RESEARCH METHODOLOGY : ASSIGNMENT 1

1. INTRODUCTION

Radio and TV stations are unique in having a special need for audience research as this is
the only industry that cannot accurately count its audience. A factory and newspapers company
will always count the number of products it sells. An organization that provides services rather
than products (e.g. a hospital) is able to accurately count the number of people coming for
treatment. But radio and television programs are given away free to their audiences, and there is
no way of measuring how many people tune into a program. For this reason, audience research
was one of the first forms of market research.

1.1. Definition of 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.

1.2. Audience analysis

An accurate estimate of the size, demographic make - up, and needs of a perspective
audience is essential for the development of workable, funded projects and marketable media
ideas. The following questions can only be answered when the prospective audience is clearly
defined.

o What size budget is justified?

o What needs and expectations does a particular audience have?

Audience demographics are: - age

- gender
- income
- education
- religion
- culture
- language
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The age and gender of the members of an audience are often just as important as the
overall number of the people who will see the production. Detailed audience information can
facilitate later stages of the production process by giving the audience input about production
decisions. Audience research also can be primary (i.e., the information is gathered directly from
members of the target audience) or secondary (i.e., the information is gathered from previously
conducted research).

1.3. Need for audience research

If you have an audience, and you don’t do audience research, this may be dangerous for a
company. However, many organizations (even those with audiences) survive without doing
audience research. How do they survive?

 Even if an organization doesn’t do systematic audience research, it usually has some

informal method of collecting feedback, and sometimes these informal methods seem to
work well.
 When funding is guaranteed, regardless of audience size, broadcasters can survive
without audiences. Many shortwave services have tiny or unknown audiences, but
governments fund them out of national pride.
 Organizations that rely on revenue from their audiences often use the amount of revenue
as a substitute for audience research. This applies to most small businesses. As long as
they keep making money, they feel no need for audience research. But when the flow of
money unexpectedly declines, the businesses often feel the need for market research.
Income flow will tell the owner what is happening, but not why.

1.4. Methods of audience research

1.4.1. Survey

Through sampling, when the researchers collect information about electronic media
audience, they are interested in an entire population of radio listeners, internet users, or television
viewers. Because it would be logistically impossible to survey all users of a given medium,
research companies estimate audiences from a subset of the population called a sample. In any
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survey research, the quality of the sample has a tremendous impact on the economy on the
accuracy of the information collected.

1.4.2. Qualitative research

Qualitative research provides the opportunity to develop a descriptive, rich understanding and
insight into individuals' attitudes, beliefs, concerns, motivations, aspirations, lifestyles, culture,
behaviors, and preferences.

Qualitative research allows one to:

 Explore a topic or idea with target audiences

 Gain insight into what and how people think and feel about a topic or idea
 Understand the language individuals use to talk about a topic or idea
 Observe the adoption of new behavior within the context of peoples' daily lives
 Discover motivations that underlie behavior

The reasons for this limitation are:

 Participants often are not selected randomly.

 The number of participants in a typical qualitative research study is too small to be
representative of the population.
 Qualitative research does not collect numeric data from a representative sample of the
target audience.
 Some participants tend to express views that are consistent with social standards and try
not to present themselves negatively.
 The quality of the data collection and the results are highly dependent on the skills of the
moderator or interviewer and on the rigor of the analysis.

1.4.3. Quantitative research

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Quantitative research usually is designed to produce estimates of the prevalence of

knowledge, attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other characteristics of a defined population
group.

The most important benefit of well-designed and well-implemented quantitative research

is that it can give planners of communications programs fairly reliable information about the
prevalence of certain characteristics among their audience. Quantitative research that is
conducted on a periodic basis also can track the effects of the program on targeted knowledge,
attitudes, and/or behavioral change objectives. Quantitative methods also can be used to
determine if the results of qualitative research are valid for the larger population.

The more important limitations are:

 Such approaches usually are resource intensive and can take several weeks to many
months to design, implement, and analyze, thus extending the time needed to incorporate
audience-based research into program planning.
 Quantitative research also requires skills in sampling design issues, sampling
methodologies, survey design, statistical techniques, and how they are all applied in a
communications research context.
 The structure of most surveys limits the number of questions that can be asked, the
variety of responses that respondents can provide, the time each respondent has to answer
questions (15–20 minutes is what many surveys aim for to minimize respondent burden
and to maximize full completion of the survey), and any type of interactive process with
or among respondents.

2. PROCESS OF AUDIENCE RESEARCH

2.1. Define the aim of the research.

One must be able to state the main objective that he wants the project to accomplish in one
sentence.
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Without this vision statement, the researcher won’t be able to consider other goals that need to be
achieved to meet the first goal. Only then, the researcher can consider what must be achieved to
meet each of those goals and so on.

This is all about “what we need to know from this research.”

2.1. Try to find out if the information one need is already available.

If information about the desired topic already exits, one should stop now. Whereas, if the
information is not available, he can go ahead with the research plan.

o One can plan a research project by answering himself the following questions:
o What he already know about the audience?
o What he needs to know more?
o How he will use the results?

It is useful to hold a file consisting of a list of some of the basic facts about the audience.
A knowledgeable publisher should be able to answer most of the basic questions as follows:

o How large is the audience – the number of people?

o Where is the audience - the geographical areas?
o When does the audience use the publication – how much time of a day, week or month?
o What interest the audience about the content?
o What other activities influence negatively towards the selling of the publication?
o What is preventing people from using the services as much as they might?

