Audience Research

1. AUDIENCE
RESEARCH

2. QUESTIONNAIRE
A survey/questionnaire is a series of
questions asked in a closed and/or open
question format used to gather
information from the person completing it.
Usually used as part of primary research.
 Large amounts of
information can be collected
in a shorter period of time.
 Researcher doesn’t have to
be present for the
questionnaire to be
completed
 Provides quantifiable data
which makes looking at
results a lot easy and
clearer and trends can be
spotted more easily via e.g.
line graphs, histograms,
scatter graphs.
 Easy to create and
distribute.
 Cost effective.
 Less risk of interviewer bias.
 Answers may not be honest
– people can influence
others answers, the want to
be social desired and this
leads to a lack of validity.
 Language barrier.
 Lack of detail (closed
questions).
 Some people may
misunderstand questions.
 Limited answers (closed
questions).
 Low response rate (postal
questionnaires).
 Questionnaire may not be
completed by the intended
target audience (postal
questionnaires).
 Questions may be missed
out (postal questionnaires).

3. OBSERVATION
The process of closely monitoring a person or
a group of people while recording the
interactions that take place in order to better
understand them.
 No questions so
information that can be
gathered is not limited.
 Participants do not feel
under pressure to
supply information as
they are in their natural
environment which will
make the data collected
more valid.
 Cost effective.
 Easily replicated when
standardised behaviour
categories are used.
 Time consuming.
 Groups have to be
small so data won’t be
representative of age
group/target group
being researched.
 Results may be
subjective as
researchers may
interpret different things
in different ways.
 Lack of validity if the
participants know they
are being watched,
leads to a lack of
reliability.
 Data isn’t quantifiable.

4. INTERVIEWS
An interview is a one on one conversation between
the research and the participant. The researcher
asks a series of questions and records the answers.
Interviews can be structured or unstructured.
 The researcher can ensure
that the questions are
correctly understood
(unstructured).
 Easily repeatable (structured).
 Increased validity, more rich
data (unstructured).
 Quick to conduct and
conclude (structured).
 Qualitative data - deeper
understanding of audience
(unstructured).
 Quantitative data – can spot
trends more easily
(structured).
 Questions may not be honest
(the desire to seem more
socially acceptable)
 Interview effect – the
interviewer may lead the
interviewee to give an answer
that they want to hear, lack of
reliability (unstructured).
 Interviewee’s answers are
limited (structured).
 Interviewer bias e.g. Giving a
disapproving tone to an
answer given, prompting the
interviewee to change their
mind or if they disapprove of
answer, the interviewer may
not record what was said. This
weakens the validity of the
results collect from the
interview.
 Difficult to quantify data
(unstructured).

5. ONLINE FORUMS
 Free to setup and access.
 The site can be shared quickly
and directly to the target
audience.
 Doesn’t require a researcher
present – avoids interviewer
bias.
 Not time consuming.
 Audience can stay anonymous.
 Doesn’t produce quantifiable
data.
 Online forums are regularly
abused and not used for its
intended purpose. Comments
cannot be censored.
 Its hard to get traffic going on
the website without having to
share on other places where it
will get seen. This may cost
money.
 People may lie to seem socially
desirable.
 Answers are public, which
means other people could be
influencing other people’s
opinion – lacks reliability.
 Lack of validity.
 Full of subjective opinions.
 Cannot be repeated to see if the
same results will happen.
 At risk of trolls and spam.
 People of the right age group
may not be answering.
Online forums/message boards are
websites made for people to have
discussions about a certain subject. They
can take form in a chat room style or
comments under a post.

6. FOCUS GROUP
Structured like an interview where there are series of
questions that need to be asked. However, it is set up
more like a discussion and a safety net for people to
voice their opinions and bounce off each other. There is
an interviewer who will start and end the discussion. The
interviewer may voice their own opinion or use prompts
to move on the conversation.
 Interviewer being present
ensures the conversation
stays on topic.
 The people can interact with
each other, which could
encourage more detailed
conversation.
 Produces rich, true,
qualitative data.
 Can include people who are
illiterate.
 Expensive to set up.
 Time consuming to discuss
with enough people for data
collected to be
representative.
 Interviewer bias.
 Data is hard to quantify.
 Some people might
dominate the conversation
and put others off from
talking.
 Wrong mix of people may
cause clashes and
arguments.
 Not useful for gathering
quantitative data as it only
allows you to analyse
people’s views, not how
many people hold that view.