The Nature and Purpose of Research in the Creative Media Industries

Research is a very important aspect of film and television production as it gives the creators an insight into what their target audience is interested in, what's trending amongst consumers around the world, giving them an initial idea of how much the production will cost and the best time to plan filming.
 Research can be done both quantitatively and qualitatively and involves both primary and secondary methods of collecting which means gathering information yourself, for example, through surveys, one-to-one interviews, taking pictures etc; and secondary, which means collecting pieces of information from resources you have looked into rather than gathered yourself, for example, in a non-fiction books, observations etc.
Primary Research:
 For our Obsessions documentary, we emailed people a survey with a mix of open and closed questions, which meant we allowed people to give their own interpretations and expand on their answers so we could gather more in-depth information about the topic. In addition to this, our topic needed people who were very passionate about certain subjects, and therefore the survey allowed people to tell us if they were interested in anything that we could interview and use in the documentary.
 The other form of primary research was actually conducted for our interviews. We asked around for people who considered their passions to be 'obsessions' and asked them if they would appear in our documentary. Then, during the filming process, we conducted a short interview involving 5 questions about their personal obsession and gave them a mixture of open and closed questions. For example, "What is your obsession?" and "How did your obsession start?"
Secondary Research:
 Secondary research for our documentary involved watching other 3 Minute Wonders which followed the a similar narrative style in order to explore our possibilities for filming. This allowed us to become aware of the style in which we wanted to present our topic - whether we wanted to be critical about it and how involved we wanted to be with the documentary, whether we wanted to be on screen for example.
 There are different types of 3 Minute Wonders which all get across different views about their specific topics, depending on the way which they're presented. For the most part, the documentary-makers do not make up a large part of the documentary but rather remain an observer, asking  questions and exploring the topic. Sometimes they're the central person, and they focus on something which they're personally interested in.
Quantitative Research:
 Quantitative research is research which focuses on numbers - it's data which can measured and is therefore a handy way of looking at closed questions, such as the age of the person taking the survey and the gender. This is a useful part of surveys as it allows for producers to become aware of their target audience and the people who are mainly interested in what they're trying to produce and sell.
 For our survey, we gathered the ages and genders of the people who answered the questions. In larger productions, or for advertising purposes, and - outside of the media - medical and political information, they might include ethnicity in the general information section as it allows them to explore the opinions of varying backgrounds and see what trends come across in group's of people and therefore who they should target their product at. An example of this was done in our Rebranding project, where we had to look at the initial audience for the product we were rebranding, and decide who would be the best alternative to that audience and how to appeal to them.
Qualitative Research:
 Qualitative research focuses on the opinions of people and gives a more in-depth  response and more information for the producers to work with. For our documentary, this involved getting people to give their own opinions on the topics we were looking at for our project - we asked questions which would allow them to express personal responses and expand their ideas thus giving us more of an idea of what to include in the documentary - what people were interested in and why. This kind of research was also included in our Rebranding project, where the survey we sent out asked questions such as "Would you buy this product after seeing the advert?" with an open text box with the question "Why?"
Data Gathering Agencies
 Data gathering agencies use a variety of different research methods in order to gather information to distribute to companies or the public. BARB, the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, compiles audience figures and television ratings in the United Kingdom. It's jointly owned by the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, the TC companies and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, and uses a tracking system on participating viewers' digital box in order to monitor the programmes and channels they watch. Another popular example of a data gathering agency is IMDB, which collects reviews, ratings and information about television and film products submitted by the public.
The purposes of research: 
Audience and Market Research
 Gathering information from audiences through different methods allows companies to release and change products which hit their target audience in the best way possible. For our own research, we sent out a survey to people in the class to find out their opinions on the topic we were exploring for our documentary - obsessions. It asked about their own obsessions, the view they have on people with obsessions and what sort of questions they'd like to see in a documentary exploring the matter.
Production Research
 Production research is research which focuses on the advertisement, production and finances attached to a media product. Alongside audience and market research, it ensures that the product can gain attention from the right people and earn profits upon release. It also involves cutting down finances and getting the best locations, crew and equipment according to the cost of the production. For our own piece, we used a location recce to dwindle down our options for filming locations, leaving us with the best options.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcasters%27_Audience_Research_Board