Unit 3 - Research techniques - Louise Reed

What Party does each newspaper support?

The sun = Labour party

The daily telegraph = Conservative

The Independent = Liberal

The daily star = Doesn't strongly support any party

12 News Values

1. Negativity - We're curious bout eoples misfortune
2. Elite - we are interested in the lives of famous people
3. Exclusivity - it is more interesting if only one source has an exclusive story
4. Impact - it is more important if it affects a greater number of people
5. Locality - we are more interested in stories close to us
6. Recency - we are more interested in very recent stories
7. Currency - We are interested in big news stories that rumble on
8. Continuity - a continuing even that goes on for some time
9. Unique - We are interested in the bizarre and unusual
10. Simplicity - easy for everyone to understand
11. Personality - connection with the audience on an emotional level
12. Predictability - We expect it to happen but it still interesting

Local newspapers  

What we expect to see in a local newspaper

• Local sports
• Local gig reviews
• Local business advertisements
• Jobs
• Houses for sale
• Classifieds
• Obituary's

ABOVE - A picture of the local aldershot sports news, includes community sport projects and events in the local area.

Clubbo

Author - Unknown author
How detailed is the info? - the about page is fairly detailed, but is very informal and doesn't provide you with a way o contacting them
Fact or opinion - it is mainly opinion
mostly text
there links on the page linking to information about different artists
its very plain but not too badly laid out.

Haggis hunt
author - Unknown
very detailed
Fully opinion
the website is fake

Cosham

1. Population figures - 13,830 - http://localstats.qpzm.co.uk/stats/england/south-east/portsmouth/cosham
2. Demographic make up - 51% female, 49% male, average age is 39, median age is lower than 38. 89.8% of people living in Cosham were born in England. Other top answers for country of birth were 1.3% Scotland, 1.1% India, 0.7% Philippines, 0.7% Wales, 0.3% Ireland, 0.3% Bangladesh, 0.3% Nigeria, 0.3% Northern Ireland, 0.2% Hong Kong . - http://localstats.qpzm.co.uk/stats/england/south-east/portsmouth/cosham
3. What council controls Cosham? - Portsmouth council - https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/home.aspx     Cosham political party - conservatives
4. Aiden Gray, Labour party
5. What do local councils do? - http://www.qldcouncils.com.au/en_GB/what-does-your-local-council-do-for-you - Follow the link
6. Local MP - Penny mordaunt - member since 2010

I  believe that the reliability of these websites are very high as there are various ways in which to contact them and the layout and content is very professional.

Types of research

Primary

First hand information

• Survey
• Interview
• Focus groups

Pros- 

• Difinitive, credible information
• Opinion
• qualititive

Cons- 

• Face a lot of rejection
• Might not be totally honest
• Can be time consuming

Secondary

Taken from a credible source

• Online
• Book
• Newspaper
• Press release
• Can be used along side primary research

Pros- 

• Quantitive, easy to measure
• Cheap

Cons- 

• Sources might be out of date
• not very unique

Quantitive

Number, Data, Figures.

• Survey
• Can be measured

Qualititive

How people feel

• Responses are personal

Questionaire

1. Gender - male/female/prefer not to say
2. Age - 16/17/18/19+
3. Do you want a college newspaper? - Yes/No/Not bothered
4. How often do you check the news?- Very often/often/sometimes/rarely/never
5. Where do you check the news?- Social media/ Online paper/App/Newspaper/Other(please specify)
6. What interests you?- Music/TV/Film/Fashion/sport/current affairs/economics/gaming/local/Other (please specify)
7. would you prefer a lot of text or a lot of images?
8. Would you want to know about college news or outside news as well?
9. What price would you be willing to pay for the paper?

• male
• 16
• not bothered
• often
• online paper
• sport
• a lot of images
• outside news aswell
• 20p

• Male
• 17
• yes
• very often
• social media
• film
• a lot of text
• outside news aswell
• 80p

• Female
• 17
• no
• often
• social media
• TV
• A lot of images
• outside the college as well
• 20p

• Female
• 19+
• yes
• very often
• App
• Music, TV, Film, Current Affairs
• A lot of images
• outside college news as well
• 25p

• Male
• 17
• Yes
• Very often
• Social network newspaper
• TV, sport
• descriptive writing and informal images
• Just college news
• 20p

• Male
• 17
• Yes
• Often
• Social network
• sport
• A lot of text
• college news
• 35p

• Female
• 19
• No
• Never
• Social network
• Music, Film
• A lot of images
• outside news as well
• 50p

