The nature and purposes of research in the creative media industries

Research is very important, especially in creative media as it will determine the outcome of a future production. There are two main types of research, Primary and secondary research.

Primary Research:
This is a self generated research. One main way to collect primary research is through a survey or questionnaire as you can distribute it easier and gather more answers in a shorter space of time.

An example of primary research I carried out is when we interviewed the various doctors in the James Paget corporate video, we used that to find out information about the hospital and what anyone visiting should expect.

Secondary Research:
This is to collect data from the originator of primary research, it mostly involves finding out information from third party sources.

An example of secondary research I used is when creating my music video I looked into the popularity of my video style, this was so that I could have something that would not be too niche but that it would be slightly different to other music videos.

Quantitive Research:
The use of consumer sampling such as surveys to find out data and information. The findings are often presented numerically and then converted into percentages for the data to be shown on a graph or chart.

An example of this is on the website IMDB. Films are rated out of 10 and it shows anyone wanting to watch the film whether it is any good or not according to the critics.

Qualitative Research:
This is a exploratory method of research often used in any academic subjects, it provides insights into helping develop ideas or solve problems.

An example of this is user reviews. This gives an audience a much more in depth look at whether something is worth watching or not, reviews are extremely important in the film industry because it can be a good source of viewers feedback.

Audience Research:
This is to use the audience and their reactions to a product to look into how to improve or pitch something.

An example of this is when I wanted to re brand a Unilever product, I created a presentation to show off the idea and wanted to see what the rest of the class thought if the idea.







Production Research:
In order to do production research, used location and talent release forms to not only ensure the legality of it but also find out the age of the actors, what type of location I would be filming in, whether there would be any electrical outlets etc.