Unit 1: Research techniques

Understanding the purpose of research:

Market Research: Market research is research in which an individual will strive to find information in there selected market in such fields as prefereces, services and products etc. This information could be found in a variety of ways such as conducting focus groups, questionaires or interviews. I used this technique in unit 29 in task 9, to plan my TV advert and to gain a better understanding of what my target audience wanted to see in the advert I designed a questionaire. This gave me a better insight into how I should produce my advert.

Audience data: Audience data is where information or data is collected from an audience via sampling or speculation of a product, giving feedback according to what their opinion was. This data could be either on a quantitative or qualatitive format. I did this in unit 29 task 10 where I carried out interviews with my classmates to gain a better understanding of their views of advertising.

Audience Profiling:. Audience profiling is the analysis of a persons behavioural and psychological characteristics in order to assess thier capabilites and place them into subgroups and categories. I did this throughout unit 21, single camera drama, specifically in task 6 whereby I gained a better understanding of the social classes and to be able to aim my drama at the correct target audience.

Advertising placement: Advertising placement refers to the process of advertisers placing their adverts during a specific time or period allowing them to benefit from peak viewing times or allowing them to target a specific market segment. I gained a more clear understanding of this process in unit 7 in tasks 4 and 5 where I analyised British television and the power advertising has on some of our channels. For example the cost of prime time adverting slots on ITV.

Production Research

Resources: Resources are required in order to carry out tasks. This can be anything from equipment, facilities, funding or even the assistance of individuals. I have done this in most of the evaluations in the unit by describing the equipment that has or would be used in my productions. I also did this in unit 22 when we had to analyise and describe what equipment would be needed to produce our Friday World production.

Audience: In production terms an audience is a group of people who are gathered in order to watch or listen to an event. This was completed in all my productions to give me an understading of what people thought of my production and to help me improve in the future with their constructive critism.

Applying a range of research Methods and Techniques

Quantitative research: Quantitive research is data gathered numerically. This can be programme ratings and figures. Website Hits and sales figures. Qualitative data can be closed questionnaires and surveys. Data is recorded in a table and analysed to determine how successful a product/programme/film is. I did this in 29 task 9 when data I had collected from my peers were made into charts to be easily compared.

Qualitative research: Is research which cannot be recorded numerically. It is usually people’s opinions such as film reviews, responses to programmes and campaigns. It can be research such as open ended questionnaires. I did this again in unit 29 when I interviewed various people on their opinions on advertising. Therefore making the task qualitative research.

Primary Sources: Primary sources of research can come in terms of interviews, which can take place over the phone, face to face of via email. However if an interview is face to face a person can express their views easier than over the telephone or email, due to facial expressions and the ease of a face to face conversation. Interview questions can be open ended which allow the interviewee to express their oppinions fully and allow the researcher to gather more data. Or questions can be closed where they have a simply clear answer. Other sources of primary data include observations, questionnaires, focus groups and meetings. In TV advertising focus groups and questionaires were made to gather data about advertising. It also helped me to decide what target audience I should have been basing my advert around.

Consumer Categorisation: This is where consumers are categorised due to their socio-economic background, their geographic classification, ethnographic classification, age, gender, sexual orientation, occupational group and educational background. This is a way for programmes to suit the programme to their target audience to gain viewings. I used this in my single camera drama unit when i looked into social class and the categories that are accociated with them.

Presenting research results

Techniques: These are the techniques in order to present the research results. The techniques can be written in terms of a report or a review. They can be oral in terms of a presentation, video, video diary. Or as usuing graphic aids, pie charts, bar charts. The results will either be formal or informal. I used a variety of these techniques throughout my units, for example in TV Advertising task 9 i completed a group of charts to help me easily compare my finding. In a lot of my units I have completed various reviews of television to gain a more intellegent look on media.

Quotation and refererence: It is important to source quotes and reference information using a bibliography and citations, this can be done using such styles as the Harvard reference system, citation, footnotes, acknowledgements, credits, appendices. In my understanding TV industry unit I did this throughout to make sure that all the sources that I had used in my tasks had been recognised and I did not copy any of my work.