Documentary Idea

Idea for documentary

My idea is a documentary about the paranormal in haunted places and find out if people have ever thought they were being haunted. I will ask people if I can interview them about if they have been or not and whether they believe that ghosts are real or not and get permission to be able to go to a graveyard or another place that is thought to be a haunted place to video it and find out if ghosts exist or not. My documentary will be based on anything paranormal from Ghosts to Demons. If I do not find any evidence to prove their existence then I will get stories from people who believe they have had any paranormal experiences. I will interview some people I know and also ask permission from other people to interview them about the paranormal. For example a priest if I can get the permission or a medium in a spiritualist’s church.

Research Techniques Essay

3.1 Research techniques for the creative media industries

In this essay I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of research techniques used in the creative media industry, in addition, I will explain the methods in which they use to find information and furthermore I will also be discussing in detail about the purposes of research.

The types of research that the creative media industries use are primary, secondary, qualitative and quantitative. Primary research is research done by yourself and what you know about something whereas secondary research is the type of research done by others that you use to help you understand the subject.

The advantages of primary research are that it is research that you yourself have done so it is more reliable, however the disadvantages are that you wont get someone else’s view on the subject and they might not have enough information about a certain thing unless they use secondary research. McQeen and Knussen (2002 Pp26) “The scope of secondary data will often exceed what the individual might achieve on their own”, This quote explains that sometimes secondary research is better to a certain subject because someone else may know more about it and It can also help to make your research better, on the other hand secondary research is less reliable because its by someone else and not yourself so its best when using secondary research to know that the place you got it is a reliable source to use.

Qualitative research is research that is text based with the views of an audience that shows their opinions about the subject, however quantitative research is numerically based and shows the number of audiences for different things. Mcqeen and Knussen (2002 Pp28) “Qualitative research approaches explore and describe, explain and predict” this quote explains that when we use qualitative research we get a more detailed explanation and it can be supported with quantitative data.

The advantages of qualitative research are that you get to see what people actually think of something because they can give a detailed explanation about it, but this type of research also has disadvantages because people can lie about what they actually think and then the results cannot be exactly accurate. Some advantages of quantitative research are that you can get accurate results about the audiences of things, the disadvantages of this research is that you do not find out what people think of things and there is no detailed explanation involved because it is just numbers.

Some methods and sources of research are interviews, observations, web searches, literature searches, surveys and graphs/ charts. These methods come under different types of research that the creative media industries use, For example numerical based research methods like graphs/ charts are quantitative research methods that are primary results and things like literature searches is a qualitative research method.

There are three types of ways to interview people; these are structured, semi-structured and un-structured. A structured interview is when the interviewer has questions already prepared like they would in a job interview and they are looking for a certain answer. A semi- structured interview is when the interviewer has questions prepared but sometimes they change a question they were originally going to ask them, its less strict and will allow the interviewee to discuss their answers to the question more. An unstructured is an interviewing style that is basically just a conversation because the interviewer has no set questions to ask so they ask questions on their topic and hope for the interviewee to not go off subject and if they do the interviewer will try to get them back on topic. May.T (2002 Pp123)“These types of interviews are said to allow people to answer more on their own terms than the standardized interview permits” This quote tells us that when unstructured interviews are used it is more like a conversation than an interview because they can talk about their subject freely, sometimes this way of interviewing is more appropriate because there is less pressure on both the interviewer and the interviewee.  Pole and Lampard (2002 Pp139) “ In all interviews it is good practice to give the interviewee some idea of how much time you expect the interview will take.” This is important because it gives the interviewee a chance to see if they have enough time to finish the interview before it is started.

