Audience Research

There are two traditional ways to categorise audience research, they are; primary and secondary, and qualitative and quantitative. Primary research is when you receive it first hand, you are the immediate source that receives the answer, you are collecting data that does not otherwise exist. You can conduct this type of research through; questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, audience feedback (used after a mock-up or the final product is made), observation, surveys/polls. This type of research is great as you can ask a specific question and receive the answer directly, without any aspect intervention from anyone that could lead to the answer being influenced, and the question is worded exactly how you wish it, so the answer matches your questions directly. A disadvantage is that it can be hard or time consuming for you to conduct. Secondary research is when you get the answer from an already existing media source, meaning the question has already been asked and the information collated and published for all to use. This could be from books, the Internet, newspapers etc. This sort of research has its advantages because it is very likely that someone out there has asked the same question and published the answer. However, this sort of research could be biased or completely made up. Or that the audience asked may be very different to the ones that you desire. Qualitative research is is where the answer comes in the form of language. These are generally open questions which promote an opinion from the audience. All qualitative research will be unstructured- open questions, textual analysis, unstructured interviews. Qualitative researchers believe that their research should; be subjective, have an ongoing meaning and arrive at a hypothesis at the end of their research and sometimes create an issue of bias. Quantative research is where the answers can be displayed in the form of numbers- closed questions are used so that the person undertaking the research can determine the most frequent answer. All quantitative research will be structured- questionnaires and interviews using closed questions, structured textual analysis (tick box of features). Quantitative researchers believe that their research should be; objective, without bias and should match the hypothesis suggested at the beginning. Research can also be semi-structured, where certain aspects from each method of research are used, for example, both open and closed questions are used. This is known as triangulation- where the two points (Quantitative and Quantitative) rise and meet at the top, forming a triangle. My findings into; why do people watch sports dramas? I was required to undertake some primary to discover why people watch sport dramas- both films and trailers. This will help me to construct a trailer that will appeal to my audience. From my findings; - They make you feel good about yourself- through empathy, you may be able to relate to the protagonist or storyline in some way - For entertainment - For a sense of realism- in this genre, the films and narrative are a lot more realistic than that of any other genre - Escapism- it offers the chance to escape from our surrounding environment in life