2.2. What will be the cost?

The expense on the research should be considered. Research can be expensive. There
must be ways through which unnecessary cost can be reduced.

Finally, if other research suppliers provide rival surveys this can be wasteful in terms of
the deployment of financial resources available in the market.
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2.3. Which research method is most appropriate?

In order to get concise numerical information, as survey need to be undertaken. For a

broader comprehension numbers are not so important (e.g. the types of people in your audience
and what they prefer) qualitative research may be appropriate.

2.4. Who will do the research?

Will it be yourself who will do the research or you will hire a research organization to do
it or it will be a sort of joint effort?

If one does his own research it would be cheaper, because most of the cost involve labour
so need to be highly experienced organized and to have suitable staff with plenty of time
available.

Hiring a research group would be advantageous such that the results can be viewed
quickly, however, it will be expensive. This may cause the work of better quality, but it is quite
somewhat irrelevant.

Better results are obtained when one work with a professional through which one can
learn more and can apply them in the managerial process.

2.5. Now do the research

A research brief, also known as request for proposal, should be written, which outlines the
solutions to the problems. Points to include in the brief:
 A name of no more than 10 words to the research project.
 A statement of the reason why the research is needed.
 Background of the problem.
 The main questions to be answered
 How certain one want the results to be?
 If there is any deadline to answering the questions?
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2.5.1. Sampling – It means getting information about some part of the population. For
the results to be accurate, the sample should be representative of the population.
2.5.2. Questionnaires – It refers to representing the questions in such a way that the
required answers can be obtained without difficulty.
2.5.3. Fieldwork – It is the place where researchers go to do their interviews; can be at
people’s homes, public places, call centres or even in schools. It involves preparation,
interview supervision and verification.
2.6. Comparison of results.
When the research is finished, compare the results with the activities. After having obtained
loads information about the audience, the answers need to be compared to the research
projects.

3. ADVANTAGES OF AUDIENCE RESEARCH

3.1. To help in decision making.

Because they have in mind to take a decision, researchers want to know whether the
audience will accept it ( for e.g., a radio station manager, noticing that all other stations
broadcast news bulletins at the beginning of each hour, may wonder about having bulletins
halfway through each hour). Often there’s a choice of going ahead with the decisions, or making
no change, or perhaps a compromise and partial change.

3.1. To understand the audience

The questions often asked by the organization’s management are along the lines of "What
type of people tune in to our station? What interests them most? How do they spend their time?"

One could consider either a set of consensus groups, or a detailed survey. In general, I
recommend consensus groups. A survey will provide precise results to the questions asked, but
will give no information at all on questions that weren’t asked. Also, a survey will cost a lot
more, and take more time.

3.2. To demonstrate facts to outsiders

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Commercial broadcasters want to convince manufacturers and retailers to advertise on

their station. For this, it helps to have data showing the size, demographics, and interests of their
audience. A related purpose is a special-interest organization, seeking support from a funding
body, and providing survey data to show the extent of public support for that organization.

3.3. To provide material for programs

Most media organizations can use research methods to gather data about audiences, and
make programs based on this data. Audiences like to hear about public opinion, and general
reaction to issues of the day, and programs created from (or supported by) research data always
seem to be popular.

3.4. Sustainable services

Audience research can help you develop new funding streams, either by proving the potential
market, or by demonstrating value to potential funders. For example, you may be able to get
funding from a professional by providing evidence that you serve their niche audience.

3.5. Help in communicative program

Audience research also can be used to assess the impact of a communications program.
This research may include testing the target audience concerning awareness of the message, the
exposure to or use of the products, or the intention to change behavior.

The studies contained in this database may inform future research efforts by providing
data that help to:

 Shape research questions

 Identify potential research methodologies
 Identify audiences with whom more research is needed
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4. LIMITATIONS OF AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Although national studies may help inform research, they should not be used as a proxy for
project-specific research. Database users should note the following limitations:

 Audience research cannot be generalized to the public as a whole.

 Audience research does not prove something to be universally true.

Audience research using a national sample of a specific population group should not be
generalized to a local population or variant of the original sample.

5. CONCLUSION

Audience research is a vital part of any campaign, and is these days a painstaking and
complex process. Research must take into account the current and predicted trends, consumer
values and how these drive popular culture. The world is constantly changing – changing family
structures, the level of average incomes, and globalization all have an effect on what people can
and will spend their money on. Audience research is the start of any marketing campaign, as
manufacturers ask the question “what will people buy” rather than asking “will they buy what I
sell?”
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References:

Books

Introduction to media production: the path to digital media production, by Gorham Anders
Kindem, Robert B.Musburger, 2005, third edition. Viewed on 08/09/10

Ratio analysis: the theory and practice of audience research by James G.Webster, Patricia
F.Phalen, and Lawrence Wilson Lichty. Retrieved on 08/09/10

Web

http://www.ehow.com/about_5154578_types -business-research.html. Retrieved on 28/08/10

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/scaaudanalysisbpeducatresearchpractitioner
s.pdf. Retrieved on 02/09/10

http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/Advertising/advertising.php?pageID=research. Viewed
on 30/08/10

http://www.thejournalist.org.uk/july08/feat_research.html. Retrieved on 28/08/10