The purposes of research are Audience research, Marketing research and Production research. Audience research is aimed at different groups of people for example different age groups and genders. I looked at national readership survey this shows the classifications of the owner of a household’s income it is the social grade scale. People in class A are upper class people, this could be people like doctors, lawyers, accountants and people that are their own boss and run their own company. These people generally have quite a lot of money because they are the upper middle classes. People in class B are middle class families for example teachers and managers. The C1 class are lower middle class people that are young managers between the ages of 20 and 30. C2 families are the skilled working class like builders and hairdressers. Class D are the working class that are not poor and not rich but are skilled but not as skilled as higher groups. The people in class E would be people that have disabilities, single parents, criminals or pensioners. These people depend on welfare income and pensioners receive their money from the state because they retired from their job and without the state providing for them they wouldn’t have anything. The NRS is an example of Audience research.

Marketing research shows the audiences of things like TV, radio stations and business organisations it shows us what different companies offer us, BARB tells us what shows are most popular on TV in a week and shows a range of channels. It also shows the competition between different shows that are on at the same time, this shows which show people prefer to watch. BARB is only quantitative research because it cant tell us what people actually think of a show and can not be completely accurate because something may be showing on a TV but it may not be being watched, this is only for a full household as well therefor it is not accurate.

Call sheets are a form of production research they are used to organise a film creation, people use them to write down the times of when the parts of a film will be created, who will star in it, everyone involved in the making of it and who ever is directing it as well as the scenes and the storyline.

Bibliography

May. T (2002) Social Research. Open University Press, Buckingham

Pole and Lampard (2002) Practical Social Investigation. Qualitative and Quantative Methods in Social Research. Prentice Hall, London.

McQeen and Knussen (2002) Research Methods for Social Science, an introduction. Prentice Hall. London

Primary research-Bullying Survey

Bullying Survey

This shows that 64% of people we asked have been bullied and only 36% haven't, this tells us that bullying happens to a lot of people for many different reasons and most people will experience being bullied at least once in their lives.

This shows that a lot of bullying is either done verbally or on the internet which means that a lot of people will have been called unpleasant things either by mouth, text or social networking, this is less likely to happen if people make sure that they do not give phone numbers to the wrong people and keep their social networking accounts hidden so only real friends and family can contact you.

This tells us that less people have bullied someone than people that have this may be because the people who haven't bullied anyone may have experienced being bullied themselves and know how it feels so they choose not to make others feel the same way they did as they were being bullied, alternatively, people who have already been bullied may bully people because they are angry that they had to be put through it and others didn't.

Most people think bullying is a problem because they may have been through it themselves or their friends or family are being. The people who say it isn't a problem may never have experienced being bullied or may be a bully themselves and think what they are doing is right because its not them having to deal with it. Bullying is a big issue because it can cause depression, people getting hurt and really bad mental health problems so bullying should never be accepted no matter what the circumstances are.

A lot of people answered no to this question because when people see bullying happen they don't do anything about it because they are worried that if they get involved then they may be bullied themselves and they don't want that to happen to them as well. Some people will stop bullying if they see it because they know how it feels and they are not afraid to stop it happening.

A lot of people think that standing by and watching someone get bullied is just as bad as bullying, and in a sense it is because it makes people feel like everyone is against them and they will have nobody to support them so they think they are alone which is not technically true because everyone is bound to be bullied at least once at some point in their lives.

A lot of people who are bullied will do nothing about it and stay quiet because they fear what will happen to them if they tell somebody about it and it may get worse for them and people may bully them more often. But less bullying would happen if everyone who gets bullied speaks to someone about it because bullying can happen to anyone at any age and if you dont tell anyone nothing can be done about it and it may get worse than it already is.

