Research Methods

Primary Sources

A primary source is a piece of information which is an original discovery - ie: finding information from the original source

Questionnaire or Survey - varied opinions from public.

Observation - for example: to see immediate responses and reactions to things - used in film, advertising, product testing eg: video games- any research which is received visually

Focus group - used to give opinion on products for specific target audience (eg gender, age, culture etc) also used for film, to determine endings, specific scenes etc.

One on one interviews - gain much more depth, knowledge and understanding of a person or situation.

Direct contact with the producer/ author of media text - completely original responses, creates solid evidence to back up research and discoveries.

Chat rooms/forums - good way to find out the initial opinion and reaction to products from the target audience.

Secondary Sources

A secondary source is a piece of information deduced from another discovery - ie: information taken from a documentary, website, newspaper etc.

Books - Biographies, Journals, Analysis ect.

Websites - eg : Wikipedia, AskJeeves etc

News papers/ magazines - Media Guardian and Telegraph (Media section)

Radio - BBC Radio 4 - the media show (pod casts available on the BBC website)

Both methods of research are used to increase the reliability of discoveries.

Content analysis - Quantitative techniques

We were given a women's UK magazine and asked to investigate and research whether magazines represented ethnic minorities fairly.

We used a quantitative technique to calculate the percentage of the ethnic minorities represented in the magazine in comparison to the white , and also discussed the reasons and evidence to suggest the reason for this.

We also took notes on other areas which offered further evidence to help us reach a non-bias conclusion.

We discovered that the magazine 'Insight' did maintain a dominantly white outlook on fashion and the products advertised did heavily support a white ethnic group due to make up shades, and hair products. In comparison, the magazine did feature some (minimal) black and Hispanic models and fashion icons which did appeal to a wider ethnic audience.

Given more time, I think the research could have been improved through using different ways of recording our data and findings, perhaps through tally/pie charts as well as going into further depth in researching the different ethnic groups further, perhaps by creating further ethnic options as opposed to white or other - you could have white, black, Hispanic, Asian etc.

The research was good, however I found it quite limited because the numeric areas don't really compensate the social and political areas which effect the issues surrounding the magazine.