Critical approaches task

Hollyoaks and Coronation Street

In terms of the age of characters Hollyoaks has a lot more younger actors because they try to have only 16-35 year old's on the programme, whereas coronation street has a mixture but it tends to have older people in it.
The settings for the two are similar because they each have their own home's and live in a village but coronation street has major known pub's in the programme Hollyoaks changes location most of the time.
They both use casual clothes and normal make up.
It depends on the scenes on how the characters moods are and the atmosphere but when they have bad thing's going on in the programme it tends to be a dark setting and people are unhappy.
They both have close up shots.

I think Hollyoaks is more for a younger audience whereas coronation street is enjoyed by a wider target audience.
The storylines frequently change in Hollyoaks whereas In coronation street they are kept  the same and changed only between different characters.

Video installation theory

For this assignment I will be writing information on video artists, so that students who want to find out more about video art installations will be able to find out by watching some of the work of the artists chosen.

What is Projection mapping?
Projection mapping is a technology used to turn objects, often differently shaped into a display surface for video projection, these projections can take place often on large buildings, in a nightclub and many more places.

 URBAN PROJECTIONS

Who are they?



 Urban projections are artists in residence at The Old Library Venue and Media Centre, Mansfield. managed by Artist and Facilitator Rebecca Smith, who is a professional audio-visual performer. Urban projections provide many performance opportunities, creative projects and workshops to organisations, companies and brands throughout the UK. Rebecca run's the projects and makes sure everything goes according to plan. They have the experience and resources to do whatever it takes to make a projection happen anywhere. They work with directors, produces, artists, DJ's and take part in projecting at clubs, festivals and creative agencies to make sure a new audience is excited by what they are seeing.

What they do

Urban projections intentions are to use new media and share positive and unexpected experiences with their audiences, being a large company they run all sort's of projections and are always creating new idea's they specialise in;
Digital production
Live visuals
Projection mapping
Street projections
VJing
Digital graffiti
Creative projects


Digital production- They design animation, film,sound design, graphic design and moving image and combine them all together to create new media. They use different media to interest their audiences such as installation, print, motion graphics, participatory projects, research and development, life performance, interactivity, broadcast and also video production.

Live visuals- They specialise in live performance visuals for many different categories such as boutique event production, dance performance, outdoor projection, festivals, interactive media projects, theatre and set design, art installations, stage performance and also nightclubs. They have experience in performing in venues of all shapes, sizes and capacity.

Projection mapping- They have a lot of experience within projection mapping they use it on objects, buildings, stage design, people, architectural features and many other thing's. It's a new projection and they like to create new exciting projections.

Street projections- They believe this projections is the most effective and exciting for reaching audiences and catching them by surprise.

VJing- They have over 10 years experience of VJing for DJ's, bands and club-nights across the UK and have VJ'd for many big dance acts such as Sub Focus, DJ Fresh and Hudson Mohawke. They have different set up's for different events whether its a single or multi-screen set-up, an ultra-wide screen backdrop, a stack of old TV's projection mapped structure or a solid brick wall.

Digital graffiti- They work with an artist named Pete Barber to create digital artworks which come to life through instant animation. They use this for marketing, product launches, installations, graffiti jams, PR events and many other events.

Creative projects- They collaborate workshop opportunities, in partnership with funding bodies, organisations, local authorities and charities.

The work they have produced

Pinterest- https://www.pinterest.com/urbanprojection/

Tumblr- 
http://www.urbanprojections.tumblr.com/

Vimeo- http://vimeo.com/urbanprojections

Facebook-

https://www.facebook.com/urban.projections

Twitter- https://twitter.com/urb_projections

Clients Urban projections have worked with

-BBC

-Vodafone

-Vauxhall

-The Saatchi Gallery

-Dr Merten

-Game City

-Subism

-Burn

-Mencap

-The Princes Trust

-The Royal Festival Hall

Projections for large companies and what type of equipment was used?

