Significance Of Media Research

“While many people place the task of learning research high on the “Not to Do” list, the reality is that research is probably the only area in mass media that relates to everything. There isn’t a position in any of the mass media that doesn’t conduct or use research. That’s the reality. And if you plan to be successful in mass media, you must understand at least the basics of research.”

Roger Wimmer, Ph.D., An Introduction to Mass Media Research,

Every time when we have a “who, what, when, where, or why” question when using the mass media, you have raised a question that can be investigated. And that’s what this discussion is all about— trying to find answers to mass media questions. However, before we start, we need to understand a little about business and decision-making.

To see why research is significant in the mass media, consider for a moment some of the questions you could investigate:

• Why do people choose to watch one television program over another?
• How much time do adults 18 to 24 years old spend reading newspapers?
• How has the Internet affected newspaper reading, TV viewing, radio listening?
• Why some advertising campaigns are successful and others fail?
• What makes a successful advertising sales person?

However, researchers are not limited only to getting involved in finding out what people want. Researchers also get involved in the other two steps of the process. For example, in reference to “Give it to them,” researchers find out the best way this can be accomplished. Assume for a moment that a television research project about programming uncovers an audience desire for more game shows on TV. Researchers need to find out such things as: What kind of game show? When should the game show be aired? What types of contestants should be included? Who should be the host? And so on.

Then there is the third step in the process: “Tell them that you gave it to them.” Once a new game show is developed, the viewers need to know that the show is available. Researchers find out how the program should be advertised and promoted. They test different approaches to find out which is most successful.

Research is involved in every step of the process. And regardless of whether you are involved in writing, production, talent, advertising, distribution, or any other area, you will be involved with research. There is no area of mass media that is not affected by research.

Mass media researchers use a variety of approaches to answer questions. Some research is informal and seeks to solve relatively simple problems; some is based on theory and requires formally worded questions. All researchers, however, must start with some tentative generalization regarding a relationship between two or more variables. These generalizations may take two forms: research questions and statistical hypotheses. The two are identical except for the aspect of prediction-hypotheses predict an experimental outcome; research questions do not.

There are two broad categories of research: qualitative research and quantitative research. During the past several years, the lines of distinction between qualitative and quantitative research have essentially disappeared.

Qualitative research: in-depth investigations using flexible questioning.

Quantitative research: in-depth investigations using inflexible or less flexible questioning.

As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, research is used extensively in all of the mass media. So defining and stating how vast the areas of Mass Media Research is can also help understand its significance.

Electronic Media

For electronic media some of the procedures that will include media research are:

• Program testing: research on program ideas, rough-cuts, or final productions.
• Commercial testing: testing advertising messages that appear on radio, TV, or cable.
• Music Research: obtain listener opinions about music that a radio station might play.
• Performer Q: an indication of the popularity of various performers and entertainers.
• Focus Groups: used for all types of preliminary and final research.
• Market studies: an investigation of the perceptions of the entire market, usually within a specific age range such as 25- to 54-year-olds.
• Format studies: research with respondents who listen to or prefer a certain type of music.
• Format search studies: research in radio to find an available radio format in a given market.
• Program element importance: identifies elements on radio or television that are most important to a specific audience.
• Personality (talent) studies: analyses of on-air personalities.
• Account executive research: analyses of the local and national sales reps with advertising purchasers.
• Sales research: considered a value-added approach by a station where the station sponsors research for local clients. The results are usually used to prepare an advertising proposal for the client or clients.

Print. While there are many types of research conducted by the print media, these are the types of research that have gained most attention in the past several years:

• Readership: the most widely used of all print research procedures including research in areas such as reader profiles, item-selection studies, reader-nonreader studies, uses and gratifications studies, editor-reader comparisons, and psychographic and lifestyle segmentation studies.
• Circulation: research about who reads the newspaper or magazine, how can circulation be increased, and what the readers want to have included in their newspaper or magazine.
• Management: research concerning goal setting by management, employee job satisfaction, and effects of competition and ownership on newspaper content and quality.
• Typography/makeup: research on the effects of news design elements-specifically typeface and page makeup-on readership, reader preferences, and comprehension.
• Readability: research on all the elements and their interactions that affect the success of a piece of printed material.
• On-line media usage: research concerning the Internet and how it affects newspaper and magazine reading.

