Research Catalogue

Secondary research #1: The 2 'mashable.com' website is a good research tool to use as it provides some interesting research that heavily backs up the report. It allows me to analyse and compare the information presented in both articles for me to draw a conclusion. The website report discusses about different topics relating to the research plan, such as; media devices in children’s bedrooms, change in Television consumption, children’s growing ownership and usage of media devices Tablets/iPads, smartphones, laptops), social media and lastly differences by gender. This is a useful website to use as it allows me to examine and investigate further into my research and draw in conclusions.  

http://mashable.com/2011/03/14/children-internet-stats/#jW6CEr.n5kqw

                                                                             

Secondary research #2: The ‘guardian’ website is a reliable research tool to use, because the guardian is funded by the government which means that they release news reports based on the public’s beliefs and preferences. This website is appropriate for my research finding because it helped me to justify the key areas of the report and compare it with my other sources in order to see which was relevant and wasn’t. The information on the guardian website also gave an increasing amount of facts which related to the report. Lastly, I found this website very useful and trustworthy, because I was initially taking to it by using Google Scholar. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/31/digital-kids-devices-apps-media

Secondary research #3: The ‘independent’ website is a reliable research tool to use, because it is a newspaper article, which made it appropriate in conducting my research. By using this website it gave me an extensive and wide-spread knowledge of information which I had to go compare and analyse with my other findings and the report to see if the information presented was relevant or not. I found the independent website very useful and trustworthy to use because it spoke more about the time period that children started to consume their media devices, more than the 2014 report. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dramatic-rise-screen-time-phones-tablets-childrens-health-at-risk-who-report-a7739621.html

#Secondary research 4: My fourth and last secondary research that I found quite useful was the ‘Digital TV Europe’ website. I found the information on this website very suitable to use in my research, because it covered key areas which linked to the 204 OFCOM report such as; how much time a week children spend consuming digital media on their technology devices, the genre, audience and technology, and how social media influences the consumption and production of different forms of media. The site was also written by a trustworthy DTVE reporter who has written many articles for the website.                                           http://www.digitaltveurope.com/2015/08/12/study-reveals-kids-media-consumption-habits/

Exam Question 4!

What is the impact of the topic on media production in your specific media sector? Refer to your primary and secondary research (500 words, 15 marks)

The impact on media production is due to the ownership and usage of media devices accessed in Children’s bedrooms. In one of my primary research which I conducted on survey monkey, it shows the amount of time that young children consume digital technology for, which means that the impact of devices is increasingly growing and becoming more accessible. There is a difference between media consumption and production, but there is also a slight relation between the two; most creators produce content for consumption. They make it for a media platform so that it may be grasped and understood by an audience. Sometimes, content is produced but not consumed. However, all content/media that is consumed is always produced. By conducting my Secondary research I found that more children now live in households with a tablet than any other web-connected devices. This supports the report as it mostly discusses about how many children have access to tablets at home, how three to four year olds spend almost eight and a half hours week online, and how 72% of children under eight have used a mobile device. This is a growing impact on technology media devices in children’s bedrooms. Another key finding I conducted during my secondary research was that almost three quarters of 12-15 year olds have a social media account as do two fifths of 11 year olds, despite the fact that all of the major social media platforms have a minimum age of 13. This point it stating how social media is one of the key increases to the effect of media production on young children. One of the most interesting finding I drew from the report is that ‘the ownership of radio usage in the bedroom has massively decreased’. This is due to children having access to other things in the bedroom such as computer games, smart phones, laptops and tablets/iPads. The production of computer games is also decreasing, because children are able to access games anywhere on the app store by a click of a buttoning. The effects of this are decreasing the production of computer games as they are consuming online games by their smart phones and tablets. The Uses and gratification theory backs up my findings on the impact on media production as it suggests that people use the media and its many texts to their advantage and in order to meet their individual needs. It deals with how and why people adopt specific media to satisfy their needs, with relates back to my observation primary research as they use their smart phones and tablets to go on social media in order to update their social lives, which then impacts the increase of social media and technology media devices as social media is a place where children aged 5-15 normally spend most of their time at. Overall, the impact of technology media devices has allowed children to be consumed in not only Television, but in different forms of media such as films and computer games, and the increase in use of digital technologies highlights the amount of children that have access to it in their bedrooms.

Hypothesis of Research!

'Has the increased access to the internet furthered parental concerns about their child's online usage?'

Exam Question 3!