VAUXHALL ADAM PROJECTION MAPPING

Venue: Merchant Square

Client- Vauxhall

Location- Glasgow, UK

Urban projections have worked with many large companies this is a projection they created with a company called Lumen, this projection was for the realise of a new Vauxhall hatchback called Adam. It took place on the streets of Glasgow to raise awareness of the new car to the general public. 

They used light to project imagery of animal print and geometric shapes onto the body of the car. The car alarms and sound track were played through the Vauxhall Adam's Infinity sound system which produces 7-channel sound, powered by amplifier and a boot-mounted subwoofer.

This is a very inspirational projection and caught my eye when watching it because of the ability to be able to change almost every detail, it's a fun and exciting way to advertise products, and I believe this is a great way for people to look at products in the future, all big companies should use projection mapping because it is so effective. 

BURN YARD PROJECTION MURAL

Venue-Secret Warehouse Location

Client- Burn Coca-Cola and Team Lotus F1

Location-Budapest, Hungary

Working as a joint team Urban Projections and Pete Barber performed 'Stylus' at Burn Yard Live along with 13 curated street artists from across the globe. Their aims were to bring a new, creative energy to discarded, obsolete objects and make them beautiful again, they used graffiti, street art and murals and also digital projection. 

Some of the artists included in this performance were, Gerry Judah, Dilk, M-City, Avicii, 2 Shy and many more. 

THE LIGHT CYCLE STREET PROJECTIONS

Venue- Roaming the streets

Client- Oxfam

Location- Mansfield, UK

Urban projections did a projection named 'Light Cycle' which was a projection bomb in Mansfield Town Hall and streets with Guerrila projection in aid of Oxfam's annual music festival, Oxjam.

They used animated digital graffiti on the buildings and street which were created live at the festival.

The equipment used: The light cycle is a fully mobile street art device, housing a high power digital projector, ipad, macbook pro, sound system and battery pack. It is used as an innovative method of taking digital art into public spaces, and as a means of transforming disused area's. 

This website has more information about the light cycle. 

http://www.thelightcycle.com/

SHOREDITCH TO SAATCHI

Client- Subism and Liquitex

Venue-Saatchi Gallery and The Bookcub 

Location- London, UK

Urban projections and Pete Barber showcased 'Stylus' projection mural, at Shoreditch To Saatchi.

This event was to show graffiti artists talent also illustrators and designers for an evening of live art at the book club, Shoreditch, London. 

Artists that were included at the event were, Inkie, Dilk, Phlith and many more. 

Recently Urban Projections have been working on a project called BEAM as part of an anti-bullying week, they have been working with a LGBT groups of Nottinghamshire on the project. Also they have been working with companies to create a mapped installation environment for the lauch of the Jimmy Choo's Vices collection at One Mayfair. 

Why do they interest me?

Urban Projections caught my eye because of the amount of projecting they are involved in and the wide range of festivals and events they take part in. They inspired me to do an animated projection map because of the fact it's very effective and stands out when projected onto a building or just in the middle of the street. They deal with a range of clients that I am very familiar with for instance when they are working for DJ's such as Avicci they use a technique called VJing which looks very interesting and is very big for DJ's at the minute because the crowds really enjoy it. I also like the fact they are very flexible they have different people working for different projections and always have a brilliant, exciting outcome. When watching video's that Urban Projections have done they really stand out because they cater for all types of projecting, graffiti and much more. The equipment they use I am unfamiliar with because we only had the equipment for a small projection in the college studio, so I have learnt what equipment is needed for major festivals and events involving projections.

NOBUMICH ASAI

WHO IS HE?

Nobumich Asai is a producer/technical director. He graduated from Tohoku University and is currently working on music video's, CM and projection mapping as a producer and technical director he is noted for mixing science background and artistic skills to create original and innovative work. He has also recently been creating SEIKET 3D projection mapping in Japan, he is also skilled in using tools such as open frameworks and Max. 

What does he do?

Nobumichi Asai creates real-time face tracking and projection mapping. He is a recipient of Japan Media Arts Festival Award for DOCKYARD 3D Projection Mapping. He is a very creative artist that's work would be good for marketing.

