The Nature and Purposes of Research

Primary Research

Primary research is any method of gaining information and opinions yourself, through
developing surveys or asking people questions directly. This can also include recording
observations, questioning a panel or interviewing people; the latter of which we conducted
as research for our Mock Election documentary. Within our documentary project, you can
see some selected portions of our interviews with the election candidates Joe Chapman
and Carlos Carvalho and Alex Spalding, who was organising the entire event we were
filming. These interviews were mainly for gathering opinion, but also shaped our choice of
shots when editing and provided a good portion of the documentarys narrative.
Additionally, during the pre-production stages Reuben and I attended many
meetings with the candidates and Alex, sitting in the background and taking notes of what
was said and plans being made. This was essential as it gave us the information we required
to produce a production schedule and thus prepare to film at the relevant times. At these
meetings we distributed talent release forms (pictured below) to the candidates which
became our main source of primary research as we could now make contact with all of the
necessary participants within the production.

Secondary Research
Secondary research is other gathered information which we have obtained from
somebody or somewhere else. This can include books, internet sites, news sources, archives
and much more. Following production of the documentary, we also collected the results of
the election, through a graph sheet provided to us by Alex to coincide with the primary
research we collected whilst filming the announcement of the result.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative Research is data collected in a numerical form. In media this can include
film and programme ratings (e.g. 4/5 stars), viewing figures, box office/sales figures. The
result of the election is an example of some numerical information we collected, as
described in the section on secondary research. In editing, we also had to take note of the
length of clips we were cutting up to include, as it was part of the brief for the documentary
to be only three minutes long. In addition, some of the notes recorded by Reuben and me
during the meetings with the candidates and Alex are quantitative as they included
information regarding times where we had to be somewhere to film and room numbers.

Qualitative Research

Quantitative research is, simply, not numerical data. Media qualitative research is
much more focused towards peoples opinions, thus mainly including various reviews and
responses to some sort of media product. Therefore our interviews are prime examples of
qualitative research because they contain the direct opinions of the people being
interviewed. [Screenshots to be added] In addition, some of the notes recorded by Reuben
and me during the meetings with the candidates and Alex are qualitative as they included
information regarding what was going to happen and where.

Data Gathering Agencies

Data Gathering Agencies are often used as sources for secondary research. In the
media industry this frequently includes information of viewing figures or reviews. BARB is an
example of a widely respected agency for gathering viewing figures. They collect results
from 5,100 households across the UK and multiply the figures to get an incredibly accurate
representation of the UKs viewing habits. This allows broadcasters to know what
programmes their audience is enjoying and want to see more of, as well as and probably

more importantly what an audience doesnt like. The IMDB website collects film and TV
show reviews in qualitative and quantitative form in order to provide potential viewers with
information on what other viewers though. Clips and trailers from films are also available on
IMDB in most cases. Box Office Mojos website provides data on the box office takings of
films on a daily basis. Whilst focusing on America, it is also possible to find UK Box Office
takings on a weekly basis. At the time of writing this, Avengers: Age of Ultron is number one,
taking over 15m.

Audience and Market Research

When developing a concept for a media product, it is always important to consider

who is going to be watching it. This means considering audience data, demographics, geodemographics, consumer behaviour and attitudes, and competition. Our audience and
market research was based around actually spending time with the candidates whilst filming
their campaigns and interviewing them.
A key objective of the production was that it motivated more young people to get
involved with politics. This meant spending time with young political activists would help us
identify what the benefits of being involved were. However, because of this objective we
realised our documentary needed to target young people who are not yet actively involved
in politics. This meant that when we edited the documentary we made sure it was not too
politically heavy - removing interview footage of complicated explanations and instead
prioritising interesting dialogue sound-bites. We used a variety of cutaways and at times
made situations comical by use of music, all to keep the documentary interesting.
[Screenshots to be added] We hoped this would create a level of intrigue, whereby those
not involved would have the desire to find out more, thus achieving our main objective.

Production Research

Equally as important as audience research is production research, particularly in a

documentary format where you can potentially miss interesting and exciting moments if
you are not aware of when and where they are
happening. Production research includes
viability of the production, financing,
technological capabilities, locations and
personnel. For our mock election production, as
previously mentioned, Reuben and myself
attended several meetings with the team who
were organising and participating in the mock
election event. This gave us the ability to get to
know people through the talent release forms,
as well as finding out key dates when important
events would be taking place. From this we
were able to produce a production schedule
and we consulted this daily to ensure we had
the required equipment and personnel available
to us.

Sources

BoxOfficeMojo: www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/uk/?currency=local&yr=2015&p=.htm
BARB: http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-top-30?_s=4