How and why does the media use research?

The media industry uses research to obtain information about their target audience. This can be used to determine the media products content. Media research costs a lot of money, but if the research is valuable, it will make more money back than it costs to conduct.

The reader profile is for the advertisers, to tell them about their readers. From the reader profile of magazine 'Uncut', we can see that the readership demographics is predominantly middle aged males, 77% working full time and 60% married or living with a partner.

Judging by the information on the reader profile, we can determine that the main classes who read the magazine would be C1 or C2.

Psychographics is how the media company thinks their consumers think. A great deal of research, such as interviews and focus groups have gone in to psychographics.

"We produce in a year what a big whisky maker will make in a day, so we don't have the resources to carry out large conventional research compaigns." Says Davies. "However, through social media we've managed to get some really good feedback. We've established people like our modern-looking bottles, which don't feature dragons or daffodils or anything too stereotypically Welsh. They also approve of our spelling of whisky, rather than whiskey. More importantly, we've researched drinking habits and are pleased to find people aren't just collecting our bottles, they are actually drinking them."
http:// www.nma.co.uk/features/social-media-research/3016672.article


Social media consists of things like facebook and other social networking sites. This allows users to share content amongst themselves. It is a good way for companies to conduct market research.