The work he has produced

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/asai.nobumichi

Tumblr - http://nobumichiasai.tumblr.com/1

Twitter-  https://twitter.com/nobumichi_asaibumichi_asai

This is the major projection that Nobumichi has released. It is called project omoto an is a collaboration between Nobumichi and make up artist Hiroto Kuwahara and french digital image engineer Paul Lacroix.

Face- mapping technology already exists, it is often used in marketing initiatives, but his inentions was to focus on the expression of (beauty) and (make-up art) instead of technological gimmicks and impacts. The intention was to express japenese beauty to the world.

Nobody had done real-time tracking before and Nobumichi himself found it differcult because they had to start from scratch and the process was very complicated, capturing with sensors, processing the data, creating CG renderings, and using projectors. They also found that the timing was differcult.

These video's show more of the work he takes part in and what kind of projections he get's up to.

Equipment used for this project

They used OptiTrack sensors for speedy response, and developed orginal program C++, to reduce minimal delay they devised ways to intergrate the whole process into one program. Which created amazing effects.

Why his work interested me?

Being a very unique artist Nobumichi inspired me to design something that was to do with a face and to have projection onto someone's face but I later decided it would be to differcult and we didnt have to correct equipment to do so. I went with animation in the end which was easy to get idea's from Urban Projections but I really enjoyed getting idea's and researching about Nobumichi, he is a very clever projection mapper and face tracker artist and his work is very good for thing's such as marketing which does fit in the fact I did a Coca Cola Vs Pepsi animation, so I did get good advice from reading his blog it has taught me a lot about Japanese video mappers.

Compared between each other

-When looking at both Urban Projections and Nobumichi Asai, for a start one is a company and the other is just one artist, so Nobumichi working on his own can create something and get other people to help him with the projection but Urban Projections already have the team they need there.They use different equipment because Nobumichi is based on doing face tracking and Urban Projections is based on all sorts of different large projections the equipment is above that they have used. They both use very exciting projections that interest certain types of people. The audience is different for both, Urban Projections attract a much more younger audience because of the fact they cater for DJ's and Nobumichi caters for Japanese art and wanting to make the world notice the beautiful art of make up. They both produce a range of interesting art throughout all events they have created but I prefer Urban Projections just because I enjoy the Graffiti art and animation side of the projections. Norbumichi is a very clever man and his work does also stand out but I only liked the face tracking projection he did I preferred Urban Projections work overall.

codes and conventions

When creating a media product you need to consider two factors;
Selection       Construction

Selection- For example if you are trying to attract people to read a sports magazine their will be images of football players or footballers in action and they would use exciting words for good players and be very dull in the words they use if a football player isn't doing well.
-If you are trying to promote a romantic film the specific audience would be female mostly, by using romantic language and lots of footage of a couple being together although if it was a romantic comedy I think more men would be interested.

Construction- For example the content in a film will be the setting,themes,characters,props,narrative and plot and the style this narrows down audiences depending on the type of genre it is. In a crime film it is often set in a big location were things can go wrong such as an American City because they normally ave secret bases or HQ, people also tend to only watch genre's they like so it is important in how the film is constructed.

Producers follow certain codes and conventions because when having a certain theme tune it gets people familiar with a show for example coronation street and east enders theme tunes are always stuck in people's memory's every time the show comes on and they tend to use slogans and have selective editing they follow these codes and conventions to make sure the audience are intrested in products they are making.

I enjoy watching I'ma Celebrity get me out of here because it is only on once a year and is similar to X-factor because they present the shows and people are illuminated out of the show by phone lines.

I enjoy playing Sims 4 which is similar to any lifestyle game because you can interactive with the game as if you are living in a virtual world.

Most magazines I read are similar because they all have stories about Celebrities and music.

Thinking about the genre of reality game shows..

