Loris Hawes Film and TV Blog: The Nature and Purposes of Research in the Creative Media Industries

Primary research

Primary Research is a way to collect data directly and not depending on data from other sources, examples of Primary Research would be; Interviews, Surveys, Questionnaires, Observation, and Focus Groups.

“Primary research is a type of research design in which the researcher is directly involved in the data collection process. In other words, the researcher gathers relevant data samples directly instead of depending on already existing data with regards to the research context.” [1]

One example of Primary research I have conducted is an Online Questionnaire, for my corporate video task, in this task I co-created a video to advertise East Norfolk's facilities, what courses they offer, and the college site itself. I created my questionnaire on a site called Survey Monkey and I included open and closed questions so I would be collecting both qualitative and quantitive data. through the responses I got, I was able to gather the age and gender demographic of those who have answered the questionnaire and watched the video. In some questions, I gave them the option to be able to express their opinions on a certain part or topic of the video and say whether they believe it has achieved its goal and purposes or not and how it could have been improved. [12]

Using Primary Research instead of Secondary Research comes with many advantages. The main advantage to it is that the data that is collected is all accurate and it's first hand, meaning that it doesn't dilute over time. This method of research can also be customized to suit the personal requirements and needs of either an organization or a business. Another advantage to Primary research is that it focuses mainly on a problem at hand, which means entire attention is directed to find the probable solution to a pinpointed subject matter. It allows researchers to go in-depth about a matter and study all foreseeable options. However, Primary Research does come with its disadvantages. For example, it can be a very time-consuming process. some methods of gathering data like conducting interviews, sending and receiving online surveys, all can be quite an exhaustive process, and for the process to work you need to invest a lot of time and patience. Another disadvantage would be that just using one method of primary research may not be enough to gather enough evidence. In such cases, the use of more than one method is required and this would increase both times required to conduct research and the cost associated with it. [2]

In the professional media industry, test screenings are often used as a method of collecting data from primary research. Test screenings are previews of a film or TV show before its official release and its to measure audience reactions. The audience is selected from a cross-section of the population and they will usually have to fill out a questionnaire or provide feedback after the screening on what they liked about it and what needed to be fixed/improved (if they're needed to be anything changed). [3] These screenings have significant control over how a film/TV show will end up when it premieres, with a lot of noticeable changes that have been made after majorly negative feedback. One example of this happening relates to
the film, Shaun of the Dead (2004)' the director and writer of the film, Edgar Wright stated in an interview that "in test screenings done before the film's special effects were completed,

audiences remarked that the ending was "a bit abrupt" and "lame"." And after being given a low budget of $6.1 million [4] and 2 days to finish shooting, the filmmakers added a "15 second" ending which in the follow-up press screening, the audience liked this addition to the film which lead to one reviewer who gave the film a bad review
changed it, giving it an extra star.

Secondary Research:

Secondary research is data that you collect from other sources such as books, websites, videos, audio recordings, and articles.

This material of research can be found in public libraries or online. The existing data is "summarized and collated to increase the overall effectiveness of research." [5] when using secondary research, it's important that you proofread it and make sure that the information you have found is 100% accurate otherwise it would result in your research containing false information.

An example of Secondary research that I have conducted is my Unilever Rebranding Pitch for our Television Advertising Unit. In this task, I had to do research on the company Unilever and on a brand that Unilever owns, which I decided to do Magnum Ice Cream. We had to research what the chosen brand's target audience was and we had to decide how we would change that brand to target a different demographic. For my rebranding idea, I decided to advertise Magnum through 'The Gaming World', but having popular influencers in the gaming community getting sponsored or featured in the advertisements or being sponsored by gaming companies like Playstation and Xbox. [11]

Secondary research comes with numerous advantages compared to Primary research. For example, Secondary research is always readily available. There are many sources from which relevant data can be collected and used, unlike primary research, data has to be collected from scratch. The availability of Secondary research also makes it a less time-consuming process when collecting data and is less expensive. Although, it does come with some disadvantages. One disadvantage of Secondary research is that credibility evaluation must be performed to understand the authenticity of the information available. Another disadvantage is that the resources may not offer the latest and up-to-date versions of articles, reports, or statistics making the information outdated and irrelevant to "accommodate recent timelines".