Advertising and Public Relations. Just as with the other media, research in advertising and public relations includes a variety of topic, some of which include:

• Copy Testing: research on the effectiveness of advertising.
• Reach and frequency: how many people are exposed to advertising.
• Internet-related: research on how the Internet affects advertising and public relations.
• Campaign assessment: research on the success of an advertising campaign.
• Public relations: applied, basic, and introspective research to examine specific practical issues.
• Public relations audit: a comprehensive study of the public relations position of an organization.
• Social audit: a small-scale monitoring program to measure how well a company is living up to its public responsibilities.
• Evaluation research: studies to judge the effectiveness of program planning, implementation, and impact.

Internet. The Internet has quickly become a mass medium, and it is changing every day. However, one thing is certain about the Internet, and that is it will provide a countless number of research possibilities for mass media researchers. Consider some of the possibilities:

• On-line research: respondents answer questions using Internet-based questionnaires.
• Web site research: what makes a good web site? How can more people be attracted to a web site?
• Music testing: radio stations and music companies test short segments (hooks) of songs.
• Advertising testing: respondents provide reactions to audio, video, and print advertising.

Development Journalsim

The term “development journalism” is used to refer to two different types of journalism. The first is a new school of journalism which began to appear in the 1960s. The idea behind this type of development journalism is similar to investigative reporting, but it focuses on conditions in developing nations and ways to improve them. The other type of development journalism involves heavy influence from the government of the nation involved. While this type of development journalism can be a powerful tool for local education and empowerment, it can also be a means of suppressing information and restricting journalists.

While Laxman Datt Pant, the speaker of the talk on Development journalism in Martin Chautari held on 28^th may,09, claimed Nepal doesn’t still have a proper development Journalism in Practice. E claimed that journalism it self wasn’t taken as a serious profession as people from other professions can easily change into journalism. While this have created problem among the journalism as they cant change their profession to others. It also questions the possibility of getting better job for the student of journalism.

The first type of development journalism attempts to document the conditions within a country so that the larger world can understand them. Journalists are encouraged to travel to remote areas, interact with the citizens of the country, and report back. This type of development journalism also looks at proposed government projects to improve conditions in the country, and analyzes whether or not they will be effective. Ultimately, the journalist may come up with proposed solutions and actions in the piece, suggesting ways in which they might be implemented. Often, this type of development journalism encourages a cooperative effort between citizens of the nation and the outside world.

As a tool for social justice, development journalism can be very valuable. By speaking for those who cannot, a development journalist can inform the rest of the world about important issues within developing nations. Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of a country may also help identify ways in which the nation can be helped. This style of development journalism is a tool for empowerment.

Though Development journalism is a very progressive and effective practice, it hasn’t been practiced properly in developing countries.

Lack of persuasion and fallow up has in fact caused the investment in Development in journalism go in vain. Journalists have become conscious, but the industries are not conscious about it which has made it unfavorable for the journalist to act accordingly.

The journalists aren’t able to reply or question back to the government when they question to the journalist. Journalism practice isn’t applied, because we can’t criticize. They can’t criticize in the next level of the issue because they aren’t prepared for that. The task of Journalism is to decrease issues by enforcing better solutions, but the same issues have been only reported and not investigated resulting to its repetition. Though we have a educated mass, they aren’t well informed. Press council doesn’t self check the violation of the rules and ethics by journalist or media, but prefer for the public to bring in complains to act.

Thus, the need of investigative development journalism for the development of nation was discussed that day.