-All the shows have phone lines to get people out of the show and the best one the public votes for wins
-They all have presenters introducing the shows
-They all have a theme to them
-They all have celebrity in them or people can become a celebrity
-They all attract a large amount of audiences's
-They all have theme tunes which people recognise
-Some have judges
-All interview people individually
-Filmed live sometimes

Codes and conventions of a film genre
-Romance

They often use a voice over to introduce the love theme
Main characters are introduced
Aimed at female audience
Normally will contain emotional feelings such as dad's died, mum left ect
'Boy meets girl' this is very typical in a romantic film and also most viewers watch these kinds of films to see a happy ending
A typical romance genre would include sexuality status, gender and relationships
Often the film directors use other genre elements and put it in
Usually involves weddings, hearts, flowers which all symbolise love
Usually the characters go their separate ways because of a disagreement or argument but reunite afterwards.
Traditional happy ever after
Normally the story gets linked to audience's emotions
Heroes tend to be men


-Romantic films are normally aimed at female audience because it's known those females are more emotional in a relation than men.

-For example in a film called Dear John it is a very emotional romantic drama about a soldier who falls for a conservative college student while he's home on leave and the codes and conventions above happen in this film.

video installment

The making of my video installment..


I first created idea's for my video installment and I chose to do the Pepsi and Coca Cola animated projection, So in order to do this I started by taking a Coca Cola can and Pepsi can and animating them so the colours of the brand would come out of the cans using clay. I recorded this on a I stop motion camera and then I edited the animation onto premier pro.

After I recorded this they were ready to become separate loops one Pepsi and one Coca Cola.

The next step I took was to get two clips from beeple.com that would encode with the other two loops and play together. 

I then made my last loop that would play hopefully at the end which was the Coca Cola and Pepsi logo. I also used an I stop motion camera to make this animation then edited it in Premier pro.

Once all the animation was created I went on to premier pro and linked the clips together so the Coca Cola can would play then the beeple video and then the end Coca Cola and Pepsi logo then the other clip would be Pepsi then a clip from beeple they would be projected onto two sides of a box and will have audio playing at the same time they are projected.

The next step I took was to add the audio to the clips and then I exported them as MP4 files and then they were ready to be projected onto the box.

When trying this projection the first time it did go wrong because the loops were all separate and the audio would not play at the same time so I re edited the loops and put them all together to create just two loops so they could project at the same time and run all the way through with the audio. I tried again after doing this and it did work but some of the loops were just a little longer than the others to watch the outcome go to... 

A problem occurred when I went to upload the set up pictures and Video from my phone the files corrupted and were deleted which I was really disappointed at because the full installation was a lot better than the 6 second one I managed to re cover it but these things happen and I need to make sure next time when doing a projection that the file directly goes onto the computer without any thing going wrong.

To watch the projection go to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6atKu6c_uM&list=UUUiWYGoIjnp8iUskzGtYQSA 

Critical Approaches Assignment 1

Why is audience research important to media producers?

Audience research within the media industry is very important to study the characteristics of target audience for various types of media. An audience is an individual or collective group of people who read or consume any media text for example radio listeners, television viewers, newspaper and magazine readers, web traffic or websites. The audience's for the media industry are important because without anyone being interested in watching, listening or reading the media there would be no media at all. Media organizations produce media texts to make profit if there is no audience there will be no profit. The mass media is becoming more competitive than ever to attract more and more audiences in different ways and stay profitable because now in the media there are many new technologies so (TV, Print and Radio) which used to have high audience numbers must now work harder to maintain audience numbers. It is hard to please an audience within the media industry because of digital technology for example newspapers and magazines can now be viewed on-line and is sometimes free, so media producers need to find out what audience's out there are wanting and how they can be attracted by media products.

How are audiences profiled?


Media producers use audience profiling to narrow down their customers or audience to find the target audience. When a media business is creating a new project it is always best to ensure the audience profiling is done before anything else to make sure the product is released to the correct target audience. A target audience is an audience that is most connected and relevant to the media product that the business is trying to sell.