In the professional media industry, horror movies will often need a major amount of secondary research data, so they can reach the highest possibility of accuracy to the story it's based from. This research includes collecting information from the people involved either through books they've written, newspaper reports, videos, etc. They collect this information from multiple different sources so they can compare and check the facts to eliminate the effect any biases could've had when the information was first collected. An example of this is the classic
horror movie "The Exorcist" released in 1973, this film is based on the story of a young boy from Maryland named Roland, who was normal at first but in the Summer of 1948 as the boy's aunt died and he began to experience acts of the paranormal such as hearing scratching noises from the basement, his mattress moving in the middle of the night only to find out Roland was possessed by his dead aunt's spirit [8]. Because of this, an Author named William Peter Blatty was inspired to write a novel about this horrifying story and then became what is now one of the most iconic horror movies of all time. [5]

Quantitative Research:

Quantitative research is a form of numerical data collected from figures, numbers, statistics, etc.

"Quantitative research is the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. It can be used to find patterns and averages, make predictions, test causal relationships, and generalize results to wider populations." [6] It's the opposite of Qualitative data, which involves collecting and analysing non-numerical data - texts, videos, or audio.

An example of Quantitative research I have conducted is from the data I collected from my "Why Choose EN?" online questionnaire. [12] The bar charts helped us determine which is the most popular answer in the multiple-choice questions, and that will allow us to be able to have an understanding of the average effect that our video had on our audience.

Using Quantitative research over Qualitative comes with some advantages. One advantage would be direct comparison results, "it can be reproduced in other cultural settings, times or with different groups of participants, and results can be compared statistically." [6] Another advantage to this research is that the data from large samples and can be analysed and processed with reliable procedures through data analysis. Another advantage to it is that it can conduct hypothesis testing, using formalized and established procedures mean that you have to be careful considering and reporting your research variables, data collection, and predictions before coming to a final conclusion. However, it does come with its disadvantages such as; it has a lack of context, it often uses unnatural settings like laboratories or it doesn't consider historical and cultural contexts that may affect data collection and results. Another disadvantage to this is that it has a lack of focus, meaning variables that have already been determined and measurement procedures can mean that you would ignore other relevant observations. One other disadvantage this form of research brings is its superficiality, it uses precise and restrictive operational definitions that may "inadequately represent complex concepts"[6]. For example, the concept of mood may be represented with just a number in quantitative research, but it would be explained and elaborated in qualitative research.

In the professional media industry, Quantitative data is used to find out how successful a piece of media is using figures such as the box office revenue, star ratings, etc. For example, the highest-grossing film ever is 'Avengers: Endgame (2019)' with a worldwide gross of $2,797,800,564 [9], despite being the most successful movie ever made to date, it is only the 74th highest rated film out of 250, with a rating of 8.3 stars and a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. On the list, the top-rated film is 'Shawshank Redemption (1994)' with 9.2 stars. [10] The rating could be considered a much better method of measuring the success of a movie as it's the average of hundreds of thousands of ratings, whilst box office revenue will only measure how many people bought cinema tickets/DVDs/merchandise/etc.

Qualitative Research:

Qualitative research is data that is collected first hand from non-numerical data such as videos and pieces of text.

"Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research." [7] Qualitative research is commonly used in the humanities and social sciences, in subjects such as anthropology, sociology, education, health sciences, history, etc.

An example of Qualitative Research I have conducted is once again the data collected from my online questionnaire for my "Why Choose EN?" Corporate Video task. [12] This type of data allows us to have an understanding of the different opinions our audience has and helps us know what to change about our video for the future if we either have to include something that wasn't there before or remove something that might not seem necessary.

Like all the different types of research, Qualitative research comes with some advantages, some of which are; it's flexible, the collection of data, and the analysis process can be adapted as new ideas or patterns emerge, so they are not "rigidly decided beforehand". [7] Another advantage to this is it has meaningful insights, so the data that is collected is detailed descriptions of people's experiences, feelings, and opinions and that can be used to test and improve products. Another advantage is that it can help with generating new ideas - open-ended responses mean that researchers can think of solutions to any problems they were facing and can find opportunities that they wouldn't have thought of before. However, this does mean it comes with its disadvantages, some of which are; It can be unreliable because of the uncontrolled factors that can affect the data and the responses you will receive from an audience might not be 100% honest, and that can heavily affect your data if it's inaccurate and false. Another disadvantage is that the data is subjective, due to the researcher's role in analysing and presenting data, which cannot be replicated through Qualitative data as the researcher can decide what is important and is irrelevant in data analysis, so interpretations from data can vary. Another disadvantage is that this has limited generalisability - small samples of data are collected and gathered into detailed pieces of data on specific contexts and despite the diligent analysis procedures, it can be challenging to draw out generalizable conclusions "because the data may be biased and unrepresentative to the wider population". [7]

In the professional media industry, Qualitative data is often collected from reviews given by the audience or critics. These reviews are often posted online on websites such as IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes, or an independent review website such as Roger Ebert's review site. On IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, any of the users are able to write a review for a film or TV series and give their personal opinions and express their feelings about how successful they believe it is. On the other hand, Roger Ebert posts his own reviews on his website since he was a professional film critic. These reviews are helpful for media production companies because they can read through the thoughts and opinions of their audience and critics and see what they did well and what they can do to learn from the mistakes they made and ensure it doesn't happen in their next production.