Government & journalism with feminism and change

Yo Radio Nepal Ho!(A Tour visit)

We were standing in the recording studio were almost all the songs we have heard from Narayan Gopal were recorded. It was where he had spent his big part of life that he dedicated for Nepali music. It was from where the whole Nepal could here us. It was an honor for us to be there. We even got to speak in and use the recoding devices and musical instruments. It was one radio station that was more advanced then any of the Indian stations and that was by the donations and help from foreign nation. We visited its historic library that had kinds of cassettes that we had never seen. We saw three different recording studios in different location one for general recording, one for live programs and one for the stage programs. It was a great experience to be there and at the end when we were coming back in contrary to what we usually here in radio Nepal “Yo radio Nepal ho”, I turned back and said to my friend “Oh! So yoo! Radio Nepal ho.”

Arts! the last,option (Educational Book Fair 2009)

United Academy, united college, Princeton international school , middle point travels, new millennium high school, Shikhar boarding school, Pacific academy, covenant academy were the names I read on the body of buses parked on the ground of Bhrikuti mandav exhibition hall on May 21, 2009, the 6^th day of the “13^th Nepal Education and Book Fair 2009”.  With so many college participation, the grandness of the event was visible. With different schools and colleges, consultancies also participating in the event, it was certain that the event would have a strong impact at list among the students who had participated in the event.

 

As the event was claimed as a book fair and education exhibition, I decided to analyze the event as on what impact the event would have on the student. Being more specific I decided to analyze what effect would it have on the student who wanted to study arts in future. As I myself dint have arts as in my options when I completed my SLC as it wasn’t considered good enough. So, I tried to analyze if it had changed or if the event could change it for the students.

 

As I went on scanning the educational stalls, I came across may of them. The first one was a foreign educational consultancy, Liberty Educational Consultancy which offered educational destinations such as US, India and INDO-world. Others foreign consultancies were Eminent Educational Institute, Dynamic Universe, Iskcon(Nepal). These boards mentioned BA programs in their board, but when asked about they could brief about the colleges only. 

The educational stalls that offered arts were Himalayan Info, Maya Animation Academy Informatics \College. These institutes offered only technical courses and not a bachelors or some academic course.

 

The largest stalls belonged to +2 colleges such as Goldengate International Collage. The college offered +2 in science, management and humanities, BSc,MSc and also BA. While it had a lot of work exhibition exposed in Different stalls, from mini hydro to vacume made flying carper. When I asked if the college offered BA also the information desk said they had and gave me some brochure that had list of courses offered and short brief about them.

Was it because the colleges that offered arts couldn’t effort to buy stalls, or were the students interested in arts not expected in the event. Or was it the effect of capitalism in the field of education, stalls for the students of arts wasn’t present there.

The technical courses that were offered might have impacted that arts had gone even more commercialized and not as a field of study.

Overall the event still claimed that arts was the last option or dint even consider it as a field of study claiming the students with their potential in arts will still be divorted to different fields not even getting to know their skills this field.

 

The priest; the Protector

Usually priest is a person who helps protect people from the evils and misfortune by praying to the god. Not pandit Chakra Charananda Raj Upidhya, the recent main priest of Changu Narayan Temple. He rather wanted to save god from the erroneous and misdeeds of people.

Media Studies students from KU had been to Changu Narayan Temple for a field visit on april 26th 09’. Pandit Dharananda was himself there to explain and help explore the temple and its mythical and factual history. He started with the explanation of the mystical and factual history of the temple. Then he asked us to search a statue what was printed in the ten Rupee note. Then after we had found it out, he explained us how the statue with so much

 of significance was placed out side the temple with out any attention or attempt of preservation.

 He explained how the statue had to face all the hares of heat and rain. He then explained how the trend of throwing Tika and all ingredients we use for puja can effect the life span of the statue. Thus, he didn't even hesitate to tell that such improper tradition to pray should be changed and so appealed to youths to be the force of change. 

