Methods Of Media Research

By: Anushree Maloo

Methods of research can be broadly divided into

Qualitative Quantitative
The basic difference is that quantitative research reports findings as numbers, while qualitative research

reports them as words.

Qualitative Research
Research in which questions are open-ended, and results are expressed in nonnumerical terms. Qualitative research serve a significant role in the quest to understand the relationship b\w human & their media.

Types of Qualitative
Depth interview
A type of qualitative research, which involves long, probing interviews without the use of a formal questionnaire.

Focus Group
A common type of group discussion, in which a moderator encourages a small group of people (usually 8 to 10) to gradually focus on a topic.

PRA = Participatory Rural Appraisal

A qualitative method for involving communities (specially rural ones in developing countries) in their own futures. Not a single technique, but an approach to research, usually involving a number of simple stages.

Group discussion
A generic type of qualitative research in which a small group of people provide information by discussing a topic.

Co-discovery conference
A method of qualitative research (developed by Dennis List, founder of Audience Dialogue) in which audience and producers discover each other's needs and use this knowledge to plan new programs.

Action Research
A multi-stage type of research, in which a problem is researched, changes are made, the problem is researched again, more changes are made, and so on until the problem is solved.

Observation
A research technique in which no direct questions are asked, but people in a public place (e.g. shoppers and drivers) are watched and their behaviour recorded.

A questionnaire designed to be filled in by respondents - also called self-administered. Thus a self-completion survey is a survey using this type of questionnaire

Self-completion

Ad hoc
A one-off survey done for a specific client .

Census
Survey of a whole population. Most countries have a Population Census (with a capital C) every 5 or 10 years, but a researched population can be much smaller. Thus a census (with a small c) of all staff of an organization would be a survey where everybody was sampled.

Desk research
Research done by summarizing published sources - a form of secondary research

Central location
A type of research method where respondents are all interviewed at one venue - as opposed to having interviewers go out and interview respondents in their own places.

Audience response cultivation

A group of methods for use mainly by broadcasters: not quite formal market research, not quite marketing, but something between the two.

Charrette
A workshop, often lasting several days, which involves a community in its urban planning process.

Ethnography
A type of qualitative research which treats a group of people as an anthropologist would an unknown tribe, with detailed descriptions of how they live.

Clinic
A type of research, usually done at a central location, where a product is displayed and respondents asked to use it and react to it.

Consensus group
A type of group discussion, similar to a focus group , in which participants try to form a consensus on an issue.

Nominal group
A type of group discussion in which participants work independently (on paper) at first, then present an idea at a time to each other. Often abbreviated to NGT.

RRA = Rapid Rural Appraisal

A simpler version of Participatory Rural Appraisal, with less participation by the population involved, with the appraisal done more (but not only) by experts.

Single-source
Combining different kinds of question in one survey, e.g. TV audience and product use. The opposite of fusion.

Quantitative
Research involves turning observation into number in order to use statistical analysis. It helps researcher make general statements about large group.

Survey
survey is a list of questions aimed at extracting specific data from a particular group of people. Surveys may be conducted by phone, mail, via the internet, and sometimes face-to-face on busy street corners or in malls.

Content analysis
Analysing the content of media - e.g. publications and broadcast programs to determine the main themes being represented. This is usually involves counting the number of times a word or theme appears.

Audience research
audience research is defined as any communication research that is conducted on specific audience segments to gather information about their attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences, or behaviors

Panel
A group of respondents who are surveyed a number of times, in order to detect changes in their behaviour or opinions.

Auditorium testing
Getting a large group of people (usually 100 or more) together in an auditorium, showing them TV or radio programs, and getting them to rate these - either with questionnaires or electronic gadgets.

Omnibus
A type of survey on which organizations can place a few specific questions. It's like a bus, on which a lot of people can travel at once.

Poll
Also known as Reception theory. A type of audience research that focuses on what audiences perceive in the media - as opposed to what broadcasters think they produce.

Syndicated research
Research originated by a research company, with data sold to anybody who is interested - unlike an ad hoc survey, which is a one-off survey for an individual client.

Social research
Uses the same techniques as market research, but focuses less on business and more on public issues.

Event survey
A type of audience research, where people attending an event (concert, sports match, etc) are surveyed.

Business to business
Research whose respondents are businesses rather than consumers. The same as industrial research.

Opinion poll
A type of survey in which people's opinions are asked.

Hall test
Getting a group of people (typically about 50 of them) together in a public hall, usually to see a product demonstration and to fill in questionnaires on the spot. A type of central location study. Similar to auditorium testing, except that with hall testing, people don't always need to be there at the same time.

Industrial research
Market research in which the respondents are organizations, not consumers. Much the same as business to business research.

Key informant interviews

A method of collecting information (usually factual) about a community or group of people, by finding and interviewing key informants. These are people who are likely to be well informed about an issue, and willing to answer without bias. For example, if you wanted to research TV reception in remote towns, you could telephone servicing shops. A sample of 3 per community is often enough (if they all agree).

Visitor survey

A survey of visitors at a venue.