Primary Research

Primary research is where you find out things yourself and use them, you don't get the information off somebody else/ other people. In a way you're airing your opinions of things and the facts you may have found out. It's original information. For example, if you were to ask people questions by getting them to do a survey then that information would be primary because you came up with the survey and you're using the results.


Below is a video link of how you can identify primary research. It also includes two 'test' articles in which there is then a discussion to decide whether the articles are actually primary research.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTd_EcrUtZc

When doing your own research, it can have some downsides as well as ups. For example, carrying out the research yourself can be more expensive and time consuming. However you would know the research is reliable as it would be carried out by yourself.

Primary research is important in the media industry as if you want to appeal to your audience, whether it's an item or a program on television, you want to appeal to the right type of audience, so by doing this research you can find out what age group likes the kind of things you create and whether it would sell. Another form of research is forums.


Primary research is tailored to a company's particular needs. Focus groups, surveys, field tests and observations are examples of primary market research. Internet forums are also used for research as you also get peoples opinions as it's their comments.

There are two types of primary research in the media world, exploratory and specific, exploratory research is open ended and helps you define things in detail and in an unstructured way. Specific research is where you have already found the problem/s out and do research into sorting/altering that specific thing.