BaD Ideas: Do you have good ones?

On 02/19/2014 at 03:42 PM by Super Step

Linked to Article Series: Blog a Day (BaD) 2014

I have several ideas for my media research project, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and if there's something you've always wondered about media (any kind) that you think could be researched within a period of two months. I hate to say it, but even though this is a game website, it may be hard to study that for the same reasons the ESRB only plays part of a game when screening it: games are a bit time-intensive to study. by all means, still throw out ideas regarding games, but try and make them something you think I'd be able to complete research on in a couple months' time.

All you have to give me is something you've always wondered about a media-related topic and I'll figure out the rest from there if I think it's a workable research idea.

I have to propose next Thursday, so I'm grinding away on this.

Idea 1: I want to do a survey/focus group about how people feel about the lack of "localism" in modern radio. Would they prefer to get Ryan Seacrest every morning no matter where they are, or a more local DJ that knows the area they live in and can update them. Some stations have a mix, which I'll take into account in my questions.

Idea 2: People often complain that Japanese shows have too much expository dialogue. I wonder if (once I define expository dialogue for a research paper; you know what I'm talking about though, I think) a comparison of similar Japanese and American cartoons geared to teens+ would bear this out if I did a content/textual analysis

Idea 3: America loves violence, but not really nudity, but how much of each is in the hypersexual and hyperviolent Game of Thrones? Does even this series prefer blood over butts, given its being produced in America? Perhaps a content analysis would tell me.

Idea 4: This is an idea I've had for a long time, but have no idea how I could do it other than focus groups. If I show people a clip of a show that is "badly edited," how much will they care unless I tell them up fron I think it's badly edited. What I'd be trying to find is how much people base their expressed opinions about media on what supposed authorities on this subjective subject say about it. For example, do people really mind a lot of the jump cutting in modern Youtube shows, or do they say they do because it's the "right" or "acceptable" thing to say? I have my opinion, but it would be cool to study for me.

As far as games, ads and such are easier to study than games themselves. Anyway, if you have ideas, please tell me or let me know what you think of my ideas so far!

BrokenH

02/19/2014 at 04:22 PM

I've always wondered about "test groups". In other words,when a company has a product and gathers a small group of people to gauge their reactions as they use said product. Likewise I sometimes contemplate if "consumer stats" or "statistics" are truly gathered from many people ot just a smaller but more vocal minority.

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/19/2014 at 06:19 PM

Focus groups are usually a form of pilot testing and then more focus groups in larger numbers are done. You can mix it with surveys to have both quantitave (strictly numbers/set list of responses) and qualitative (more in-depth and personal responses) analyses. Samples in good research are representative of the population being studied, more is always better, and the results are extrapolated from there.

You can ask what's called a convenience sample, which is what you're talking about, where you just ask the easiest people to get, but most researchers try to get a large sample that jives with the makeup of the larger community they're trying to study. I.e. I'm never gonna get all of SFA to respond to a focus group request, but say a quarter each of the campus was a certain type of person. I'd have four people in my focus group who fit into each category for my pilot study, and try to find as many people as I could for focus groups from there that jive with the makeup of the community.

Not an exact science, but you can get some interesting results that are consistent with the greater population based on your sample groups.

Small, vocal minorities can affect content on a station if they're the only ones sending letters, but that's not really something research deals with; a good researcher in MCM would try to get a representative sample beyond a loud minority or throw stuff out if they can't find a good sample.

goaztecs

02/19/2014 at 05:56 PM

I like Idea 1, because you can pull from your own experiences as a listener and as someone within a radio station.

Idea 4 sounds interesting. It's like watching an edited for TV movie where the cuss words are dubbed out, and a lot of scenes are cut.

As for an outside idea, I don't know, I would try to involve something you follow. Take you watching House of Cards. You could study a group to see if their views are swayed by watching politically driven show like Cards. Just throwing out some ideas.

02/19/2014 at 06:25 PM

That is an interesting one. The Dems in HoC are pretty awful people, or at least the main character is.

Thanks, man! Good idea.

And oh, I wouldn't be watching an edited version, I'd be focusing on the stuff that would be edited if GoT weren't on HBO hehe. I'd probably just skip right to it, since that research question would only be asking about the naughty parts.

Cary Woodham

02/19/2014 at 06:36 PM

I've always been interested in newspaper comic strips, and how they've shaped media, and even affected it politically. I like learning about early newspaper comics and cartoons, like Thomas Nasts' works, or the stuff from Winsor McKay (Little Nemo in Slumberland). Not sure if that would be something you could do, but I find that stuff interesting to learn about.

02/19/2014 at 06:40 PM

It might be interesting to look into how The Daily Sentinel here compares with The Dallas Morning News in terms of comic strips it runs.

Have you ever seen those Onion comic strips that mock real comic strips?

Thanks for the suggestion!

Travis Hawks Senior Editor

02/20/2014 at 12:50 AM

How about a focus group watching a show with and without a laugh track? Seems to be pretty divisive any more. I know I have a hard time going back and watching shows I didn't realize had a laugh track at the time, like Kids in the Hall.

02/20/2014 at 10:23 AM

Only problem is I think someone's already done that, and I'm not sure how many people I could get to sign up for that within only a couple months (my research would be thrown out more or less if I only based it on one focus group, I'd have to have several).

C.S.3590SquadLeader

02/20/2014 at 01:24 PM

I like ideas 1 and 4, don't have any ideas myself unfortunately.

02/20/2014 at 01:30 PM

That's cool, I still aprreciate your input.

NSonic79

04/13/2014 at 01:35 PM

Perthaps you could look at the Star Wars: clone War series and ask the question why the feel the need to air episodes out of order in chronicolically even though that was the intended means to do such. I find that very annoying when I'm expected to remember a certain clone squad two seaons back during the first episodes.

I'm sure this is too late to suggest given how late I am in commenting but take it as you will.

04/13/2014 at 05:09 PM

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about with Clone Wars, but if they ran episodes out of order, that's dumb.

And yeah, I went with #5, which was a content analysis of the first seasons of House of Cards, Scandal, and The West Wing to see how selfish or selfless politicians are generally portrayed there, and how it differs between Democrat and Republican in each show.

PixlBit