With reference to the article and your own research, how has the topic impacted on consumption in your specific media sector? (500 words, 10 marks)

Audience consumption has had a massive impact on consumption in the Television sector. In the 2014 OFCOM report, it states that children aged 12-15 spend more time going online than watching television in a typical week. This relates to my primary research I conducted on survey monkey and I came to a conclusion that when children go online they often go on social media with YouTube and Instagram being the most common ones. Impact on TV consumption for young children has increased over the years, with children preferring to watch television on devices such as smart phones, laptops and tablets/iPads, rather than on an actual Television. This supports one of my key findings in my secondary research, which states that, the amount of time children spends watching TV is ultimately decreasing. This research partly support the report as it talks about the use of Television decreasing by 5-15 year olds. It also undermines my primary research as more children would prefer to use social media than sit in front of the TV. Although the article commonly illustrates children’s consumption in media, especially in the TV sector from 2007, I found through extensive research that the more children consume different media the unhappier they feel and the more antisocial they become. 25% of children watch TV alone, which not only affects the impact on consumption in the media, but also the impact on production. In the article it discusses that TV use by children aged 5-15 is decreasing throughout the years, which could mean that less children are not watching TV on their Television but on their technology devices such as their phones and tablets. Although some of my secondary research I conducted focuses more on the genre of programmes watched by younger children, it also backs up the key facts in the report. In contrast to children watching less TV, I found out through my research that 5 of the most watched programmed by children aged 4-15 were mostly BBC one and ITV. Younger children aged 4-9 watched a similar range of genres, with entertainment programming drawing the largest audiences. In the 2014 OFCOM report that nine in ten parents restricts their child’s access to the internet in many different ways. This differentiates from my secondary research which states that children aged 5-16 were using the internet from over 6+ hours each day. One of my key findings which gave me the conclusion that children weren’t being consumed by television, but their media devices, is my observation primary research where I observed three of my cousins in the living room for an hour and a half. Although they were watching television, they used their media devices to go on social media for the most amount of time. My observation research partly contradicted the report because even though they all had their technology devices, they weren’t glued to it the whole time as they still watched TV. Overall, there are many other sectors that impact on children’s consumption in the media, but I happen to think that TV is the biggest one as it has a broad range of research focus for you to compare with other sources, and it is more discussed about in the article.

Popplet mind map

Preferences

Audience, Genre & Technology (Venn diagram)

2016 OFCOM report topics (mind map)

Exam Question 2!

How far does the primary and secondary research you have conducted support the conclusions drawn from the article?

My Primary and Secondary research that I have conducted support the 2014 OFCOM report, but there are some key areas of findings that differentiates from it. For my first primary research, I conducted a survey on ‘survey monkey’, where I asked questions to draw in some conclusions and analyse it with the report. The purpose of this research was to see how young children using social media, how many hours they use it for and which technology device do they most prefer to use. In the 2014 OFCOM report, it focuses heavily on Children’s consumption towards different forms of media, and by conducting this primary research, I have proven that it does partly relate to the research provided by OFCOM. Since I completed my secondary research first, I found that the websites where I got most of my research from sort of contradict my primary research. Overall, my survey was useful in some ways, because although it gave me extensive research which I was able to compare with my secondary research, some of the questions contradicted with the 2014 OFCOM report.                                                                                                                                     In the 2014 report, it heavily states that seven in ten children aged 5-5 now have access to a tablet or computer at home. This statement partly related to my second primary research which is an Observation I conducted while watching three of my cousins in the living room (aged 5-11), and it showed them watching Television, but they would often use their iPads or tablets between times to go on social media and play app games. Since the article states that a lot of 5-15 year olds are spending time online each day, I came to the conclusion on the report that my observation report partly contradicted the report because even though my three cousins all had their technology devices in front of them, they mostly preferred to watch the TV, which then challenges the report as it talks about children watching less TV on their Television and watching it more on devices such as laptops, phones and iPads/tablets. I would say that my observation findings supported the article more and drew in the most conclusions for me to compare and analyse with the 2014 OFCOM report. 

When conducting my Secondary research, I used to websites from ‘the guardian’ and two websites from ‘the independent’ and what I found was that although there were some areas in both articles which I found very useful and trustworthy, some areas also heavily contradicted with the 2014 report which made the information collected not relevant. The research that I conducted in my ‘the guardian’ secondary research partly relates to the report as it talks about the use of Television decreasing by 5-15 year olds. It also undermines my primary research as more children would prefer to use social media than sit in front of the TV. Although the 2014 OFCOM report spoke about how children aged 5-15 has consumed media over the years, I found from my conclusions that the more children consume different media the unhappier and antisocial they become. In the report it talks about children aged 5-15 year old having access to tablets/iPads at home and spending more time online, particularly on social media. This relates to my secondary research as I found out that, young children spend almost eight and a half hours a week online and how 72% of children under eight have used a mobile device. One of the most interesting information I found while conducting my secondary research is ‘More children now live in a household with a tablet than any other technology media devices’. This differentiates with my primary research, but it does not contradict to the report as children aged 5-15 spend the majority of their time online.                                                                                           Overall, the conclusions that I have drawn from both from my primary and secondary research partly support the 2014 OFCOM report, as it talks about how children from aged 3-15 like to consume the media and spend their time online, mostly on social media. However, it also contradicted the report in some areas where it spoke about how much time that children spend watching Television on their TV.               

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