Primary and Secondary Research

 LO5 - Evaluate research data used by media institutions.

Primary Research - research collected by the media researcher for the sole purpose of the media product. eg. survey, interview, questionnaire, focus groups

Secondary Research - collecting summaries based on other research eg. articles, online research, reports, published data

Research is conducted by media producers to answer questions about the audience profile in order to target the media product more closely. This helps the media product to become as successful as possible. Allows you to know your audience better.

Primary Research

Pros - specific groups, up to date, specified data,

Cons - expensive, time-consuming

Secondary Research

Pros - cheap, quicker, 

Cons - may not be as specialised

Qualitative data is written detailed data useful for gaining as much detail as possible. Quantitative data is numerical statistics useful for comparison and graphs.