Applied Media Research - Focus Group

In this lecture we decided this would be a good time to conduct a focus group. We had a lot of planning behind this because we wanted to film the whole thing; which we did!
Basically, we wanted 3 boys and 3 girls to participate in the focus group so that we could look at differences in gender. We got them to use 3 websites and search all of the online content possible on those sites. The sites were The Walking Dead, Doctor Who and Breaking Bad; the three main shows that we are researching for the presentation. The idea was to get them to just experience what these TV shows sites had to offer; they had 5 minutes on each site to do so. Here is a diagram of the set up we had:

Throughout the focus group I made notes on what each participant was doing to see what they were interested in most. I also made a note of what order they used each website:

During the whole focus group, I took photographs of the participants so that we would have evidence of the focus group incase we didn't end up making anything with the footage. Here are some photographs:

 After they had participated in all 3 activites, we ask them some questions to see what they liked, disliked and what they gained from using these three websites. Here are the questions we asked each participant:

1. Which online experience did you prefer out of the three?
2. Do you think the online experience makes you more involved in the show?
3. Do you like having the option to watch extra content online?
4. What online content did you enjoy the most?
5. Do you generally use online content for the shows that you watch?
6. Rate all three online experiences out of ten.
7. What do you think you gained from the whole experience?

We chose a variety of questions to do with the focus group and some general questions to see what males and females think of online content and multiplatform media.

My Reflection

From the focus group we were aiming to gain knowledge of the differences between male and female participants in their habits with multiplatform media. From this focus group I think we have done just that, we gave each participant the questions to answer and they all answered them with truthful, thought out answers. We gave them the chance to add more comment at the end but none of them chose to. I don't think it was a boring focus group, because each participant seemed to enjoy looking through the various online content that was given. I really hope that we can make a film with the footage we collected because this would be a unique thing to have in our presentation. One thing that we could have done to improve the experience was to have better laptops or MacBooks because the old laptops unfortunately made some of the content slow. We should have also made better signs for the laptops so the cameras could see the names of the shows clearer.

You Learn Something New Everyday

Focus groups are a great way to collect research because they are more personal and qualititative than just handing out questionnaires. We were able to witness the process of thought and navigation whilst the participants used the media they were given. I would definitely use focus groups again!

Speak Soon!