeth and the remainder 30% said they lived elsewhere, such as Richmond Upon Thames and Southwark.

-What is your favourite genre of music?

20% Grime

30% Rap

20% Pop

10% Punjab

10% R&B

This was probably one of the most important questions to ask our participants. This is because we must make sure that this age group enjoys the same genre of music as the song we have chosen or at least a similar genre to it. As you can see, the responses were very much similar, falling between 10-30%, which meant that people would not mind listening to another genre that they have not chosen. Having said this, only 20% said they liked the genre of pop which is somewhat similar to the genre of the song we have chosen. This obviously is not the response we were expecting, however we will work around this genre to ensure the target audience are satisfied no matter what.

- Who would you say is your top 2 artists?

20% Drake

10% Jessie J

10% Rihanna

10% Adele

20%  Stormzy

10% Eminem

10%Travis Scott

10% Ard Adz

Again, this question would help us understand the reason behind choosing a favorite artist , as each artist has their own individual persona. As we can see from the choices above, most of these artists would be classified as either pop or r&b singers / artists.

- What is your opinion on pop/soul artists?

80% Good, I like them
20% Bad, I don't like them

The majority of the responses said they did like pop/soul artists, and the rest said they didn't. This means that we are targeting the right pool of people, and so this response reflects that.

- After listening to 'Desire', what are your first impressions of the song overall?

30% slow/boring
40% Good, I liked it
30% Bad, I did not like it

-How do you think we should implement the lyrics in the music video?

20% Don't implement the lyrics
40% Act the lyrics out
40% Show the lyrics in writing on screen

- What conventions would you like to see?

10% Cutting to the beat
30% Lip- syncing
60% Other

- What style would you prefer to see in our music video?

10% Performative
20% Interpretative
70% Narrative

- What locations would suit our music video genre?

50% London preferably central London
30% River Thames
20% Estate

- What outfit should the artist wear?

60% Dress
30% Jeans and a top
10% Other

Audience Information Grid

Type of Research - Qualitative and Quantitative

This task requires me to explore the purpose of research within the media industry and why media companies carry out research on media productions or products. The two obvious reasons would be to understand the personal benefit and the other the wider benefit - that is the audiences viewing/listening or reading into the particular media platform. 

The most successful media companies would know how to attract their target audience by carrying out research, but first they need to find out information on who that target audience actually is, therefore research there also needs to be done. This gives them the ability to communicate to these target audience members effectively, which is the key of all media institutes. Audience research can be the amount of people who like that media product or what they like about it. 

This is split into two different types of research methods, qualitative and quantitative.
''Qualitative research is primarily exploratory research. It is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research''. 
The main or primary aim of qualitative research is that to understand the opinions on media products of the public or target audience through many techniques. It also aims to make sense or interpret the way the subject within the media product or the production itself impacts people. 

Another type of research is quantitative research. “Quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques”-(Wikipedia) The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ measurable facts and information rather than opinions because it is based on actual data. It can help to determine how many people are likely to buy a new product idea, which group of individuals will react best to which creative approach, which incentive or proposition will appeal to which target market.

An advantage of Quantitative research is that it allows the researcher to measure and analyze data. The relationship between an independent and dependent variable is studied in detail. This is advantageous because the researcher is more objective about the findings of the research. The main disadvantage of quantitative research is that the context of the study is ignored. Quantitative research does not study things in a natural setting or discuss the meaning things have for different people as qualitative research does. Another disadvantage is that a large sample of media consumers must be studied; the larger the sample of people researched, the more statistically accurate the results will be. An example of this is when BARB (Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board), an organisation which carries out audience research, is trying to find out the number of viewers that watched a particular show on BBC 1 they might get a percentage but it might not be accurate because on their website in shows that they got their numbers from 5100 homes and that’s not all the homes in the UK so that can be a problem. In contrast to BARB which focuses on television audience research, RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) is the organisation which carries out audience research for radio stations. It is important to carries audience research on radio audience because radio stations need to know how many people listen to them so that they can improve their product in order to keep or share audiences.

Methods of Research

Primary research

One of the methods of research is primary research. This is the type of research that is conducted independently; it is original research. Prime examples of primary research are carrying out questionnaires, surveys, internet forums, and interviews or group research. An advantage of primary research is being able to explore the secondary research already performed by other researchers. Carrying out their own research allows the media organization to address issues specific to their own situation like if they want to launch a family sitcom, they can screen the pilot episode in advance to a small number of people to see what they think about it, this will allow the media organization to analyse and improve their products according to what the audience like and don’t like.

Some advantages of primary research are “greater control – not only does primary research enable the marketer to focus on specific issues, it also enables the marketer to have a higher level of control over how the information is collected”.-(knowthis.com) – this means a media company can focus on their product only so they can analyse it better and do research based on only their product.

Some of the disadvantages of primary research are the costs and the time scale. In regards to the cost primary research may be very expensive since there is a great deal of media involvement and the expense in preparing and carrying out research can be high. This is expensive because all of the data has to be independently collected without any help from previously existing data so it take a lot of money to do that. 

Furthermore it is time consuming “to be done correctly primary data collection requires the development and execution of a research plan.” (knowthis.com) – it is time consuming because primary researchers have to start with no existing data so all the research has to be done from start to finish by the researcher.

Secondary research

Secondary research uses outside information assembled by media sources, it is a form of research where the information already exists and can be used as a form of second hand research. It is usually published in pamphlets, newsletters, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers. Media firms can also get information from the government, competitors or trade publications. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to secondary research. Some of the advantages of secondary research are that it is easy to do because of the already existing data. Most of the pre –existing sources are accurate therefore making your research easier. However there are also some disadvantages of this type of research. One disadvantage is it is frequently biased and inaccuracies cannot be checked. It also has a lack of independence of perspective to research.

Charts for Questionnaire + Evaluation - Close Ended Questions