Psychology in media

Introduction

The human-media dynamic has become more universal and integral to human functioning than ever before. Demand for media psychologists is growing exponentially as the media impact on human behavior becomes more profound and complex. Need of psychology in media has emerged due to a social and commercial demand for the application of psychological theory and research into media impact in both academic and non-academic settings. Psychology has become essential in media for understandings of how people understand, use, and respond to today’s media-rich world to identify potential benefits and problems and promote the developmental positive media. The need to understand media has increased with its ability to influence and inform. Each media innovation raises new psychological questions that often are discussed in public and in the mass media which has caused to emerge new branch of study know as Media Psychology.

Objective

This paper is written to explain the need and importance of psychology in the academic and professional field of media. It deals with questions like why psychology has become one of the discipline media students has to study. It also discusses on new branch of psychology, Media Psychology and what it deals with.

Discussion

The media have come to be integral parts of a variety of social institutions such as schools, hospitals, political and military systems, even religions, and their real and virtual assemblies. The media shape the way news gathering and transmission, advertisings, political processes and campaigns, wars, diplomacy, education, entertainment, and socialization are conducted. Media not only informs but its impact on human behavior has becomes more profound and complex. For example, television has changed the way sports are played, as it demands game rules to speed up on-field action in order to keep the home viewing audience watching the commercials between plays. News about celebrities push off the front pages and out of prime time news agendas and people know more about American Idol’s Paula and less about Islam’s Osama and Russia’s Putin.

Psychological analysis on media addresses human behavior and mental processes related to media: Which thoughts and feelings, which physical reactions and actions emerge in different individuals in different situations and cultures, before, during, and after the usage of media? Issues like the effect of prosocial games in children, the effect of social networks in growth and behavior to the issues of how humor is used to create hope and Influence of Media on the Predisposition to Conflict are to be analyzed and discussed which demand the knowledge of both fields.

It deals with the issues of over all effect of media. It deals with the issues like narcotizing

dysfunction. The term refers to a social consequence of mass media. It believes that with so many news, media and issues being informed to public, the public are becoming apathetic and shows only superficial concern for the problems of society. It hypothesize that the constant flood of information and news has a narcotizing rather than an energizing effect on the audience.

Issues covered by both media and psychology, and the vast field where these discipline overlap has resulted in a new field of study. Media Psychology is one of the most exciting and innovative branches of Psychology to emerge in the 21st century. It is an applied and research branch of psychology and part of a larger international and interdisciplinary trend in understanding the impact media have on individuals and groups. Media psychology is a specialized and highly-regarded discipline within psychology that has far-reaching implications for all of those involved in media production.

Conclusion

To summarize, study of psychology in media is necessary to analyze the human behavior, especially so in an increasingly media-dominated society. Its dimension captures the worlds of entertainment and advertising and their short- and long-term impact on values, attitudes and behavior. It is important to explore the media from psychological aspect as they exert influence on social, educational and strategic communications, on Information Technology and telecommunications, on politics and sports, on ideology and on religion, on war and peace and on diplomacy and terrorism, and on physical and psychological wellbeing.

References:

• What Does a Media Psychologist Do? Dr. Pamela Rutledge April 5th, 2009
• Journal of Media Psychology, Media Psychology Research Institute (MPRI)
• http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/index.html
• http://www.mprcenter.org/mpr/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_psychology

Journalism and Democracy

Journalism and democracy have similar objectives to empower the public. While Journalism empowers people with information and knowledge making them capable of wiser decisions, Democracy politically empowers people with power to decide their political leaders and thus be the part of the political decisions the nation makes.

