Unit 6 – Critical Approaches to Creative Media Products – Task 1

Task 1A) Qualitative and Quantitative Audience Research

Qualitative audience research is mainly a type of research that helps to explain something, and is used to gain an understanding of different, less obvious, reasons, opinions and motivations. This research also provides help to develop ideas or hypotheses for a potential quantitative research. Qualitative research is involved in things such as: film blogs, discussion, fanzine websites and responses to advertising campaigns.

Now then, qualitative research is seen as more of an opinion based type of research, which means it has more depth than the other types of research. An example of this is during a time where we took part in some research, gathered by our tutor, for some work she was doing at Bournemouth University, which gave her some insight on what we were thinking, through a creative way.

Also, qualitative audience research engages mostly with quite a small group of people so that it can gain a more complex and detailed set of results.

Quantitative audience research is used to sum up the issues by generating numerical data, or data that can be changed to become useful for the project that they are researching, this can relate to thing such as: programme ratings, box office figures, hits on a website and sales of CDs and DVDs. Quantitative research also uses the data to formulate facts and to uncover patterns in the research. This form of research specifically, also includes various forms of surveys and interviews.

For quantitative research, it is opinions, which have been merged into some kind of data, e.g.: a table or chart, which makes it more reliable than qualitative research and it also, supports the point more strongly. This type of research is also based are the number side of data, which holds the larger scale of data and information, which also helps to encourage the fact that they are more truthful and more reliable, overall.

Now, unlike qualitative, quantitative audience research engages with a reasonably large group of people that usually have some sort of relationship to a population as a whole and it overall provides descriptions of the responses.

(http://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-qualitative-research-and-quantitative-research/ - Accessed: 2nd September 2015 – Authored by: SnapSurveys)

(http://www.watchingdance.org/research/audience_research/ - Accessed: 2nd September 2015 – Authored by: The Watching Dance Project)

Audience Classification is basically defining the audience by putting them into categories or groups. These groups can range from gender, age, religion or even marital status. This can be specifically valuable when it comes to rating films or

TV shows, but this would lean towards the age rating, so doesn’t really have a wide range of categories available, as films and TV shows don’t have a certain gender focus, for example. (https://prezi.com/h3ydbskkvyew/audience-classification/ - Accessed: 2nd September 2015 – Authored by: Catherine Wilson)

Task 1B) Document and Analyse

Over the last couple of days, I have been documenting my interaction with the media, from social networking to simply what I have been watching on TV. These were the results that I collected:

Weekday data:

During College, use YouTube repeatedly through the day for music and videos

After college, check Facebook and Snapchat Watch TV during tea After tea play Candy Crush app Check Facebook again Watch TV (The News) Play on Xbox for 2 hours Check Facebook before sleep

Wake up, check Facebook Watch bake off (recorded) whilst eating breakfast Checked Facebook and Snapchat again before college During college, go on YouTube for music Check Tumblr and Facebook on dinner break Continued to use YouTube throughout the day

-Finished college and went to work- Scrolled through Facebook and Snapchat before I go to sleep

After undertaking this task, the data that I have gathered is quite shocking. When I looked over the data, it made me realise just how much I use the media in my day-to-day life, mostly, Facebook and other social networking sites. Even this small amount of data taken within a 24 hour period, or less, says for itself just how much, not just mine, but the other people of my generation also, our lives are taken over my the media and social networking. I have also seemed to notice that, during the week especially, I always seems to check social networking sites, more specifically Facebook, before going to sleep and I feel that this is because myself, among others, feel like we have to know what’s happening and what people are doing, almost like we can’t go sleep without checking Facebook. It’s a daily system of waking up, checking Facebook and then checking Facebook before being able to get to sleep.

Now, I have also led on to make a note of my interactivity with the media during the weekend, to see how my activity differs. Here is the data that I managed to gain from the weekend.

Saturday data:

Wake up, checked Snapchat and Facebook Had breakfast, checked Facebook again Watched the news Went back to have a look at Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat Watched TV

- Went to work- After work, checked Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat Scanned through the newspaper Checked Facebook Watched TV Listened to music channels

Sunday data:

Woke up: Checked Facebook and checked emails Watched TV during breakfast Checked Instagram Watched TV Checked Facebook after some lunch

- Went to work- Checked Facebook and Snapchat Watched a movie Checked Facebook

As you can already see from the weekend data, compared to the weekday data that was taken, there is a lot more physical data, but no actual change in how I interact with the media, which obviously isn't a shock as our generation were brought up around television and the birth of social networking sites such as those included in my data.

