Research Methods

Research methods

How do we measure media audiences? - Sales, Subscriptions, Ratings, Figures
Who measures audiences? - NRS, ABC, BARB, Bookseller.
These are only some of the organisations who monitor the audience sizes.

http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.836 - here is a link I have found which gives information about audience measurements and data.

New media?
Social networking sites are new media which can help to measure audiences, sites such as facebook gives us clear views on which topic has the most 'likes', measuring the popularity of particular subjects. Other sites such as youtube can measure audience by the amount of views which are seen on the posts. Twitter trends can also be used along with online forums and comment tools.

When looking at audience we find there are 2 main types of research:
1) Quantative research - e.g questionnaires
These would be number based and would include closed questions to generate exact, specific answers and these can be very factual

2) Qualitative research - e.g interviews, focus groups
These include analysis of existing products and includes open questions which would generate answers to open interpretation and individual preferences.

Considering audience
Audience engagement - This describes how an audience interacts with a media text. Different people react in different ways to the same text
Audience expectations - These are the ideas that the audience have in advance of seeing a media text. This particularly applies to the genre pieces. Don't forget that producers continually play with or shatter audience expectation