Unit 6 LO1 Understand how media producers define audiences for their products‏.

Question 1
Why might a media institution use Qualitative research? How effective is this form of research?

In order to answer this question we need to know what qualitative research is. Qualitative research is research a person or an organisation in this case will go out to collect on their own in forms of questionnaires, panels, testing and focus groups. Qualitative research also uses features of Psycographic research is the peoples personalities, values and opinions. Psychographic research of individuals or of communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing.

Focus groups are really popular with market research so that they can test new features on their target audience. Qualitative research is effective as it gives the institution a chance to get greater quality of feedback from the audience so that the institution can get a better understanding of their product and whether it is successful or if they would have to make any changes.

We need to ask ourselves why might a media institution use qualitative research? Well a media institution might use qualitative research to gather information about their companies product from their target audiences for example Asian Bridal Magazines. Asian bridal magazine has to understand what their audience wants from it. So the magazine company may go out and get their audience to fill out a questionnaire about the pros and cons of the magazine and they may ask questions such as ' What do you like about the magazine, and why?'

There are three types of magazine classification. The three are niche, alternative and mainstream. These magazine companies may will use this research source as a way of gathering information on things they can improve on their product and what the audience like about the product. 

First of all we want to know what a niche magazine is. It is a magazine who specifically focus on one topic. An example of Niche magazines are Asian bridal magazines. The reason why asian bridal magazine is a niche title is because it is reaching out to asian woman within the range of 19-30 who are looking to get married. The reason being is that this is the age that asian women look to get married and are interested in different styles and ideas for bridal look. 

An alternative magazine is information produced to mainstream media within a given context. Alternative magazine companies such as Alternative Press magazine. It is based around indie music reaching to the age group of 17-25. Alternative magazines reach out to more of a wider audience and may want to use qualitative research to discuss the topics that are produced in the magazine. Questions may cover what they should change about the magazine to make it better for the audience. 

Moving onto mainstream magazines who will use qualitative research. Mainstream magazines are magazine companies which cover a variety of topics such as sport, general news and what is trending at the moment. Mainstream magazines are mainly produced every week. An example of a mainstream magazine is Ok magazine. The target audience for Ok magazine ranges from ages between late 20s-30 of british/american ethnicity within the middle class.

The reason as to why they might use qualitative research is due to get information on what topics they should cover in the magazine. 

Question 2.
How might a media institution create and use target audience classification. How effective is this form of research?

For those who don't know, a target audience is a particular group which a product such as film is aimed at. For example we could say who is the target audience for a cartoon series? For a question like this we need to take into consideration who watches cartoons? The answer is simple, kid with age range 3-10. 

Before any production is created media institutions need to research on audience demographics to understand who your target audience is, why your target audience behave or think what they do, how to target your audience and how you can communicate your message effectively to your audience. 

There are different age ratings for different productions for example a game production such as grand Theft auto would be rated as an 18+ game due to the fact that it contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol. 

 Quantative research is a good method to use to gather research on audiences views. This is because we can get a clear example of statistics on people opinions and views. 

Question 3 How might a media institution use quantitative research? How effective is this form of research?

Some media institutions may use the forms of research as they are both effective. Qualitive and Quantative data can both be used as they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Institutions may use quantative research to get clear set of statistics to get an understanding of number of peoples views. Where as qualitative data may have an advantage as they can get an understanding of people views and opinions on a wider scale as they get to probe the people who are taking out a survey. The disadvantage of this is that the person who is taking out the survey/questionnaire could lie in their answers. 

Television companies use BARB to gather viewing statistics. This is so that the know how many people tune in to watch their programmes. This is important so that they know if their channel is running successfully and if not what changes need to be made. 

Rajar stands for radio joint audience research. It is the official institution in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK. 

Nrs which stands for National readership survey is the UKs most authoritative and valued audience research. The survey covers over 250 of Britain's newspapers and magazines. 

We know what quantitative research is, but how effective is it? Quantitative research is really effective in my opinion as we get a wide scale of statistics of the questions that are going to be asked, so an institution knows the exact numbers they are looking for. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion to all the questions above we can say that understanding your target audience is a major key role in any media institution whether it be magazines, games or movies. 

Some may ask why it is important? It is because if you don't have a clear understanding about who your target audience is going to be people may be watching the wrong things that is not suitable for them. 

To understand their target audience and what their audience want they could gather information from different types of research such as qualitative and quantitative. This will widen their knowledge about their audience.

I believe the best way of classifying audiences is knowing who your product is going to be aimed at, so we want to look for a target audience and know which gender we are aiming it to. This will bring out the best research.