Analysis of research Methods.

Analysis of film festival research methods:

In this analysis of my film festival assignment I am exploring the research methods which I implemented into my essay. Conducting research using a variety of resources such as the internet, libraries and video footage with interviews from film critics and stars. The analysis of my research methods includes the validity, honesty, reliability and logistics of my research and identifying ways in which my research could be improved. The focus includes fitness for purpose, ethical issues and feedback from primary research.

Within my research methods I created questionnaires and surveys which I uploaded to social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook and also sent the questionnaires to family members in order to achieve the largest possible target audience. The benefit of these research methods was the quick and cheap system in which I could collect new research and collate the research which did not require financial support. Equally the validity of the data collected captured both quantitative and qualitative research with high levels of accuracy as the data recorded public opinion.

The advantages of an experiment for a research method is the cause and effect can be readily established and determined, however the weaknesses include the lack of conclusiveness and practical limitations in social research for example my research involved data which represented large portions of society and the great ease of producing questionnaires helped to make collecting research far simpler, although collecting large enough groups of information proved to be challenging as my sample was only based on selective sampling and did not represent the United Kingdom as a whole.

The alternative route for my research methods would have been to carry out an experiment or a series of surveys in multiple countries or areas so as to be able to signify that the research was not only a valid to a select sample but was easily contrasted with a larger target audience. The limitations to my research methods were the lack of financial support which I had and the logistics of only being able to upload my survey to a small percentage of the population.

The limitations of my research was the inability to create statistics that represented a large target audience as although I sent my surveys to a large number of people I did not receive as much feedback as I had wanted. Logistically questionnaires and surveys are a high quality form of research with high accuracy with numerical data; however my research methods would have been improved with a larger response from the target audience.

My main limitation to statistical research was lack of financial muscle to market and distribute the surveys other than to social networking and organization sites such as survey monkey. A recommendation for future research methods could be an experiment in which I validate reasons ‘why people dislike film festivals’ and if the reasons for people not attending film festival is due to social factors rather than cultural issues.

My survey was collected as a sample survey and was systematic in its design which I aimed to achieve finding out the highest portion of people who attended film festivals. The results collected were not a complete representation of the United Kingdom as a whole and only show insight into the area of Yorkshire. A possible recommendation for future research methods would be to carry out a social experiment to investigate whether males enjoy films more and therefore would go to more film festivals.

The success of my research was the concise, quick and clear approach that questionnaires and surveys can achieve, however the disadvantage was the lack of depth to the answers from questionnaires and the lack of validity of not being able to measure the response from the questionnaire. The future solution and amendment of this could be to introduce more quantitative research methods and conduct interviews at film festivals asking questions ’such as who do you think most attends film festivals?’ and ’what do you want from a film festival?’.

Quantitative data requires strict parameters in order to validate research, whereas qualitative data does not impose strict regulations and instead seeks to study a subject’s behaviour and ideas as naturally as possible which is a far more accurate approach as the participant is not under stress or manipulation.

My research methods into film festival included a range of sources including academic journals such Cannes a history of film festivals, Christopher Holland film festival secrets and Richard Porton on film festivals. My research method also includes data from interviews which I will continue to link to my blog media playbook and I have also uploaded my surveys and questionnaires to my blog for research evidence. 

My research methods lacked a big enough target demographic; although my peers, tutors and family received the questionnaire I did not have a huge sample. To improve my research methods in future I will conduct interviews at a film festival and conduct higher levels of primary research. On my blog I will upload videos of film festivals for research into why film festivals are as integral to the development of a film as they help to increase consumer awareness. Although my method of research was accurate as my questionnaires were clear and concise, I did not receive the feedback as I needed to have more promotional material for my survey.

A future recommendation for my research method would be to go to local film clubs or film school and hand out surveys. The research process which I undertook to gather information included me visiting libraries and searching for academic books, reading online sites such a film festival blogs and all of the Raindance information which my tutor uploaded to my HND blog. Furthermore I created surveys and questionnaires and emailed them to people via my Hotmail and uploaded them to sites such as Twitter and Facebook. My final research method was researching interviews from media sites such as YouTube which I upload to the blog to present research material.