Others can explain research techniques in more detail but it is worth mentioning here a few common pitfalls. If you, your colleagues and interested outside parties are going to take the study seriously you must avoid wasting time with pointless or leading questions. For example it is tempting to ask: “Do you agree that XXX FM is the best radio station?” Far more useful data would be achieved by saying: “Look at this list of radio stations that can be heard in this area. Could you tell me which one you personally like best?” And a survey on the station’s own website is not likely to produce any meaningful quantitative response to questions about station awareness and preferences, although it could give interesting insights into why people listen. Ideally respondents should not know which station is asking the questions until later in the survey.
For community media the real value of research lies in what it tells about what we should be doing in the future, rather than in its ability to give numerical values to what we have done in the past. In order to make good decisions for the future the manager needs to know about the perceptions, attitudes and feelings of their target audience. A handy and effective way of identifying such qualities is the focus group. Essentially a discussion between a small group of carefully chosen members of the public and a researcher usually referred to as a ‘facilitator’, lasting perhaps two hours, the focus group is encouraged to talk freely and openly about the matters under consideration. The members, typically between 6 and 12 in number, might be played recordings of particular stations, presenters or music and invited to express their feelings about them. Much of the success and value of focus group research comes from the skill of the facilitator in gently leading the discussion, they should not have an axe to grind and are often an independent professional researcher. While the session may be recorded – with the participants knowledge and consent – and might even be viewed by station management on a video monitor or through a one-way mirror, it is important that the station is not felt to be present in the room in order to avoid any psychological pressure on the group.
Particularly valuable in establishing perceptions about the actual or proposed programming or marketing of a radio station, the focus group can provide the manager with valuable insights into the ways people relate to the station and its competitors and thus with that most valuable commodity – ideas.
It is tempting to see the focus group as a cheap alternative to a questionnaire based survey, but in reality the careful selection of participants – to ensure they are representative of a certain group of listeners, ages or lifestyles – can require substantial effort. A good researcher is also required to provide a useful and fair interpretation of what the group said.
In the absence of formal audience research a small station can reasonably look for other measurable indicators of success. For example it is tempting to judge the popularity or success of a programme or feature by the quantity of audience response it stimulates. But is a ‘phone-in which generates a lot of calls necessarily a better programme than one that only has sufficient to get by? Often, as was demonstrated by the BBC and ITV premium-rate telephone scandals, the need to encourage the maximum amount of audience response can be detrimental to the long-term interests of the programme. It is quite possible to design a format which will generate the maximum number of texts, emails or telephone calls but which does not present the ordinary radio listener with a satisfying listening experience.
Fortunately the growing community radio sector has brought with it new approaches and tools for evaluating station performance and its longer term effects on the wider community – this is known as impact assessment. After all, for a community station audience figures are not the main indicator of success, of greater importance is the short and long term impact of the station on stakeholders whether they are listeners, members, programme makers, partner groups in the target community or funders.
Much of this research been developed by researchers and community media producers to evidence and evaluate the impact of station programming on issues like health education, poverty alleviation and regeneration.
The stations themselves can develop a ‘research culture’ and focus on the kind of questions they need to explore and the kind of evidence that will be most useful to them. At Radio Regen volunteers have been used to help the station conduct research through collecting evidence for case studies of the impact on station members and groups they work with. Some stations are using blogs and user generated content to do this. In a web chat about demonstrating audience impact, Phil Korbel summed up how and why community stations should value this kind of research:
It’s clear that we should be doing research as a vital component of our sustainability, and that it should be built into the fabric of the everyday activity at a station rather than being an add on. It works to build our case as a sector and for stations to get money. Listener figures are important – but we should look at impacts and qualitative approaches too – to back the idea that our different relationship with our audience pays dividends to funders.
Continue on to the Brian’s suggestions for the future of research
No Comments, Comment or Ping