Understand the nature and purposes of research in the creative media industries.

Types/methods of research:
Primary research, also known as self-generated, is research which you have obtained yourself. For example questionnaires, interview, focus groups and test screenings. Self-generated material are things such as your own videos, audio or photographic records of an event in which you can then analyse. I myself have done this during class, for example sent out questionnaires online and collected the results.

Secondary research is using other people's research such as Internet sources like IMDB.com or BoxOfficeMojo.com.,books/journals and film archives. An example of a book is the Film Distributors Association guidebook which we used during our Marketing a movie unit. Also from places such as photo libraries, organisations, publishing statistics which consist of many things including audience research and organisations like BARB.

Quantitative research results in data, which deals with numbers, amounts and fixed categories. Some examples of quantitative are; audience figures, box office takings, percentage of 18 year olds who are fans of horror etc. Quantitative can be showed numerically without any problems and they are often taken by closed questioning - Yes/No ticking boxes.

Qualitative research can be easily confused with quantitative research as they sound very familiar. Qualitative research results in data, which cannot be shown numerically as they are like opinions. For example 'Why do you like this film?' and these such questions can be shown in films reviews, blogs, attitudes towards an advert or news stories. Qualitative research can be collected by interviews and open questioning techniques - comment boxes.

Data gathering agencies are responsible in collecting specific data and operating data entry devices. Here are some examples of data gathering agencies:

• BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board)- This gives us the official viewings of TV in the UK. They do this by selecting a panel of private homes ,which represent about 5,000 homes in the UK and they monitor what programmes are watched in a week.
• RAJAR(Radio Joint Audience Research)- This is an organisation that counts the number of people listening to each of the radio stations in the UK. Radio stations subscribe to RAJAR for the duration of the contract which is around 12 months and results are given out quarterly.
• IMDb(Internet Movie Database)- Online database of information about movies, TV Audience and market research is carried out , actors and personnel.
• Box Office Mojo - This contains box office ratings and information about movies.

They benefit production companies that may want to create new TV shows for example. They can find out the data and figures of previous TV shows from these data gathering agencies and can help them make the show more popular. 

Purposes of research:
There are many types of audience and market research. Audience and market research is carried out to help the production be aware of their audience. For example Demographics which consist of gender, race, class and religion. These are things you were born with and you cannot change. Geodemographics is where you live.
Psychographics are things you are able to change, such as your beliefs , values , ideologies and views.
Demographics help with  knowing generally who your audience are whereas psychographics helps with understanding the likes and interests of your audience. Knowing this information can help with targeting your product correctly to your audience. 

Production research.
Production research helps plan the overall product. Which means finding out the cost/finance, the location and the personnel for the production. You must take in mind these when creating a media product:

• Content - What is the product?
• Viability - Are you copying someone else's idea? Will it make a profit?
• Placement media.
• Cost/Finance.
• Location.
• Personnel.

During one unit in college, we have done production research ourselves. We have completed location recces, scouted locations and found out the cost/finance for a production.

Assessing research data:

Validity.
During questionnaires, people are not always honest and they can say what they think we want to hear. For example if you got a parent to give their opinion on your work , they may 'sugar coat' their answer as this is what you want to hear. People may not take it seriously like some friends, they my lie and joke about.

Reliability.
This means repeating tests under certain conditions to test the accuracy and reliability of a questionnaire. For example comparing questionnaires and seeing the differences.

Representativeness and generalisability.