Data-Gathering Agencies:

A data-gathering agency is an agency that captures and records the consumption of footage, with the data collected it is made available to the public. (e.g. TV ratings and viewership). An example of a data-gathering agency would be BARB.

The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) is an organisation that collects and arranges audience measurement and TV ratings in the UK. It is jointly owned by multiple different companies such as the BBC, ITV, and Sky. BARB collects their data from around 51,000 homes containing participants. They all have a box on top of their TV sets which tracks the programmes they watch. The participants can indicate who is watching the programme by pressing a button on the remote control. The data is then collected overnight and published at around 9:30 the following morning for TV stations and the advertising industry to use. [13]

IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is an online database that launched on October 17, 1990, and it contains lots of information relating to films, TV shows, video games, and other online content. The sections on there include the cast, production crew, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and reviews from fans and critics. It has approximately 6.5 million titles and 10.4 million personalities in its database with 83 million registered users. These users are able to write reviews, edit the site's information and vote on the ratings. [14]

Box Office Mojo is a website launched on August 7 in 1998 and it tracks box office revenue, which is also owned by IMDb. It provides box office data for franchises, genres, actors, filmmakers, distributors, budgets, and inflation-adjusted figures. It also displays the top movies of the year (in terms of revenue) and has competitions between 2 films of a similar genre. [15]

Audience and Market Research:

Market research is an organized effort in gathering information about knowing their target markets and customers, starting with who they are. "It's a very important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness". Market research also helps to identify and analyze the needs of the market, the market size, and the competition it's facing. Its techniques encompass both qualitative techniques such as focus groups and in-depth interviews, as well as quantitative techniques such as customer surveys, and analysis of secondary data. [16]

Similar to market research, audience research is identifying the target audience of a media product and conducting research to understand who they are (e.g. demographics, psychographics). It's conducted on specific segments of their audience and it includes information such as their attitudes, interests, preferences, and behaviours. [17] Audience research is the most common type of research carried out by cultural organisations and some organisations even have their own audience research departments. This data will help uncover information related to who is visiting, why they are visiting, and what the people who are already engaging with the organisation think. [17]

During the process of making my re-branding pitch for our advertising unit, I had to look into the target audience that Magnum was focusing on. I was mostly able to determine this by watching their adverts and analysing them. From the high production quality in these adverts and how it was composed, it was clear that their target audience was towards wealthy adults as it was very professional and in their "Release the Beast" campaign they did for Magnum Double in 2016, they used CGI animals (Lions, Tigers, Sharks, Eagles, etc.) and Graphics for the ice cream itself. [18]

In the professional media industry, audience/market research is used when regulating a media text. The media production company would have thought of their target audience, regarding the age demographic before creating the product so they then understand what content they can include in it. After that, the product is sent to a regulatory board, such as the BBFC (British

Board of Film Classification), to be reviewed and rated. The board can then provide guidance and help on how a media company can change their product if it doesn't comply with the restrictions of the age rating they're aiming towards.

Production Research:

Production Research is to help companies decide on a number of factors that will affect how they create their product. One of the factors that the media production company will have to research is what is the best way to showcase their product to their specific target audience. This is very important as the product has to be shown in the correct way that their target audience will mostly use, whether this is broadcasting the product, showing the product online, or even showing it on a podcast. [19]

Whilst creating our Why Choose EN Corporate video, Production Research was required for

us to be able to do this task. We had to investigate all of the courses, facilities, and support that can be found at EN. We wrote down what are the most important features of the college and what would interest the viewer the most such as the canteen, the gym, the HIVE, etc. We had to write down what our client wanted to see in our video, in doing this, we can have a clear idea of how we can plan out filming and editing our video up to the standard of what our client wants us to meet.

In the professional media industry, pre-production paperwork is required to be filled out for every media project, so the company can have permission to use certain people and locations and plan what they're going to do during the production process. This paperwork includes talent/location releases, location recces, shot lists, and production schedules. Before these are filled out, processes such as talent and location searching are carried out so they can find the cast, crew, and locations they want to use in their media production. With looking for a location specifically, the company will look at the locations they'd like to use so they can see if it's actually possible for
them to be able to film there and capture the pieces of footage they're wanting. However, this

is very dependent on factors such as the weather, the amount of space this location has, and if the location is available to be used for filming.