When defining a audience media companies will tend to use these categories;

-socio- economic status
-psycho-graphics
-demographics
-age
-gender
-sexual orientation
-regional identity
-niche
-religious views
-occupation

Socio - economic status research

Socio - economic status research is a method used to find the correct economic class audience for their target audience, it is based of occupation, income and education, for example you have traditionally three classes which are upper class, middle class and working class. Upper class composing of people who are wealthy, well born or both. Middle class consists of people who fall between upper and working class. Working class are people with low paying jobs. The purpose of this research is to find out who they should focus on to put the product across to, for example a building company selling expensive houses would immediately focus its target audience at the upper class individuals. However a media producer is simply trying to find a target audience to advertise to and persuade them to listen, watch or read their media product. The national Readership Survey (NRS) use six categories to define readers of magazines and newspapers within the UK. Capital FM's target audience is young adults so they tend to only play new music out and talk about the latest artists and competitions for example they give away winter time ball tickets away.

Psycho-graphics

Psycho-graphics are very similar to demographics but they deal more with the audience's behavior and personality rather than the work they do. It divides the market into groups based on social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics. It is based on the assumption that the types of products and brands an individual purchases will reflect that persons characteristics and patterns of living. These are the categories they are divided into; Main-streamers, aspirer's, succeeder's, resigned, explorers, struggle's, reformer's. Main-streamers tend to be the largest group which are people who seek security, tend to be domestic, conformist, conventional, sentimental - favor value for money family brands. Aspirer's seek status, Succeeder's seek control, Resigned seek survival, Explorers seek discovery, Struggler's seek escape, Reformer's seek enlightenment. Media producers often use Psycho-graphic graphs to help profile their audience because just like demographic charts, they are much more detailed and offer a larger variety of audience to choose from, for example say a media producer is wanting to create a documentary and the target audience they have set is 16-18 year old going on holiday with their friends without their parents, the producer would choose the reformers group because that contains people who want freedom of restrictions (independence), the producer could also choose the struggler's group because that contains people who are seeking escape. The primary method of information gathering for psycho-graphics is through the use of questionnaires. The idea behind psycho-graphics is that if you understand what type of person is buying your product you can better suit your product to them. Grey Advertising company were the people to develop psycho-graphics.

Mainstream

Mainstream is the word used to describe the majority, things like chart music and blockbuster films are mainstream, products that are aimed at the mainstream are targeting a very large audience, it is something that the majority of people will be aware of, an example of a magazine aimed at the mainstream market would be Top Of The Pops.

Demographics

Demographic information is used in media marketing to classify an audience into age, gender, race and many other categories, demographics are broken into bands depending on people's jobs or status as you can tell from this table below;

For example when demographics are used in the media industry say for a romantic movie it could be aimed at any of the letter codes, this is because it has such a wide audience however some romantic films do not appeal to all audiences such as a heart-warming romance may not appeal to C2 code as they are mainly men so it might not appeal to them or it could. In media, demographics are used to pinpoint potential audience growth and to spot under-performance. Better homes and gardens and Women's day are magazines that reach the female demographic, beyond that there are different types of women. Media companies constantly change their products and the way they advertise them to hit a certain demographic group. If the demographic group they are trying to reach is female magazines and the trend changes the publisher may decide the audience is becoming too old to attract the top advertisers so they will focus on putting younger people on the cover of the magazine and write articles for younger female customers to change the magazine's demographic make-up. In the publishing industry, general interest publications that are designed to appeal to people of all ages and both genders sometimes struggle by trying to attract such a broad audience for example Life and Look magazines struggle with this.

Geo-demographics

Geo-demographics is all about location, the idea behind it is that people living in the same neighborhoods have similar lifestyles and spending tendencies, this allows advertisers to make sure they are targeting the right kind of people, it can highlight important information such as how much money the people in that area are likely to have, it can also show you what kind of people are living in that particular area, this kind of research is most useful to direct mail advertisers.

Age and Gender

Age and Gender play a major part in audience research, a lot of the time people of similar ages have similar interests and disinterests, media producers need to have a target audience and a gender decided first before they can put their product across, they need to know the target audience so they can find out more research into that type of age range. For example if a media company was launching a new TV series on BBC 3 which is going to be a comedy the target audience would be around a young audience that is interested in comedy. The gender is important also for example if a new sports show was launching on the TV the gender would usually be male but many women watch sport as well so getting the age and gender correct when making new media products is very hard and important to ensure the product is making the right profit it should be.