• Female
• 17
• No
• Rarely
• Radio
• Music, TV, Film
• A lot of images
• outside news aswell
• 35p

Price average = 35p

Research audience task

1. BARB - Broadcasters audience research board        RAJAR - Radio joint audience research
2. BARB works for  BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BSkyB and the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) and is a non profit organisation                                                      RAJAR is jointly owned by the BBC and the Radio Centre
3. RAJAR - 

   Providing an industry currency

   • RAJAR estimates listenership of over 300 radio stations – who listens, where, when and how.
   • It is the trading currency for radio broadcasters.
   • It is used by media agencies to plan and buy advertising in radio airtime.
   • It is used by radio owners to pitch for business, sell advertising airtime and monitor programmes performance.

   ---

   BARB they aim to provide the services that their audience want
4. I think they use questionnaires and primary research techniques plus special media to check who has viewed what program
5. i believe that their work is very relevant to media producers as it shows them the amount of people who are viewing their work and gives them guidance as to what their content should include.
6. they are beneficial as it provides the audience with the popularity of the program and lets the viewers know wether to watch it due to how popular it is
7. They produce quantitive answers as all they show is viewing figures 

Audience research task

1. Demographic profiling is all about finding out the facts about the certain person like age, gender, race, income etc. Psychographic on the other hand focuses their research on the likes, interests and needs and motivations of the person.
2. Demographic produces quantitive, and Psychographic is qualitative.
3. The NRS are the National Readership Survey who provide information on the number and habits of people reading newspapers and magazines.
4. Empire
5. 
   

Hoegh Osaka research

OnSaturday night, a 51,000 tonne cargo ship, containing over 1400 vehicles on board worth over £100 million, on the solent near southampton as it was just leaving the harbour. grounded deliberately by the pilot of the ship to prevent it from capsizing as the ship began dangerously listing. 

25 crew members were rescued on the scene by the coastguard helicopter and the RNLI, within Bramble Bank in the solent between Southampton and the Isle of Wight, shortly after the cargo container ground to halt on its voyage to the middle east where it was planning to deliver it's expensive cargo after a short fuel stop in Bremerhaven, Germany. 

It is said that this maritime disaster was possibly down to human error following an investigation on Monday, however the true cause is still yet to have been discovered. The investigations may be halted, however, with strong winds of up to 50mph expected over the next few days expecting to dramatically slow down the investigation into the cause of what has happened.

Assignment 1

Types


Quantitive research
  quantitive research is where you look into getting statistics and numbers based upon what people have given. there are different ways to carry out quantitive research, these include surveys, competitors readership, average readership figures for the particular company or brand you are researching about.

Pros: 

the pros of quantitive is that it provides a finite number and gives an extremely clear indication as to how many people are viewing/reading/buying the particular product you are trying to sell

it can give you a percentage of certain things, for example, how many people buy it from a certain region, and where exactly the product is selling best.

Cons:

 this form of research doesn't necessarily tell you as to what people want in the product, and how they would like the product to look etc. 

It mainly gives results based on readership and the amounts of people who are doing certain things, and not how they feel about the product.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is almost completely the opposite, where quantitive research gave you hard and certain results, qualitative research means you can get extremely varied sets of results and you  are able to find out how the audience wants things to happen or to look: this type of research is based on thoughts and feelings.

Pros: 

this is a great way to find out how your audience would like the product to look, what they would like it to include, what price it should be etc. 

It can provide you with more surprising results as there are no set options, and allows the audience to give a wider range of answers allowing the company to adapt their product specifically to the high demand of the audience

Cons: 

Some people might not take it seriously and not provide appropriate answers for the questionnaire/survey and could give answers that are not relevant to the research.

it would net get you finite answers and it could mean that you may get a smaller audience than you expected  to get because the pinions of some people will have to be ignored to make sure the majority of the audience is happy, but this doesn't always happen as the majority audience might in fact be a large one.  

Methods

Primary Research

This is where the research body or organisation asks their target audience about the sorts of things they want to see within the product and also it means that the company does their own research and doesn't really on the any other pieces of information from other sources. This can be used in such situations like magazines, new mobile phones or games consoles. Sometimes the company will ask what their audience wants to see, thus including what the audience wants within the product.

Pros:

It is incredibly reliable as you are getting first hand data that no other company will have as you wll be asking them yourself and not using any other information from any company

It allows you to shape and mould the whole product around the audience to fit what they want and demand, this is essential if the company wishes for the product to sell, or get the product noticed by the mass markets.

