Research Methods

Research Methods

Research methods are used within media to gain information.

There are different ways in to obtain data. Firstly you have primary and secondary research, and following on qualitative and quantitative data.

Primary data: Primary data is information you have collected yourself, e.g. in your fieldwork. This is good as you can explore exactly what you want under control, also you can interpret the data yourself. A disadvantage to primary research would be that its very time consuming and you need the funding.

Secondary data: Secondary data is information which has been previously collected from another source. Therefore you have to research for the data yourself. Looking onto search engines such as Google will help you find your information such as on Census', surveys, population data etc. An advantage of this is it requires little effort as it has been done for you. On the other hand a disadvantage would be the research could be outdated or not precisely what you are looking for.

Qualitative data: This refers to describe something in detail. Qualitative data is rich in detail, and specifically focusses on one subject. E.g. this could be a Unstructured Interview. The 'Qual' helps to remember its 'Quality'

Quantitative data: This term refers to numerical data which can be measured. Questionnaires would be a suitable research method in obtaining data.

In our media text we would be using qualitative data to describe the features of our film trailer. However there can be some aspects of quantitative data e.g. Timing