Fourth Blog - Techniques in studying Media Institutions and Media Audiences

FOURTH BLOG ENTRY

THE RESEARCH TECHNIQUES ONE CAN EMPLOY WHEN STUDYING MEDIA INSTITUTIONS AND MEDIA AUDIENCES

 When studying media institutions and Media Audiences one needs to focus on object of analysis. There generally three research techniques that can be used to study Media Institutions and Media Audiences. These are the interview, Participant observation and Oral history

The interview

The interview as a research technique in media institutions and media audience research helps to find out about people's ideas, opinions and values. The interview can be used as a primary technique or as a secondary research technique. The disadvantage of using the interviews is that Interviews are laborious and can be a complete waste of time for the interviewee and interviewer.  Interviews should be used only for sourcing personal attitudes and opinions of Media audiences. Interviews can be conducted by face to face, telephone, or e-mail.  

An advantage of face-to-face interviews is that there is no major time delay between question and answer; the interviewer and interviewee can directly react interpersonally. An advantage of this immediate communication is that the answer of the interviewee is spontaneous.  Du one of the advantages of telephone interviewing is the extended access to interviewees, compared to Face-to-face interviews, geographically one can reach more interviewees with telephonic interview. With e-mail interviews you one can also reach more interviewees geographically.

Participant observation

One of the methods of understanding the Media usage by media audience and Media institutions is through observing participating by both Media audiences and Media Institutions. In participant observation, the researcher encroaches in the atmosphere. Participant observation is a technique which originates from anthropology and is used by scholars conducting fieldwork, usually living among the participants. Researchers have used the  participant observation technique in the past to observe the decision making process at work, the professional standards  of media workers, and how the ideology behind their work gets translated into media content. It has the advantage over interviews that you are observing as it happens, and not relying on your research participants’ narration of their behaviour

A major obstacle in commission this kind of research is access. Some media house might not allow a researcher to observe anything of any value to the research assignment. Participant observation requires a high level of cooperation on the part of both Media institutions and Media audiences; therefore it is highly important to receive the full cooperation from both when using this technique.

Oral history

Oral history involves interviewing people about their previous knowledge and experiences.  An oral history study of the Media Institutions will be useful if the researcher have access to people who have witnessed significant developments in the history of the media. Mark Williams, for example, interviewed Monty Margetts, a veteran presenter of an early television cooking show, using o the techniques oral history. The principal struggle of using this technique is in getting access to knowledgeable people in the industry to interview about the past. However researchers’ participants in oral history do not need to be well known people to assist with a trip down memory lane.

REFERENCES

Nordicom Review, Jubilee Issue 2007, pp. 149-167 Media Institutions as a Research Field

Nick Lacey. 2002 Media, Institutions and Audiences. Palgrave Macmillan

Mytton, G. 2007. Handbook on radio and television audience research. (Web edition). Paris: UNICEF and UNESCO.

Stokes, J. 2003. How to do media and cultural studies research. London: Sage