To put into even more detail, the Saturday data, compared to the weekday data, is clearly longer as Saturday is considered to be a day off college work, unlike the weekdays where my days are focused around my college work. Although, analysing the data, my interaction with the media isn't very wide-spread, as it mainly focuses around social networking. And I feel that if more people were asked to write down their interactions with the media, then their data would look almost identical to my own, as people in my generation feel obliged to check all of these different networks, intending to see what their friends and family are up to, and even their favourite celebrities, but this specifies around Twitter and sometimes Snapchat. Leading on from this, I also believe that is it because the social network is considered new in our world and is possibly going to be the singular way of communicating to each other in the near future.

Moving on to the Sunday data that I have collected, the amount of data I collected happens to be a lot smaller than the other days. I believe that the main reason for this is because is considered the resting day, so is a day where people don't do as much and don't really care about what other people are doing, simply because not a lot of people will be doing anything interesting at all, the reason being explained above. But overall, there is no change in my interactivity on this day.

Adding on to this, if you looked at it from a different groups point of view, such as someone in a performing arts class, instead of a media class, their results would probably be different, during the week, because we spend our time on the internet and social networking sites to help with research, for example, unlike them who are mainly physical based activities. Although, when outside college, I doubt that their results for be far from ours as we’re a generation who are surrounded by the Internet and the media and believe that it is possible, that they interact with social networking sites, the TV and YouTube, just as much as we do on our days off and during the weekends.

Whilst in class, we started discussing the most popular social networking sites and seeing who used what and how many hours a day we used that site. Some people didn’t use certain ones at all, but most people spent a least an hour on every site we spoke about a day, and the results ranged from 0-1 hours all the way up to 6+ hours.

Now, most of these results were pretty much the same for everyone, but there was one site that had results, which received a variety of results. And this was YouTube. Of course, we are a media class therefore we all use this site a lot for our work and so we can listen to some music as we work as a type of concentration system. I also chose YouTube to write about because the results were more excessive. As you can see from the image I have included, the least amount of hours, spent on the site, came as 2-3 hours, now, only two people stated that this was their daily use of the site. Most of the data was found in the 4-5 hour mark, with 6 people, allocating themselves into that category. Moving further to look at the 7+ category and shockingly enough, only one person put themselves there, but, that is a lot of time spent for one person and gives YouTube an advantage on the usage scale. Even though these results were based around weekday usage and not weekend, I feel that if these results were taken again, the data would be more excessive because of people having free time, of

course, for those who have work during the weekends would spend less time online and therefore on YouTube, so overall, I feel that it depends on the person for how long they spend on the sites. (http://ewalters.tumblr.com/post/128699979224/for-your-reference-e - Accessed: 9th September 2015 – Authored by: Emma Walters)

Task 1C) Primary and Secondary Methods

To start off, the subject I am going to be focusing around is the boy band One Direction and the hype that surrounds them, I have chosen this specific area to research because I am a fan of the band and feel that there is a lot to be said and exclaimed from people who are fans and from people who aren't, from both celebrities and everyday people like me. For this section of work I will be researching both primary and secondary, to help gather all of the information and data I need for this task.

Primary – One question

For my primary research task, I have decided to come up with one question, that I am going to forward on to at least 10 other people, to see how they answer the question and how their opinions range from fans of the band, to people who aren't actually interested in the bands music or their lifestyles. Once I have finished gathering all of this data, I will be analysing and describing, in detail, what I have found and how it relates to this task. The question I am

planning on giving out to some members of the public might be ‘Why are One Direction so big?’

I have now received 10 responses from my question and have separated them into 5 different categories, depending on how each person has chosen to answer the question, which will help me to express their overall opinions more clearly. These categories are as followed:

Their looks – 2 people chose to write about this (20%) Mainstream band/Fanbase – 3 people decided to focus on both of these

pointers (30%) Hard work – Only one person believed this to be the reason of the bands

success (10%)

Management – Again, only one person believed this to be the answer (10%)

Musical expression – Surprisingly, 3 people wrote that the bands success envelopes around their choice of expressing their music. (30%)

To go into more detail about the results I have received, it turns out that those people who have focused around the expression of their music is quite a good point and can actually link to the Fan base also, because if the band weren’t good at not just singing their songs but also expressing them in a way that draws the younger, and possibly older, audience in, then they wouldn’t be where they are today because their audiences wouldn’t be interested, to follow up from this, even seeing them perform live, it isn’t just about hearing the songs being performed, it’s watching the band perform them and seeing how they choose to perform the differs songs as the moods differs and changes.

