The Role of Research in the Media.

Primary Research.
Primary research is new research, this is carried out to answer specific questions.  It also mainly focuses on specific audience data i.e. demographics. To gather this type of information about your demographic there are surveys, questionnaires and/or interviews. A successful way of sharing your surveys/questionnaires is through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, this is because there is a larger amount of responses and a wider range of ages, interests etc. Another way of handing out questionnaires would be in public, approach random people that would be willing to answer the questions this method is often more time consuming but is usually more effective. 


Secondary Research.
This specific research type is information that may have been used for other purposes and is now available to the public, secondary research is often formed from primary research. It can be found within books, websites, surveys, letters, autobiographies etc.
Secondary research is usually used in partner with Primary research, it usually used to back up primary sources to make them a lot more reliable.


Qualitative and Quantitative Research.
When analysing research such as primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative research is used. Qualitative research is a type of data that is shown through images, i.e. graphs, charts, tables. Whereas quantitative research is shown through numbers, i.e. sampling or when looking at questionnaire results and analysing graphs there will be a numerical outcome, for example, 25% of people preferred the colour purple. 


Audience Research.
This research is mainly for the companies benefit as it gives them an insight into what their target audience want. It simply engages a small group of people to gain a detailed in-depth understanding of their feelings towards a specific subject. Audience research helps a group of people to be able to create a demographic, by putting people into groups of gender, age, ethnicity, education, occupation etc.
Another way of finding the target audience is looking at the psychographic status of an individual. This specifically judges the individual on their personal interests, hobbies, goals and their lifestyle choices. This way the company/group are able to gain a in-depth understanding on what their audience wants to see.
A common status that most companies use to find their target audience is the socioeconomic status. This is where the company is focusing on the individuals education and job. 

Production Research.
Research into the production of any form of media all depends on what the subject and format it is. This research is for a documentary unit so therefore will use documentaries as examples. When looking at an expository documentary it's likely that the producers have researched into the subject information that they're going to be broadcasting because one of its main conventions is that they include facts. Whereas a reflexive documentary is based on the truth but doesn't necessarily have to be the whole truth as it's a reconstruction, although some research will have to be done to know what has happened vaguely but it isn't quite a main factor.


Market Research.
Market research is used throughout the media industry. This determines when and which channel the show will be aired on TV. Producers will have researched into their target audiences and into which TV programmes they watch and what times they tune in to watch. This is how the companies are influenced into analysing their own products into further detail like whether using a new technique could jeopardize the documentary. 


Distribution.
Distribution within companies is all down to how much money they have, whether they're major conglomerates or independent companies. Major conglomerates generally have more money which means they can afford advertising on billboards, which will help to entice their target audience. They are very dependent on the promotional side of producing because it usually brings in a large profit, companies usually work with McDonald's making toys to put into Happy Meals and children are likely to ask their parents to take them to see the movie that they're promoting, as well as in toy stores that they'll sell toys that too promote movies. Top conglomerates can also afford to pay out for celebrities to star within movies, which is another way of enticing a specific audience and promoting.
Independent companies are pretty much opposite to the major conglomerates because they have a smaller budget and don't rely on advertising. This means that the company are able to use their budget on being more creative and sticking to the basics of producing, not using so many effects and possibly not using as famous celebrities (If using them at all). They also rely on independent sharing like YouTube, Film Festivals, Film4 and immediate DVD release rather than it being shown in cinemas where the company would have to pay a large amount for the movie to be screened in cinemas.