Panorama Last Chance Academy Analysis

The episode of Panorama called Last chance academy is about a school where they believe that students who are disruptive and badly behaved that end up being permanently excluded from their schools is still entitled to a good education and they believe they can make these students achieve 5 GCSE's by the time they leave. This is secondary research through observational studies of the school.
Throughout the episode there are interviews that are semi structured, this leaves questions asked open for discussion and more in depth answers but can also be controlled by the interviewer to make them less time consuming. The voice over in this episode is a female voice which shows a caring side to the school and shows that they want them to succeed. A female voice over is used because people associate females to care for children and a school is full of children so this shows a good representation of what the school is like and what they want their students to achieve. Observations of the school are shown whilst the voice over tells facts and figures that the school has already achieved or is aiming to achieve. The observations are used to show what the school is like and how the students act. They also go into detail about some of their students and interview them to find out how they feel being at the school. The context of the episode is that it starts by the voice over explaining what they do at the school how they treat the students then it ends with a summary of how they have helped to give these students their last chance to make a difference for their own lives and show them that they need their education as it is one of the most important things in their lives so they will be able to pass their GCSE's and get a good job and do well in the future. This shows that people who want to achieve their potential still can with the help of the staff at this school. Its interesting to the audience because it shows the students opinions as well as just the staff's views, this appeals to a teenage audience because it tells them that they are being listened to and the staff do care they just want what's best for the students and that they will put the effort in to help them if the student themselves also puts the effort in to concentrate, this will also appeal to parents because they might want their children to be at this school because they might be able to have better concentration or maybe they have a child with dyslexia they might want them to be there because this episode features the staff helping a dyslexic student to be able to read.

Perceptions of audience

This is about stereotypical audiences of different things.
It shows peoples perceptions.

Newspaper Analysis

The Times is a newspaper based to the audience of older people who are interested in politics and are around the ages of 30- 40. The language of the times is aimed at the upper middle class because it is not as easy to read as other newspapers.

Secondary research-NRS Social Grade

The NRS Social Grade shows the classifications of the head of a households income.

Class A is upper middle class families like people who work as doctors, accountants, lawyers and run their own companies.

Class B is middle class families like teachers or managers of companies.

Class C1 is lower middle class people who are young managers between the ages of 20 and 30.

Class C2 is the skilled working class for example builders and hairdressers.

Class D is working class people that work but are not as skilled as the higher groups and are not poor or rich.

Class E is the non working class are people who do not have a job because they may not want to work, they may not be able to for reasons such as disabilities, single parents who cant afford child care or criminals. They could also be people who get benefits and have to depend on welfare income for their money. Also pensioners who have retired from their job and are now getting money from the state.

Commercial Market Research Companies

I researched commercial market research companies to find out what they are and what they offer us for example they show what the audience of things like TV, magazines and radio stations are and other business organisations like multimedia, entertainment and telecoms and gives us as the audience an insight into what they are for and why they are used.
I also collected the contact details so they show how we can contact them about any enquiries we have or just to talk about what the companies do and how they are useful to people and the media.

Commercial Market Research Companies

BARB- 20 Orange Street WC2H 7EF
             Tel: 02070248100
             Email: Enquiries@barb.co.uk
The service offered by barb is that it shows the top trending TV shows on all TV stations.

RAJAR- 6th Floor
               55 New Oxford Street
               London WC1A 1BS
Rajar is the company that offers to show the audience for radio stations and how much they are viewed.

National Readership Survey- 7/8 Market Street
                                               London
                                               W1W8AG
                                               Tel: 02076379822
                                               Help desk:02085153476

The NRS is the company that offers to show us the audience for newspaper brands and magazines that are bought by people and how often showing the trending.

Brand Insitute- 200 S.E. 1st Street
                        12th Floor
                        Miami, FL 33131
                        T: 305.374.2500
                        F: 305.374.2504

The brand institute offers services of a Robust portfolio, brand strategy, architecture and design services as well as research this shows us what they offer.

Mbaco- 9 Marshalsea Road
              London
             SE1 1EP
             01622577946
             Mba@mbaco.com

Mbaco offers the service that shows mobile data and how much is used as well as campaign data and product data.

Recom- London TW88BL
              28 The Butts
              United Kingdom
              02085600808
              02085600890

This service offers communication information such as telecoms/ information technology, entertainment/ leisure, multimedia, health care and the public sector.

MDB- 02031310169
            hnandra@mintel.com
            press@mintel.com

MDB offers the help to clients to make profitable decisions about marketing and business development and help them make the right decisions for them.

Commercial Market Research Companies offer help to people as well as informing us of what us as the audience prefer and the trends shown in media production as well as business in major companies and gives an insight into what people enjoy watching, reading and hearing.