The next person chose the idea of the bands management being the reason for their successes, to focus their answer around. Also the fact that Simon Cowell and his SyCo team are the ones who market and lead One Direction in certain ways is a valid point as Cowell alone, is an internationally known producer, whom anyone would feel obliged to listen to if he had a newly signed group or artist.

The next person expressed that they feel that One Direction’s hard work if what got them where they are today and simply from what I’ve heard online and on the TV, yes, I agree that they have worked extremely hard to get where they are as originally they had no idea who each other was or even what their music style was going to be. Talking about more recent events, since the former band member, Zayn Malik, departed from the band I would say that they’ve had to work even harder than they ever had as they’ve had to try and work around so many issues with them being one member down now, the main one being having to try and work out how they are going to perform the songs with one performer down and then which member will be the one taking over Zayn’s solo and just overall managing to perfrom as a four man band and not a five.

Onto the three people who feel that the bands mainstream vibe and fanbase of ‘Directioners’ is what made them as big as they are. I’ve also decided to put these two pointers into one group because I feel that the fact that they are mainstream is something that helped to create their number of fans. Of course, the mainstream band was first created on the X Factor show, a show which nearly the entire UK tune into on a Saturday night, so, as soon as the band were formed, half of the UK would instantly know who One Direction were, simply from that one interview or that one formation that Simon Cowell chose to form. To lead on to the Directioner side, the younger audience would’ve set twitter ablaze with all of their One Direction talk about how excited they are to hear them create their own music and see them set off on their own, overall excited to see what they do next, all of which started between their formation and their first song they performed together as a band, as One Direction. The original ‘Directioner’ fanbase was created through the boys’ journey on the X Factor and is ultimately

what got more and more people, worldwide, aware of One Direction and who they were.

Finally, there were two people who decided to embed the fact that One Direction got where they are now because of their looks, into their answer. Ton summarise, I am actually very surprised that only two people chose that as an answer, as I feel, from my experience with peoples opinions of the band, that more people would have this point as a key thing in their mind. The whole idea that because their hair, clothes and even their young age is attractive to the audience is probably something that helps their popularity, but I wouldn’t pin all of their successes on that fact, although, I have to admit, I don’t think they would be as popular if they weren’t attractive, and that is just pure fact, yes, their music is great and easily relates to the audiences feelings, but it helps for them to look how they do. Another thing that could link to their looks, is their accents, not necessarily in the UK, but especially in places like America and Australia, where people love the British accent, is where this factor definitely helped them to get popular. As the society in these two countries seem to get excited by people who speak slightly more posh or slightly more differently to the people who live in the countries specified above, basically its something new to them, something they aren’t used to seeing/hearing on a daily basis.

Primary – In-depth Conversation

To build up my primary research further, I decided to have an in-depth conversation with one of my fellow media students, asking them the same question I asked in the questionnaire, just with more questions added to it that refer slightly to the data I found via secondary research and I have to say that I feel that this was a very success way of collecting data because it gave me a more detailed answer that was personal to how that person felt about the things I asked them. I feel that I should also add that the person I asked is a fan of One Direction, and I chose to ask this person in particular because I believed that someone who was a fan would have more to say about what other people believed was the reason they are so big and how she felt about the certain issues that I brought up, that were introduced to me through internet forums and articles.

To further on my analysis from my in-depth conversation, I feel that it is a very good way of gaining some primary research outside of the original formats such as: questionnaires or surveys and that is proven in my audio files of this conversation, which I have uploaded to my Soundcloud profile. (https://soundcloud.com/paige-cookson-957306124/one-direction-indepth-conversation-full-audio-mp3 - Accessed: 11th September 2015 – Authored by: Paige Cookson)

Secondary

On to my secondary research, I am going to be focusing around what the public think of One Direction, as a whole, not just their music, but do people believe that they are down to earth people? Or whether they believe that their music/voices

have been auto-tuned or changed slightly in the past and possibly also what the public feel that got One Direction where they are now.