Cons:

The people researching being asked for opinions may have past experiences with the product and provide a biased and unfair answer, meaning that there will be an anomaly within the results almost every time

you would use this type of research if you wanted to create a new product or wanted to find out an audiences opinion on a matter or issue in a local area. A new magazine would use it to find out what sort of colour schemes would best suit the audience, meaning they can get a rough idea as to how they're going to make their magazine look like and make it appealing to the audience.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is where a researcher would use current information from other sources and take results from their researching to give them a rough idea as to what the audience likes already and play on that idea and create their on take on the product

Pros:

This method provides information fast and also is also very efficient as you will find something to do with a similar product so you can always compare your ideas to some on else's

The information that the researcher has already got could save valuable time in the creation of what ever it is that you chose to make, for example a magazine. You could look at a current magazine's layout and see why it is effective and why the audience likes it, this is why primary and secondary research work in tandem with each other.

Cons:

Any one can manipulate the information so it's not always 100% reliable due to the fact that it may not be true or the points made are just simply exaggerated. 

The information could be really out of date so therefore meaning that it will be useless in todays market. It is important to make sure you always check the date of the things you look at because this might hinder the sales due to the product not being appropriate for todays market.

Audience research bodies

Barb- (broadcasters audience research board) provides viewing  and audience figures for weekly or any tv programmes.

Rajar - (Radio Joint Audience Research) It is the official body measuring radio listener figures within the UK

YouGov - This takes audience surveys from online and their answers are used to create a database for a lot different subjects providing a clear representation of the sort of person that would consume a certain product.

Purpose

Audience

In todays society we don''t tend to use the traditional classing system of lower, middle or upper class, as we are becoming more social in the way we class ourselves. We now use a class system that uses the 'upper class' and the 'upper middle class' within the same category. this class is now known as ABC1. As for the traditional 'lower middle class' and the 'lower class', we now categorise them in the C2DE social class. ABC1 would be for people with occupations such as bankers, doctors, lawyers etc. These sorts of people wold be the target audience for a magazine for say 'GQ'. this is because they would be interested in high end fashion and products, as well as wanting to show off their wealth with the use of 'flashy' gadgets or accessories such as rolexes, or cars such as Ferrari's or Lamborghini's. The C2DE class will read newspapers such as the sun due to the exaggerated stories and the informal language, as well as the layout and colour. All of this is what we like to call 'Ideologies', and is what we, ourselves, perceive to be a certain person or product based on what we have been influenced on in society.

Competition

Competition is essential and vital for the various companies in todays market, because that way the companies will always try to better each other, meaning more and more products will be produced. The problem with this is that the old products might get ignored with the constant theme of trying to better the other company. This is exactly what is going on with Apple and Samsung within the technology world. When one company brings out a new product, the other will look at the response that the original product received from the target audience, and use what went well within their own product. This will both satisfy the target audience and mean they get a fresh new thing that they had not previously got from the other company.

Example

GQ research

Age - 25 -39
The reason i have chosen this age range is because the style and price of the things they are showing in the magazine reflects that of what this age range can afford. Also the layout is very professional and clearly shows the different articles within the magazine, this applies to high  end business men due to the professional layout

Gender - Male
It appeals to men due to the men fashion and the smartly dressed Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is kind of saying, if you read this magazine and take into account what the articles are saying then you can look like hime.

Class - ABC1
This is because some of the fashion can be very expensive, and it is a common ideology that people of this social class are a lot more wealthy or have more money and considered more well off than those in a lower social class.

Sexuality - Metrosexual
Mainly down to the amount of fashion in the magazine because typical metrosexual man will want to look his best and care much how he looks, meaning he will want to get the best clothes which often leads wanting to buy the most expensive items.

Education - University

Geodemographics - London/Northern and southern Scotland
 I found this information by using YouGov

Personality - confident, a leader, self aware. Can be seen as arrogant, big-headed, proscatinating

enjoys sports and excersize whilst playing basketball, football and boxing.

interested in business, finance and cars.

Bibliography - https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/GQ/demographics

Parliament research task

What are the roles of the prime minister?

• oversees the operation of the Civil Service and government agencies
• appoints members of the government
• is the principal government figure in the House of Commons

What is the cabinet? 

The committee of senior ministers responsible for controlling government policy

What is the speaker?

the officer in a legislative assembly, especially the House of Commons

Who are the whips?

they are the people who ensure the elected people in a party attend when important votes are taken

Name 10 government department:

1. sport, culture & media
2. Education
3. Transport
4. Health
5. Work and pensions
6. Ministry of defence 
7. Energy and climate change
8. Mistry of justice
9. Foreign and commonwealth office
10. Cabinet of fice