Theories

Exam Question 2 (Timed)

Exam Question 2: 

How far does the primary and secondary research you have conducted support the 

conclusions drawn in the article?

  

The primary research that I have taken does not exactly support the Ofcom 2014 article, one of the conclusions drawn from my research is that children are beginning to prefer YouTube and Netflix over television which was discovered from my survey. I asked parents about their children's media habits and how they choose to spend their time, majority of the answers given when asked does the child prefer YouTube over television, they said they choose YouTube. This does not support the Ofcom article because it declines their conclusion that television is watched more than YouTube, and by analysing my results it is clear to see that this is not true. Another piece of primary research that I had conducted was a focus group with children of different ages between 5-15. The results shown from my focus group supports the conclusion that boys prefer to play video games and girls prefer social media. I had asked them what devices they prefer and why they have chosen that. ½ of the boys said that they preferred video game consoles and the ½ of the girls said they liked to use iPhone to talk to their friends. 

The first secondary source I have conducted are two articles from The guardian, in this article it talks about how much time children spend using the internet, and the second article explains how children are watching less television and more YouTube. This supports the article because they came to the conclusion that Television would be the most missed media device, this is not supported with this article because it shows that children are spending 3 hours on the internet compared to 2.1 hours watching television. Another secondary source is the website BARB, this is a website which displays the watch percentages of children’s’ television and other genres of TV shows. I have converted all viewing percentages into graphs for the months January, May and August for the years 2017, 2016, 2015. The results show me that children are not watching television as much as they had done in 2015, which is the highest for every month. This negates the conclusion that TV is the media device that would be missed most overall, this is because Ofcom concluded that that children spend 15.4 hours a week and 37% of 5 to 15 year olds. 

My final secondary source that I used is my BBC article which suggested the the amount of time children spend on their devices, this helps draw out the conclusion about parents concerns on children uses of media. 

Research Validity & Reliability | Harvard Method

Name of Item: BBC Article (Children Spend Six hours or more a day on screens)

Author: Jane Wakefield                                         Year of Publication/Publisher: 27^th March 2015

Validity of Document: The article created by Jane Wakefield is validated but the problems with it is that it was posted in 2015 which means it is outdated.

History of Document / Author: Technology Reporter

Ideological Bias: The BBC are centred

Financial Bias: Publically Funded

Evaluation: The information from the article is not appropriate to the rest of my research, but it does relate to parts of the Ofcom report. The information is trustworthy because it is from a centred background. The issues that must be followed up with is finding out where they have sourced their information.

Name of Item: Ofcom Report (2016)

Author: Ofcom                                                         Year of Publication/Publisher: 2017

Validity of Document: This document is valid because it is the most up to date version of it and they use facts and statistics to back up any points they have made.

History of Document / Author: They have collectively created the same report over multiple years

Ideological Bias: Centre

Financial Bias: Government Funded

Evaluation: The information from this report is one of the most appropriate to my research and since it is an updated version of original stimulus. The information is trustworthy because it is up to date and from a source which is a reliable.

Name of Item: The Guardian (Children spending more time online than watching TV for the first time) & (Children spending less time in front of the TV as they turn to online media)

Author: Jasper Jackson                                        Year of Publication/Publisher: 2016 & 2015

Validity of Document: The 2016 document is the most relevant and was created from a valid source who has authority on the subject they are talking about.

History of Document / Author: Assistant Media editor of The Guardian

Ideological Bias: Centre Left

Financial Bias: Privately Owned

Evaluation: The information was appropriate because it backed up my primary research, this also contradicts the Ofcom report. The guardian is a trustworthy source of information because it is a centred left company which means they are not conservative.

Name of Item: BARB         

Author: BARB                                                                              Year of Publication/Publisher: 2017, 2016, 2015

Validity of Document: This is a valid source of information because they are using facts and statistics to show the figures of television viewing percentages.

History of Document / Author:  BARB is Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, they collect and display the viewing figures for UK television audiences.

Ideological Bias: -

Financial Bias: The company is financed from other large companies within the Television industry, BARB is a not-for-profit company.

Evaluation: The information is appropriate because it relates back to the original Ofcom report and shows the audiences viewing percentage for certain genres of TV channels which Ofcom is missing.

Name of Item: Survey

Author: Myself                                                         Year of Publication/Publisher:2017

Validity of Document:-

History of Document / Author -

Ideological Bias: -

Financial Bias: -

Evaluation: Information from my primary research was appropriate to my secondary research and the original report, the results from my survey did not correlate with the survey Ofcom created but, links with The Guardian and BARB.

Name of Item: Focus Group

Author: Myself                                                                           Year of Publication/Publisher: 2017

Validity of Document: -

History of Document / Author: -

Ideological Bias: -

Financial Bias: -

Evaluation: The information was partly appropriate because some questions have already been asked in survey which was done previously. I can trust the information because I have individually collected the research and no bias was involved in it.

Question 1: What are the key issues raised in the article and how has qualitative and quantitative research been applied to explore them?

The key issues that are raised in the article is that there is a major increase in the use of tablet use by all aged children, their quantitative research states that “Almost twice as many children aged 5-15 are going online via tablet than in 2013” This was also displayed on the graphs and chart page which makes it easier to be /interpreted. From the key themes and graphs it is clear that from the increase in tablet use it correlates with decrease in use in other sectors such as Television and video games. They also display that from their primary research methods that 12-15 year olds would miss their phone most instead of a TV, this shows that the increase of tablets and phones could be a causation for the decrease in TV use. This could link with the effects model, because the increase in tablet use to watch TV or films influences others to use it to watch TV shows instead of using a TV or going to the cinema. Another key finding is that “Nine in ten parents mediate their child’s access to the internet in some way”. From looking at Figure 1 it is clear that since tablets were created in 2007 the popularity is increased which overall has effected the use of video games and since all ages have access to it, it means that it has a wider audience. The things that are produced are the products that are considered popular, that is cause of so many tablets being made, because that is what is popular. The TV section of Figure 9 shows that the is a consistent trend going down. There is also been a new service called Netflix and YouTube which was introduced a few years. These streaming services have become a lot more popular than TV shows and is considered to be used more than TV.  They have collected lots of primary research which is also mainly quantitative, this can be considered as bias because they didn’t explore an even amount of qualitative and quantitative they have conducted surveys from 2009 till 2014 which is outdated and raises some issues with the results. This relates to the key finding “Almost twice as many children aged 5-15 are going online via tablet than in 2013” this is because they have used quantitative information but does not explain why they prefer it which is qualitative. The great use of quantitative information which is displayed through graphs makes the data more believable and impactful but also supports the lack of qualitative data. The home interviews with parents about children’s media use had issues within the testing process, the problem with this is that by having the children’s parents in the room the children won’t answer with complete honesty.

The conclusion from analysing the Ofcom 2014 report is that the great amount of quantitative data outweighs the qualitative data, the qualitative data had issues with it because it needed to have quotes and shows the age of the person which said it. They should have also displayed the questions which were asked to the sample, without this it allows us to question the reliability and validity.

Research

Research