The Nature and Purposes of Research

Primary research is the term used for gathering data by yourself by the means of interviews, surveys and focus groups. Some other examples include panels, questionnaires and Internet forums.. For my 3MW, I interviewed two people and asked them several questions about their opinions on horror films. Primary research is conducted in the media industry as a way to gather feedback and group responses to productions and pitches to find out whether it will be successful to the target audience(s).

Secondary research is the term used for finding data that has already been collected and is already readily available to you without needing to collect it yourself. Examples of this include film archives, books and newspapers. For my 3MW I used the internet to look up how different films in different decade did at box office and also people's reviews on modern horror compared to that of older horror films. Secondary research is used in the media industry as a way to research a topic without looking for one that has been incredibly researched already.

The pros of primary research are that you can research and and gather very recent information that would be more useful than data gathered from a third party source 6 months ago. This allows production companies to stay up to date and recent with target markets and audiences. The cons of primary research are that it is not that cost effective and it is considered to be quite time consuming. The pros of secondary research are that it is much more cost effective due to the fact most of the data has been gathered and it is just a case of reevaluating and rearranging the data. The cons of secondary research are that the data could be considered to have a lag in the context of time. This is because new information could have arisen after the first chunk of data was collected and so, would not be that useful now.

Quantitative research is the term used for statistical data (e.g: numerical dates). Examples of  this include ratings of television shows and the number of hits a website cultivates. In my 3MW, I looked up how much modern horror films cost to make and how much they made at box office and compares that to older horror films made in the 60s-90s.

Qualitative research is their term used to describe a method of inquiry. Examples of this include film reviews, game reviews and response to news coverage. For my 3MW I looked up the reviews critics gave to modern horror films and compared them to the reviews critics were giving horrors films back in the 60s-90s.

The pros of quantitative research are that it is much quicker to do and in turn is much more affordable to execute. The cons of quantitative research are that there is not a way to get specific results as you would with qualitative. The pros of qualitative research are that there it is much more investigation based with a an ability to gather a richer data. The cons of qualitative research are that people involved with the production may be prone to bias and/or accusations. 

An example of a data gathering agency is RAJAR a.k.a Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd. What RAJAR does is measure radio audiences in the UK. The reason the word Joint is included is because it is owned by the BBC and the radio center and there are about 310 radio stations on the survey. IMDB is also another example and it stands a for The Internet Movie Database. It's a online database that contains basically any information to any film and the actors with biographies and facts about the films. Users are invited to rate films on a scale of 1 to 10 and the totals are converted into a weighted-mean-rating that is displayed beside each movie title, with online filters employed to deter ballot stuffing. They exist for the use of the public should they be required and needed by anyone.

Some examples of audience and market research are demographics, product markets and advertising effects. Market research is mainly used as a way to gather information about a specific target market as a way for the company behind it to know how to successfully sell a product or service. This information could entail anything from location, characteristics, spending budget as well as the competitors of the company and the industry as a whole. For my 3MW I looked up the age range and sex of people going to see certain horrors films to see if it had any impact on the overall films' review.

Some examples of production research are finance, placement media and locations. Production research mainly revolves around the actual product itself, mainly how it is actually made. When companies partake in production research it helps them look at commercial viability. When companies carry out research they look into demographics which mainly show the characteristcs of the target audience including age, sex and location. For my 3MW I watched a lot of documentaries that went behind the scenes of older horror films to find out how and where they films and how large or little their budget was.