Media Research

If you use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, go online or watch television you are involved in mass media. And if you’ve ever said yes to an internet prompt that asks if it is okay to collect your browsing history so they can better adapt the ads to suit your needs, then you are actively participating in mass media research. Put simply, mass media research is the study of information related to any form of mass communication. Mass media includes television, internet, and social media. Newspapers and magazines are also considered mass media if they have a wide enough reach.

Importance of Media Research

When used for business purposes, mass media research is important as it helps businesses figure out which forms of advertising work. Businesses want to see more sales, so mass media research for business focuses more on conversions, the number of people watching or reading a mass media form and then turning into customers. This is important as the numbers found through mass media research helps the business decide whether a certain form of advertising is financially worth it.

For example, to advertise on an animal channel costs $1,000. The animal channel tells you that they have over 4 million people viewing the channel each day. Your advertisement only takes up 30 seconds of the day, so your potential audience is significantly less than that 4 million. It may be only 500,000. Your own market research tells you that of those who view your commercial, 2 percent will become customers. That means you’ll get 500,000 * 0.02 = 10,000 customers from your commercial. If this is enough to recoup the cost of the commercial and to provide enough profit, then this form of advertisement is worth it. Businesses can also use mass media research to help figure out how customers view their product by looking at what they are posting about the business online.

Mass media research for health and well-being reasons is important as scientists are still learning about how technology is affecting people in both positive and negative ways. For example, with the increasingly prevalent use of smartphones, some scientists are concerned that the increased exposure to radiation will negatively impact people’s health. Is this true? This is something that scientists are still trying to figure out through mass media research. Another example is studying the effects of young people using social media instead of communicating with people face to face.

• To study the viewership or to know the TRP. It helps the advertising agencies or advertisers to know the TRP and rating of programs which later boosts the sponsership cycle
• Formative and summative assessment of various programs, movies, documentaries or traditional media helps the researchers and producers and promotes a better understanding of the need of the market and the audiences. It creates a bridge between the need and supply of content which is being provided.
• It is also helpful in quantifying the Impact of media on the audience or viewers
• It compares the former media content with the running content to show the statistical differences between the contents.