Research Methods

There are 4 different types of research methods in media:
 Primary, Secondary, Qualitative and Quantitative.

PRIMARY RESEARCH:
Is information that you have started and gathered myself through questionnaires, surveys, focus groups, feedback and interviews. 
ADVANTAGES:
- you know that your information is correct and up to date
- you can find new information that nobody else knows.
- you can choose exactly what you want to research.

DISADVANTAGE:

- your information that you collected could be incorrect and unreliable.
EXAMPLES: 
- interviews, brainstorming, individual websites, questionnaires/surveys, focus groups, phone calls and emails.

SECONDARY RESEARCH: 

It is where you have collected existing information that has already been produced. You can research through newspapers, magazines, internet and company reports.

ADVANTAGES:

- you will get a very large amount of information.

- there is a large variaties of different sources for you to search from.

DISADVANTAGES:

- some of the information that you obtain maybe outdated or the information may be incorrect.

- if the information that you find in both sources are both different then you know that some information is unreliable.
EXAMPLES:

- magazines, TV, radio, apps, books, lectures, textual analysis, industry websites and newspapers.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH:

It originated from social and behavioural sciences, it explores issues and answers and analyses all of them and is an unstructured research. This type of research happens in nearly every workplace nearly everyday. Usually survey a small number so they get the answers they want and makes it more precise.

QUANTITIVE RESEARCH:

- It is used to develop mathematics models and theories. It's about asking questions and is more structured so it produces exact facts at the end of the surveys, questionnaires and interviews. In this research method to get a more reliable result they survey people in large numbers. 

However I am not going to use Quantitive or Qualitative research as I think primary and secondary research would be the best types for information about short films. I am going to give some advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research that I may use to make my short film.
INTERNET: (secondary research)
Advantages- easy to access, there is a lot of choice in information and easy on the go.
Disadvantages- can't use without wifi, not always reliable and too much information to choose from.
SURVEYS/QUESTIONNAIRES: (primary research)
Advantages- find out peoples opinions, free research and can choose the questions.
Disadvantages- unreliable as its an opinion, include closed questions e.g. yes or no.
MAGAZINES: (secondary research)
Advantages- easy to get hold of, have a lot of different types of magazines, you can reuse them and locally found.
Disadvantages- hard to read and can be false.
FOCUS GROUPS: (primary research)
Advantages- specific target audience, ask questions which you have planned and ones on the spot and can get detailed answers.
Disadvantages- people can agree with each other and wouldn't get a range of opinions ad answers.

Overall, I am drawn to using primary and secondary research is it is the easier way to get suitable research for my short film. I will try use more of my own primary research but back it up with secondary research but I will look in to everything I get online as I want to make sure its accurate and reliable.