Primary and Secondary Research

Primary Research

Primary data is collected for a particular purpose and is newly produced information. This can be conducted using some means of questioning usually via a survey or intervews, or the information can be gathered through observation. It is typically more time-consuming and expensive to collect than secondary data, and is often the second stage in a research project, following secondary research.

Our primary reseach for our Soap Opera trailer consited of many things including; questionnaires, interviews and detalied research into how Soaps themselves are constructed. I did this by analysing Neighbours (which you can see on my blog) as well as Eastenders and Coronation Street to help give my grooup a understanding of how we may want to follow in the successful footsteps of these soaps and use some of there key and most important conventions in order to make our Soap trailer succeed.

Secondary Research

Secondary research gathers information which has already been collected. This is a valuable way to start a research project if possible, as it identifies any relevant data before time and money are spent on new primary research, which may result in duplication.

Seondary research which i did for my group consisted of looking at many articles on Soap Operas, including a writer by the name of Charlie Brooker who gives a harsh and comical take on television in genral but loves to rant about Soaps; however this was helpful to view Soaps through his perception as his articles did give me some sort of guidelines in how to make our trailer successful and not simply annoying!