The Nature and Purposes of Research

Primary research is research that is conducted by someone. For my primary research I sent out a questionnaire for parents of young children to fill in. I did this because I needed to find out if parents think that violent video games affect their children's behaviour or not. Other examples of primary research are interviews, observations, internet forums, focus groups and surveys. An example of this in the media is a pilot. A TV channel runs a pilot episode of a TV show then gives people a questionnaire to see if they liked the TV show. If people liked the pilot then they air the whole show.

Secondary research is research that other people have done but you look at to back up your primary research. For this I watched documentaries on YouTube about the same subject as I am doing. I  also watched news reports on the subject of violent video games affecting children's behaviour. Other examples of secondary research are books, dairies, newspapers and government statistics.

Quantitative research is research involves numbers and statistics. I didn't do any quantitative research. This is because the answers I needed were more qualitative. Examples of quantitative research are programme rating, website views, box office figures and sales numbers.

Qualitative research is research that involves words and written answers. The qualitative research I did was ask questionnaire on my questionnaire that would get qualitative answers. Like their opinions and views. More examples of qualitative research are film and game reviews, discussions and forums.

Data gathering agencies gather data for companies. BARB show figures of how many people watch each TV show. IMDB gives rating to films and TV shows. Boxofficemojo gives viewers reviews on films. Other examples of data gathering agencies are RAJAR. It stands for Radio Joint Audience Research. They are the official body that measures radio audiences in the UK. They are owned by the BBC and Radiocentre on behalf of the commercial sector.

For my audience and market research I looked at the target audience for my documentary which was parents of small children. I sent out a questionnaire to see if they thought that the games their children  were playing were causing them to act violently. I did this because I wanted to know the parents opioions.

For my production research I watched other documentaries that were similar to mine and see how they were made. I also had to check if my idea was likely to be made because I had to film young children so I had to be careful with some BCAP Code rules. I made sure that my budget didn't exceed £5 and that I was able to film at Brampton Primary School.