Lerissa's Media Research Blog

 The impact of the research will be assisting the media field with the effects of the National Lockdown on the virtual audience within the South African Community. These effects will assist with future research as well as understanding the audience within the current day.   The assumption is that the audience was affected by the National Lockdown and that the affects will linger on for a few years.  This will be caused by the ongoing pandemic as well as the psychological impact of a timely isolation period on the audience.  This has changed audience behaviour.  But our research wants to discover the why and how much of this change in behaviour.

For this part of the proposal, I will be looking at the human resources needed, the time-frame for the project and the preliminary reading that needs to be done for the research project.  For this project, I will need additional help with the following sectors: Firstly, I would need a source/sources to verify the questionnaire, thus doing a pre-test to check for any errors or bias in my questionnaire layout and questions. This will happen before the questionnaire will be distributed. I will gather these sources through academia and non-academic channels to accurately acknowledge any errors.  Secondly, I would need a source to check the data that I have captured from the questionnaires.  This will assist in the accuracy of the data captured to confirm that all data that was gathered has been properly managed and captured. This source would need to be of an academic background and be able to understand my research topic and process. Time Management The time frame of the stu...

 To analyse the data for this research project, I will firstly go through the self-administered questionnaire data that I have received and note any major pitfalls or redundancies. Furthermore, I would need to look at any errors of the population sample that might have come through, such as South Africa Residents that might not have been stuck in South Africa during any of the different levels of the lockdown.  Any participants that might be out of the viable age range etc. I will then read through the data again to scan for any trends or patterns within the date and prioritise any groupings.   Then, I will process and organise the data into a readable Excel spreadsheet to have a more focused look at what questions were answered with what and how many participants answered with the same ideas in mind.  Thus, comparing the sources and further identifying patterns and reasons behind the patterns. Lastly, I will present the data and findings for my research report....

Survey Research is a method for collecting and analyzing social data via highly structured and often very detailed interviews or questionnaires. (Berger, 2014, p. 248) For the purpose of this research design, a survey methodology will be used to collect data.  The intended survey will be done via a self-administered questionnaire that will be distributed through an online platform. The purpose of choosing this design compare to other methods, for example, quantitative interviews, or quantitative content analysis is that the information gathered from the population will be a larger amount of data that will be easier processed.  Within this study and the factor that the phenomenon has not been dealt with in such a way, the capturing of greater numbers would assist in a more accurate and informative prediction in the future. A self-administered questionnaire is an inexpensive method to gather data.  It is advantageous in essence that the questions can be very personal and al...

For the research design, I have decided to proceed with a cross-sectional quantitative research design. This method is best suited for the study as we explore the patterns of the audience and the psychological influence throughout the levels of the lockdown. This method has been chosen above a mixed-method or a qualitative approach as due to the data that needs to be collected.   The more data the more accurate the patterns and the better the future prediction of audience research.   The main goal of this study would be to investigate how the patterns of the audience changed and developed over the period and to understand what the influence of the South African National Lockdown Levels would be on the audience in the field of online entertainment. I will consider how a quantitative research design will assist in understanding the online media users and how they were influenced by the South African National Lockdown Levels. The goal of the research would be to predict...

For this blog, I will be focusing my attention on the literature that has been written on: Media Audiences The effects of isolation and depression on audience activity But first I have to explain the details of the phenomenon to assist with background information. The Phenomenon: COVID 19 in South Africa When the first case of the pandemic was encountered in South Africa, no one could have imagined how fast the state of the country would change. Within two weeks the South African Government announced a national lockdown with the almost immediate effects of isolation greatly changing the patterns of consumers. With no way of participating in social events or social gatherings, people as social beings relied on the only way to interact with others: Social Media and Online entertainment platforms. With this onset, I tried to look at the previous global pandemic that influenced the world in such a way as the current pandemic. This was the 1918 Pandemic of the H1N1 Virus, according to the C...