For the start of my secondary research, I have decided to research both negative and positive comments posted by people from the entire worldwide web. When I was searching Google, I came across an article with the entitlement ‘Top Ten Worst Things About One Direction’ and the things I came across, whilst scrolling through it, were quite eye-opening, as a fan, to see what people think of such a popular, successful, group. The two that stood of to me, were actually listed at the top, one being ‘Directioners’ which is the social media name for the fans of the band and at number two, was the fact that they’re apparently ‘only famous for their looks’. Now, the first point about the fans can

actually be both negative and positively thought because, as this article has expressed, not all of the fans are the same, there are some cruel, crazed fans who, when they hear someone say something against the boys, instantly respond with a harsh response, this is proven in the article which stated “I even got told to 'go get cancer' when I told a fan that I didn't like them” which is something that nobody should ever say to another human being. But, the author of this article did also express that not all of 1D’s fans are like this and I will be going into more detail about this further on. Number two of the worst top tens states that the boys are ‘Only famous for their looks’ something which I do not personally believe but there are many others who think this and I feel that when the boys first went over to America, to grow people knowledge of them, is something

which set this rumour off, as you always hear Americans saying how much they look British boys and British boy bands and how boys from England are more attractive and being someone who is from England, this isn’t true, in my eyes, but this could be debated by people from all over the world and we all have different opinions on one another and our lifestyles or even something as small and simple as our accents. Back to this theory, it says in this article, and quote, “I have 3 or 4 friends who are Directioners, but I have one that only talks about One Direction and their looks.” And even this small comments does put into perspective that yes, there

are people who just like the boys for their looks, because they all happen to be good looking but, as the article has repeatedly stated also, liking a band or an artist isn’t about their looks, it should be about their music, whether you like the music they produce and I feel that the entirety of the fandom, not just those who don’t like the band, is quite torn between those who enjoy their music, and those who simple go to their concerts to see them. (http://www.thetoptens.com/worst-things-about-one-direction/ - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: The Top Tens)

Onto the positive points about the band, the first one that comes to mind is how they have been compared to another popular boy band, The Beatles. Although, a lot of people take this as a compliment for the band, myself included, there are others, who believe it to be offensive to The Beatles and according to some, because One Direction walked across Abbey Road, many people went in an uproar saying they are trying to steal The Beatles signature motive, although, these comments were let down by other people who back One Direction, stating that walking across the road cannot be taken as a bad thing or a sign of stealing. Over to another article, which is called ‘200 facts about One Direction’ and the fact that One Direction is considered ‘the next Beatles’ is taken as a compliment by those who created it. (http://suprtickets.com/blog/200-huge-facts-everyones-favourite-boyband-one-direction-onepopzfacts/ - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: Supertickets)Going down a more personal route, there is a specific celebrity who gave praise to One Direction, this celebrity was legendary PINK FLOYD drummer, Nick Mason, who clearly appears to be a fan of the group and that he ‘backs’ them. (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizonsunday/6031852/One-Direction-receive-praise-from-Pink-Floyd-drummer-Nick-Mason.html - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: The Sun)

To wrap up my overall question on why the band is so big, I have managed to find a perfect article on the BBC website that has all the information I need for the section. To put the article more briefly, these are the pointers that have been expressed in the article:

Money matters – money which the boys have gained from their main album UK sales and their headline tour for their debut album Up All Night, which was also in the UK and Ireland.

Superstar support – The obvious candidate to thank for this is the bands X Factor mentor and manager, Simon Cowell, who offered them a record deal before the X Factor even finished.

One ‘Directioners’ – The UK fans especially helped with the bands rise to fame, as they stormed to the social media site Twitter, to express their/our thoughts on the band, getting more and more people worldwide curious as to what the fuss was all about.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/26274162 - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: BBC)

I have also decided to look at their viewing figures, for their documentary ‘This Is Us’ which was released in 2013. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the viewing figures for this movie, so I have changed to the box office numbers and how much the movie brought in for them. Looking at the figures

shown in the image above, most of the money came in from the ‘international box office’, which means the cinematic performance worldwide. Now, referring to the DVD performance, most of the money came from the original DVD release and almost half of that was gained from the Blu-ray edition but as most people currently still use normal DVD’s then it was obvious that their money was going to grow in that department. Something else that also interested me about this site, is that it included the overall budget that the movie was given during pre-production, and it turns out, that the band was given a $10 million budget to film their documentary, which, to me, is quite extortionate as there are some films out there that have done similar things with a lot less money. Although, I can see why this film in-particular was given so much to work with, they are labelled as the biggest boy band on the planet, and have fans worldwide, so they obvious have to make their documentary as fun and detailed as possible, for example, there is quite a bit of animation and graphics shown in the live performances of the film. That fact that the film was also made, and released in cinemas, as a 3D based movie. (http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/One-Direction-This-is-Us#tab=summary - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: The Numbers)