Sexual Orientation and Regional identity

Often on questionnaires for audience research within the media you are asked your sexual orientation and given to chose from Asexual, Bisexual, Heterosexual and Homosexual this is to once again narrow down audience's and to find out about different people's interests and what they want to read, watch or hear it is all about finding audience's personality's which is what psycho-graphics are used for and also this is the same for regional audiences, some people find they like to watch or listen to cultural program's or radio stations for example the radio station Asian Network caters for British Asians that don't always like listening to stations such as Capital FM or TFM also there are many documentary's and channels that cater for different regional identity that talk about different cultures. Religious views are asked for the same reason because the media have to be careful about offending people whether it involves sexual orientation, regional identity and also religious views. Some program's or magazines or radio stations are actually based around religion as well such as Christian Radio and Asian Network and many documentaries are about religion so when asking for audience's religion helps profile what type of program's and radio stations and also magazines are needed to fit every target audience out there.

Niche Audience

Niche audience is the opposite of mainstream it is a much smaller audience but very influential, a niche audience is a small, select group of people with a very unique interest. A media producer may target a niche market in the hope of being able to dominate the market and capturing a large portion of it. For example people that read certain magazines as below;
 


Occupation 

Occupation is also used to find out what interests people have as you can tell a lot by a person's job for example if you are working as a nurse sometimes people enjoy watching programmes such as Holby city, casualty and documentaries about hospitals whereas someone with the job as a fitness instructor may enjoy fitness programmes on healthy eating and exercise and sports magazines and programmes.





How do media producers carry out research into their audience's?


Media producers carry out research into their audiences in many different ways to try and get the best research they can to analyse so they can make sure their media product will be viewed by the correct audience below are examples of how media producers carry out research;

-Primary Research
-Secondary Research
-Quantitative Research
-Qualitative Research

Primary Research

Primary research is an original research method used to research information for a specific purpose in order to obtain original data using methods such as interviews, focus groups, observation and questionnaires. The advantages of primary research is that you can address the target issues, date interpretation is better, the date will be recent you won't be finding any irrelevant research and also proprietary issues. The disadvantages of this method is that it is a high cost collecting data, it is very time consuming, inaccurate feed-backs and also more number of resources are usually required for this method of research.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is pre-existing data and information that has already been gathered by other people or organisations this research is often found in books, magazines and on the internet. BARB is also used for secondary research this is a website that measures all TV and showing ratings, this is useful for media companies to find out the ratings of there products. When using secondary research you have to be careful as some of the information may be incorrect or may not have been updated recently.The advantages of secondary research are that you have a wide variety of sources for you to search for also if you found some 2 pieces of information that are different you will be able to tell that one of them is unreliable and incorrect, the disadvantages of this research is that it could be obviously incorrect or not updated but you can tell if the sources say different things.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is a type of research that is based on measurable facts and information, producing numerical and statistical data. In the UK there are 2 major companies carrying out quantitative research relating to the print industry firstly the NRS and secondly the ABC, quantitative research is useful because it allows companies to see how many people are consuming their product. The advantages of quantitative research is that it allows the researcher to measure and analyse data and that the relationship between an independent and dependent variable is studied in detail, this is advantageous because the research is more objective about the findings of the research. The disadvantages of quantitative research that a large sample of the population must be studied the larger the sample of people researched the more statistically accurate the results will be and it can also be very time consuming.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a type of research that is based on opinions, attitudes and preferences rather than hard facts. The aim of qualitative research is to get a better understanding of your audience. There are many methods of qualitative research such as focus groups, face to face interviews and also questionnaires which I will explain more about below. The advantages of qualitative research is that it provides depth and detail, creates openness, simulates people's individual experiences and also it attempts to avoid pre-judgements. The disadvantages are that usually it is very time consuming, less easy to generalise, difficult to make comparisons and also it is very dependant on skills of the researcher.

