Unit 2 - Design & Research Skills
Why would I complete research if I was to embark on making a new media production, such as advertisement or film? Mostly, especially regarding an advertisement, if I was not to conduct research that would mean I would not know how to effectively advertise the product or perhaps not even who my target audience was at all. It is a necessary step towards making an affective production to know exactly who my target audience actually are, and how to appeal to them. With an advert as an example, I would need to know what the product or service being advertised entailed or was, the sort of person who would purchase it, and how to persuade said person to do so. For a different production, such as for example, a historical film, I would need to conduct research on numerous things, such as the events being portrayed in the film in order to be historically accurate including key dates, events, the people involved, what these people looked like in order to cast the right person for the role, and research the sort of items, attire, products etc. used in the time period being set in order to achieve full historical accuracy, or at least as much as desired. These are some key examples of why conducting research in anticipation before creating a media production is required.
The numerous kinds of research partaken prior to the production of media are mostly split into two categories; primary and secondary. Primary research include more direct methods including interviews, questionnaires, polls and so forth, whilst secondary research mostly entails less direct methods including reading books, websites, viewing documentaries and so forth. There are numerous pros and cons to each method, thus it is best to use both. Whilst primary research is more “in touch” as it directly gets information from the source, it does not often paints the full picture as it is only usually one or sometimes a handful of people who are involved in primary research. Conversely, secondary research generates a wider view generally, however it is less direct and some sources such as Wikipedia can easily be altered to be dishonest by anyone.
Another type of research includes qualitative and quantitative research. The main difference between the two methods is flexibility; qualitative research is more detailed and has a more in-depth understanding of the source, it offers greater variation in detail however it includes less sources. Quantitative research instead reaches a generally larger range of sources, but with a broader, less descriptive amount of information included.
For my advertisement product, I believe that I shall mostly use secondary research whilst conducting my research, but I do not rule out touching upon different techniques if required. A good general understanding of advertisement, skills, techniques and the target audience for the advert will mostly come from secondary research, which I will mostly get from online. However I might also read on some personal blogs for example people have created, which would come under qualitative research. The reason I am primarily using secondary research is because I am creating an original product as opposed to advertising an existing one, thus for example, I could not ask people their opinions on the product as it does not exist thus they will not have an opinion regarding it. Although I could ask people what they like about their favorite drinks, or what draws them to a product, this is simply no necessary for my product alas that is why I am not using primary research. Reading other people's opinions regarding drinks, and facts about them is more beneficial as I can get a broader context through this but most importantly, it is simply more viable to do as opposed to inquiring people's views in person, especially where I have online blogs to do that for me, although some may count that as primary research.