Task 1D) Conclusion

To conclude, after undertaking two different primary and one secondary research techniques, I feel that the questionnaire side of my primary research is most effective because of the range of answers I received from a variety of people, from just asking one question and I believe that it's good to see what different people think about certain topics of discussion. Also, with the help of the answers I received, I was able to put more detail into my overall conclusion of that primary research area and this also allowed me to compare the results formulated from the questionnaire and those I found via the internet and news articles. Overall, it is just a really good way of finding out what and how the public feel about my chosen topic. Although, I feel that the problems with this method of research are that the answers that I receive can sometimes be quite

blunt and aren’t always well explained, meaning that we have to try and break it down more, which isn’t actually always a bad thing.

Although the primary research questionnaire is good for discovering people thoughts on certain topics, secondary based research from, for example, the internet and books, is also a really good way of finding out information and data. And from looking over the data that I received through this type of research, I feel that, compared to the questionnaire, it is more in-depth and is more open to finding a range of different articles and opinions , which is obvious as it is the internet and nearly everything on anything can be found on-line now, especially by using search engines such as Google or Yahoo. To add on, I think that it also helps that the specific topic that I have been researching is known about worldwide, therefore meaning that there is going to be a lot of information and data open to people reading and adding their own personal knowledge of different topics to the websites and articles, this could apply specifically to websites such as Wiki. Although, the problem with this method is that it is quite impersonal and direct, the information and opinions found online, you can’t see who has said certain things and isn’t always explained in enough detail for a person to actually dig into and analyse, as such.

To conclude my research for the in-depth conversation, completed as my second type of primary research, I personally feel that, although it was really good to have an interview styled conversation with someone, who knows a lot about my chosen topic and to receive their points and opinions on that topic, it was quite hard for me to brake down and explain in more detail, earlier on in my work. To back my point up, everything that had to be said was said during my audio files (which can be found in the link in the bibliography) and the questions and answers were both broken down and described in as much detail during the interview, so therefore, I believe that this specific type of primary research isn't as easy to analyse in written form because of this. Compared to the questionnaire style of primary research which can be broken down and explained and analysed to an extent, which can also be said for the secondary research, both of these can be analysed by discovering different peoples viewpoints, writing them down, and then stating whether or not you believe what they're saying or whether you have a completely different opinion. So, overall, for this, I would say that it is a very good way to gain more primary research in a different form but, for this kind of unit where explaining the research in writing form, is slightly more challenging.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Qualitative and Quantitative Research (http://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-qualitative-research-and-quantitative-research/ - Accessed: 2nd September 2015 – Authored by: SnapSurveys)

Qualitative and Quantitative Audience Research (http://www.watchingdance.org/research/audience_research/ - Accessed: 2nd September 2015 – Authored by: The Watching Dance Project)

Audience Classification (https://prezi.com/h3ydbskkvyew/audience-classification/ - Accessed: 2nd September 2015 – Authored by: Catherine Wilson)

Top ten worst things about One Direction (http://www.thetoptens.com/worst-things-about-one-direction/ - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: The Top Tens)

200 facts about One Direction (http://suprtickets.com/blog/200-huge-facts-everyones-favourite-boyband-one-direction-onepopzfacts/ - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: Supertickets)

Pink Floyd drummer gives 1D praise article (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizonsunday/6031852/One-Direction-receive-praise-from-Pink-Floyd-drummer-Nick-Mason.html - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: The Sun)

Why is one Direction so big? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/26274162 - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: BBC)

‘This Is Us’ movie numbers, earnings and budget (http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/One-Direction-This-is-Us#tab=summary - Accessed: 3rd September 2015 – Authored by: The Numbers)

One Direction In-Depth conversation (https://soundcloud.com/paige-cookson-957306124/one-direction-indepth-conversation-full-audio-mp3 - Accessed: 11th September 2015 – Authored by: Paige Cookson)

Emma Walters’ social network data table images (http://ewalters.tumblr.com/post/128699979224/for-your-reference-e - Accessed: 9th September 2015 – Authored by: Emma Walters)