Focus Group

As a part of our primary research we chose to use a Focus group, this where a variety of different people are asked for their opinion towards something. It is a quick way to find out different views on the medium that a corporation promote. The data gathered although it is qualitative data, can be vconverted into quantitative data, by categorising the types of question, shown through graphs and charts. These can be presented to give statisical information on demand and wants of the target audience. However to be accurate the environment has to be comfortable enough for the participants to answer honestly.  There are of course some pros and cons of using Focus groups.

Advantages include;

• Being able to interact with participants how are linked to the target audience, or other audiences that may have an interest.
• You are also able to ask questions specific to the music video that we wanted to produce, information like this may not be available or tailored to our project.
• you can pict up on subtle information unable by questionnaires, like body language and gestures, giving a fuller understanding.
• It is also cheap and time effective

Disadvantages include;

• Planning and putting together the focus group can be time consuming and parties may not turn up (often considered to be boring and pressuring by participants)
• Same of the sample group may be unrelated and give false or inaccurate answers which could throw the whole project.
• Reliability of answers.

We have hence decided to use a focus group, aswell as questionnaires over other forms of research and planning. We have decided to do this as the questionnaires can be used to gather mass of information but the reliabilty of the results can be questioned as people may fill in answers to speed up to interview process.The focus group will allow us to tailor the questions to be able to find ezactly what we want, like the most popular music genre to relax to. Therefore our focus group will be consisting of 6-8 participants aged 15-19, using a specific type of sampling, chosing the participants that we know and what music genre they prefer and therefore represent a differing view. This allows for criticism, we did not want people to tell us it was a great music video and a great idea, we wanted to gain their personal opinions in order to tailor to our main target audience aswell as complementing others.By doing this we feel we are able to obtain the most honest and critical views. This will enable us to form new ideas or adapt our ideas. Although this choice of sample is not the fastest way of finding participants nor is it the fairest as it is just as hard to generalise as an opportunity sample, but it suits the information we want to gather.

Questions we used,

1. What are the typical conventions of a rap music video?
2. Are women seen as a comodity in rap music videos?
3. Do you think all rap videos objectify or subjectify women?
4. Can you think of any rap videos that go against this convention?
5. Would you then say there is a niche for that type of video?
6. What typical iconography can be seen in a rap music video?
7. Can you think of any setting related to rap music videos?
8. Do drugs play a big role in the videos, do you think this has to be so?
9. What is your favourite rap music video? and Why?
10. Any rappers that go against normal conventions of a rap music video?

Our focus group