'Democracy needed journalism to get started. Journalism needs to re-absorb the
values of democracy into its own self-conduct if it is to function effectively:
to open itself to scrutiny and challenge.'-Ian Hargreaves, Journalism: Truth or Dare, OUP, 2003

Democracy has always been enforced when the autocratic government has worked against people and so the general people have used journalism to inform and enforce people to raise against. Like in Nepal and also french revolution, journalism has its significant role to bring democracy. While in democracy also the people have the power to decide their political leaders and so have their part in the political decisions. Thus, democracy stands with the assumption that their citizens are well informed and capable of making wiser decisions about their nations. And journalism is the means to make their citizens capable of making wiser decisions with all perspectives of information, making them updated of different facts.
A French novelist once said, “Free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”-www.nowpublic.com
Journalism, for better or for worse, is the best example of the freedom of individuals and the importance of free thought in a democracy.
In short, participatory democracy would benefit if citizens and those who act
as their ears, eyes and voices were to engage in open-minded dialogue about how
the media carries out its functions, with particular reference to issues such
as:

* diversity;
* freedom of expression;
* global media issues;
* media regulation & the rights of the citizen;
* power, politics & the media;
* safety, protection & independence of journalists;
* training, development & media literacy;
* young people & the media.

In the democratic equation, there are three types of identities: the politicians, the public, and the publication. The three elite ”P’s” of the democratic process which, through their correlation with each other, make modern democracy unique compared to other political philosophies. The relationship between the politician and the public, through the media and journalism particularly, is distinctive in a democracy, and has a very special connection with the electoral process, which separates true democracies from imitations.-www.nowpublic.com

Only elections doesn't make the state democratic. For example, the U.S.S.R. had elections, but that certainly did not make them a democracy. Liberated media is fundamentally crucial in genuine democratic societies because it practices the theory of including the public in governmental affairs, and commemorates the democratic idea that reality can only be relative and truth and facts are to be deemed authentic by individuals, not administrators.

Without freedom in journalism, journalism can't be able to achieve its objective. And without free journalism democracy is incomplete. Thus, journalism and democracy are interdependent to each other.

Sources:
www.mediawise.org.uk
annenberg.usc.edu
adrianmonck.com
www.nowpublic.com

Caravan

Eastern philosophy

The philosophical tradition - India

Globalization in the perspective of a Mimamsak

Globalization is a concept that encapsulates the growth of connections between people on a planetary scale. Globalization involves the reduction of barriers to trans-world contacts. Through it people become more able—physically, legally, culturally, and psychologically—to engage with each other in “one world”.
Mīmāṃsā, a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation" is the name of an astika ("orthodox") school of Hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas.
On explaining how a mimansak would take globalization as, with some similarities in the ideas of mimamsa and the result of globalization, it can be claimed that they have similar direction and so a mimamsak would support globalization.
A more interesting feature of the Mimamsa school of philosophy is its unique epistemological theory of the intrinsic validity of all cognition as such. It is held that all knowledge is ipso facto true . Thus, what is to be proven is not the truth of a cognition, but its falsity. The Mimamsakas advocate the self-validity of knowledge both in respect of its origin and ascertainment. Thus Mimansa philosophy believes in not being fixed to any concept in blind way but in giving validity to all the ways of life thus in giving options and diversity which one of the main feature of globalization.
Dharma as understood by Mimamsa can be loosely translated into English as "virtue", "morality" or "duty". The Mimamsa school traces the source of the knowledge of dharma neither to sense-experience nor inference. By this we can understand that the philosophy believed in working hard and having opportunities for the ones who work hard which is much similar to the wide and global market the globalization gives in the economic aspect.
Mimamsa is essentially ritualist, placing great weight on the performance of Karma or action as enjoined by the Vedas. In this sense, it is a counter-movement to the mysticism of Vedanta, rejecting or de-emphasizing moksha or salvation. To a certain extent, Mimamsa is atheist, placing all importance in proper practice as opposed to belief. Here we can say that it doesn’t believe in having salvation just by not doing anything but praying. And the globalization which has also being spreading the sense of self dependency and encourages on being the fortune teller of self, here also it resembles with mimamsa philosophy.
Thus the freedom of speech and trade beyond any country boundaries that globalization emphasizes on correspondence to the philosophy of mimamsa. So, if I was a mimamsak I would be supporting globalization.