5. The Research Design

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 future behavioural patterns from such phenomena. Thus the research question that will be investigated is:

How did online entertainment users experience change in behaviour during the different stages of the South African National Lockdown?  

From this question, the following research statement is made:

An Evaluation of the Impact of The South African National Lockdown Stages on Online Entertainment Users: A Quantitative Cross-Sectional Survey Design.

The research approach will be descriptive in nature, as the aim of the study would be to measure the subjects once and getting descriptive information about the phenomena and the influence on the audience. 

The reasoning that there could not have been a measurement taken before the time. 

This would have been the ideal scenario, but the timeliness of the phenomenon happened within a matter of days without the chance for any researchers to get proper measurements for research prior to the phenomenon accept if it was based on prior studies done. 

The research will be based on a cross-sectional time dimension. The reason for this design is as previously explained, the time constraint of the phenomenon and the research will focus on a post phenomenon time frame. The survey will be sent out via an online platform and the data will be gathered within one week of distribution, to give the survey enough time for enough participants to participate.

Various methods fall within the focus of quantitative research thus assisting with different ways of gathering the data. For the purpose of the study, an experimental design and quantitative content analysis have been ruled out.

This study will be based on a survey design. Allen Et Al. explains “survey designs are similar in nature to opinion polls.” (2009) As the focus of the study is to gather information on the “opinion” of the media users, a survey-based design will be better suited. 

The survey will be distributed via the online platform, Survey Monkey.