Audit Bureau Of Circulation (ABC)

The Audit Bureau Of Circulation(ABC) provide circulation information to the newspaper and magazine industry. They carry out quantitative research by using methods such as surveys and questionnaires. The ABC was launched in 1931 in response to demands from the advertising industry for independent verification of the circulation and readership claims made by the sales teams of newspapers and magazines. The ABC are a joint industry with JIC, WEBS IPA, The voice of the Bristish advertisers and they are a membership body any funds generated are invested back into the business, enabling them to innovate and deliver new improved services for there members.

 Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB)

Barb carries out quantitative research, it is also used by many media companies including the BBC and independent broadcasters to commisssion research to find out which programmes and channels are being watched at a specific time, and also a breakdown of the type of people who are watching a particular programme. BARB provides television audience data for all analogue and digital channels received within the UK.The information is obtained from panels of viewers from selected television-owning households, representative of each ITV and BBC region. They tend to use surveys and questionnaires to find out what they need to from the public. The data produced by the research represents the viewing behaviour of over 26 million households within the UK. Barb is jointly owned by the BBC the TP companies, Channel 4, Channel 5, B SKY B and the institute of practitioners and advertising, barb is an industry funded body established in 1981 to give broadcasters and advertisers viewing data at national and regional levels.
















The National Readership Survey (NRS)

The NRS is a non-profit making organisation that provides information to the industry on who reads what publication. They provide a market breakdown of the readership of each newspaper and magazine according to age,gender,social class and many other demographic and lifestyle characteristics. This information is invaluable to companies and agencies that are planning, selling and buying advertising in the print medium, as the data allows them to target the right audience more effectively. The NRS publishes data covering over 250 newspapers, newspaper supplements and consumer magazines, which is made available to its subscribers via its website.









Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR)

RAJAR stands for Radio Joint Audience Rsearch and the purpose is to be in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK, they tend to use quarterly listening, surveys, market trends, volume and mapping. RAJAR was established in 1992, they measure radio stations including all the BBC, UK-licensed and other commercial stations. The RAJAR company is owned by the Commercial Radio Companies Associations (CRCA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In addition to these organisations, there are a growing number of commerical agencies that offer research and analysis services to media producers, advertisers and regulators. RAJAR carries out quantitative research because there is a wide range of graphs and charts used. They are funded by an annual fee payable in part by the BBC and the balance from the commerical operators via subscription fees payable by the partcipating stations who subscribe to the service.



Focus Groups

Focus groups are a number of people selected who are seen to represent a certain target audience, they are used a lot in marketing and advertising agencies to test the response of the target audience that the product is being advertised to, to get the best possible feed back they can. Film studio's also use focus groups in preview screenings of major films that will be soon released. This is to ensure the reaction from the audience is positive, there are many times when film directors have listened to the audience's reactions in a focus group and because it hasn't got the right audience reaction the end of the film has been changed. When creating a focus group for people to come to you need to think about where you will hold it, what you are going to talk about to the audience, who you are going to invite and also what you will use to record the focus group.

Questionnaires 

Questionnaires are used for the public to fill in so media producers can get feedback on specific products, there are many different types of questionnaires and they can often be set out differently for example tick boxes or a box to write answers into. Media producers can use questionnaires on-line or can hand them out, some people tend to use Survey-monkey because it analyses the results of the questionnaires for you once a certain amount of people have answered the questionnaires. They are great for finding out what needs to be changed about the product and whether the media product is aimed at the right target audience for example if a director is wanting feedback on a film they will use questionnaires to see what should have been done differently for next time they produce a film.

Face To Face Interviews

Face to face interview also known as in-person interview, is probably the most popular and oldest form of survey data collection, it is the most frequently used quantitative research method, interviews can be conducted in respondent's home or workplace, in halls or even simply on the street. The advantages of face to face interviewing is that you can get the best out of someone from talking to them face to face people tend to get there opinions and idea's across more clearly and also they can use their free speech they don't need to agree with the interviewee, and the disadvantage is that it can be time consuming and hard to analyse all the different responses. For example film producers will interview their audiences to find out what they would like the film to include.


How are these findings used?

When media producers use all these research techniques they find a lot of information, they then analyse the information and figure out what they to change to suit the target audience for the media product. They then use the above techniques to compare their findings so that they can produce the best product they can so the audience will be completely satisfied.