This document defines and provides examples of various types of research methods and terminology used in media research. It discusses the differences between primary and secondary research, quantitative and qualitative research, and outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each. Examples are provided for various research techniques including surveys, interviews, website analytics, box office figures, and audience and market research. Terminology around objective and subjective analysis, validity, and reliability are also defined. Finally, the document demonstrates the Harvard referencing style.

1. Research
Katie Kitching

2. Terminology
• Circulation: how many things have been distributed.
• Hits: how many times a things has been viewed.
• Box Office Figures: how much money a cinema has
made.
• Ratings: how something has been rated
• Sales: how many products have been sold.

3. Primary Research
• Definition: its Research done by you.
• Advantages: You get present information. Doing it your self can Save money. Its
More trustworthy and professional as you have done it your self. Its more factual and
up to date.
• Disadvantages: people may not want to talk to you and its time consuming. The
Answers you get may not be truthful. You need to be a confident person to be able to
do this kind of research.
• Example: Asking people to take part in a survey or asking a single person to take
part in an interview.
• Other things you could do are is Vox Pops & Product Analysis.

4. Secondary Research
• Definition: studying research done by someone else and using
existing research in your own work.
• Advantages: When the research has already been done, it
saves you time. Its easy to gain access to the needed
information.
• Disadvantages: The information that you need may not be
there or even been researched. Not all research will match
what other people have found. Information may be outdated.
• Example: Some examples are Internet research, looking in a
library or archived information.

5. Quantitative Research
• Definition: research that can be put into percentages,
fractions and numbers.
• Advantages: it’s a fast method of getting your research.
Its reliable and you can create graphs and charts to show
your research.
• Disadvantages: you don’t get peoples opinions and
reasons for their answers.
• Example: a yes or no question. Sales, Box Office Figure,
Website hits, TV ratings.

6. Qualitative Research
• Definition: its more opinionated and informative
research.
• Advantages: you get more detailed information
• Disadvantages: takes a long time to analyse the
research. You can get some useless information.
• Example: Reviews, Responses, Discussions, Forums.

7. Audience Research
• Definition: Finding out who consumes a product.
• Advantages: you find out who you are selling the product to
and it can be tailored to meet their interests and needs. You
can see what kind of features you need in your advertisement
to make it appealing to certain people.
• Disadvantages: Not everything will be appealing to everyone
and the audience may not all like the same thing.
• Example: sites like Imdb can give you the information you
need (age & gender of the reviewer and the rating they gave
the product)

8. Market Research
• Definition: finding out about the place where the product is
sold and possible competition.
• Advantages: Less risk because you know who the competitors
are. You can look at existing products and look at the faults in
that product and make sure you don’t put them in your own.
• Disadvantages: It can limit your creativity because other
products may be too similar to yours. Its time consuming.
• Example: you could be releasing a new game and by looking at
other games success/ratings, you can see if yours will take off
or not.

9. Production Research
• Definition: finding out how a piece of media is produced.
What is needed to be able to make that media product.
• Advantages: understanding what resources you need can
speed up how long a project will take. It can cut costs and
save you money.
• Disadvantages: You may find out that a piece of Software or
equipment costs a lot more than you expected, delaying the
process.
• Example: finding out what you need for making a
poster/Animation/Short film.

10. Terminology
• Objective: stating the facts about a media
product.
• Subjective: stating your opinion about a media
product.
• Valid: something that’s correct or worth
considering.
• Reliable: its trustworthy and can be used to help
you in you research.

11. Harvard Referencing
Name of the film being researched;
1. Ross, G. (2012) The Hunger Games
2. Collins, S. (2008) The Hunger Games
3. Collins, S. http://www.thehungergames.co.uk/
4. Eby, D. http://theinnerwriter.com/325/suzanne-collins-writing-
hunger-games/

12. • Primary research is any type of research that you go out and collect yourself. Examples include surveys,
interviews, observations, and ethnographic research. A good researcher knows how to use both primary
and secondary sources in her writing and to integrate them in a cohesive fashion.
• Secondary research (also known as desk research) involves the summary, collation and/or synthesis of
existing research rather than primary research, where data is collected from, for example, research
subjects or experiments.
• Qualitative research gathers information that is not in numerical form. For example, diary accounts, open-
ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations. Qualitative data is typically
descriptive data and as such is harder to analyze than quantitative data.
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/methods-strategies/118658-understand-what-is-qualitative-research-with-
examples/
• https://www.slideshare.net/lizmedia/target-audience-research-example