medium

What is Media Research?

I must admit, when I initially saw that my compulsory BCMS subject for this semester was entitled ‘Research Practices in Media and Communications’, I wasn’t exactly thrilled.

I think the word ‘research’ tends to have connotations. For me, it sounded a little like sifting through thousands of spreadsheets or starring down microscopes.

But on closer reflection, I realised that the idea of media research is actually quite interesting.

As Berger (2014) points out, research is actually something we do every day. Whether it’s figuring out which is the best laptop to buy, searching the net for the cheapest price of Sherlock – Series 3, looking up what subjects to do each semester, scouring the UOW website for possible scholarships and grants, or even looking up a film or novel on Wikipedia, research actually takes up a big part of my life – and that’s not including all my university study!

And research doesn’t have to be boring – as shown by the clip from Heston’s Chocolate Factory Feast, in which presenter and chef Heston Blumenthal researched how best to reinvent duck a l’orange for the present day with a chocolate twist. The program was made for its entertainment value – and yet it was still research.

But scholarly research is different from the research we do every day. Berger states that “Scholarly research is, generally speaking, more systematic, more objective, more careful and more concerned about correctness and truthfulness than everyday research.”

He then goes on to speak about the differences between Quantitative (numbers / statistics-based) and Qualitative (more descriptive and anecdotal) research, and how there is a place for each.

And so I’ve actually become rather excited about the idea of media research. There’s so much going on with media in the world – what media is produced and who produces it, how it is consumed, who consumes it, who responds to it, how they respond to it, what mediums are being used and how technology is altering that.

One area I would be interested in looking further into is how many university students read the newspaper today, or get their news from other (online, television, etc.) sources.

This idea arouse from a conversation with my boss at the PR company I work for part-time. He was kind of shocked when I told him that, despite the fact that I am a Communication & Media Studies student, majoring in Journalism, I don’t actually read a physical newspaper all that often.

So I would like to find out if university students, specifically those studying media, read newspapers much. I think if any under 25s today are reading newspapers, it’s probably likely to be this group, but I doubt every student buys and reads a physical newspaper every day.

The results of such research would perhaps even throw light on the survival of newspapers in the future, an issue hotly contested and discussed today.

So, that’s one of the many areas of media studies that I would like to research!

 

References:

Berger, Arthur A. 2014, ‘What is research?’, in Media and communication research methods : an introduction to qualitative and quantitative approaches, 3rd ed., SAGE, Los Angeles, pp. 13-32