Question

what is basic elements of media research elaborate it

Answer 1

Mass media and the media research organizations need such research findings for shaping the news products to be launched, programmes or software to be introduced, so that the popularity can be gauged effectively to make it a profitable proposition. Now-a-days a new trend has come into mass media, especially TV news bulletins. That is, the same person is required to perform as a newscaster or newsreader, researcher, correspondent or reporter etc. on a continuously changing basis. In the same way, research departments in news as well as programme organizations are assuming more and more importance these days. So, you can understand the importance of background research in mass media.

Types of communication research
Folkerts and Lacy state that the communication research begins with a paradigm, which is a set of assumptions about the nature of human behaviour. A variety of paradigms are available for scholars to use. Two paradigms dominate mass communication research. One is social science approach, which emphasizes on the use of theories building and empirical measurement to learn about human behaviors. The other approach is the critical approach that seeks an understanding of issues that are raised by connections between media and society.The communication research can be broadly divided into two types. One is basic research and the other is the practical research.
(a) Basic Communication Research: As its name indicates it is the basic communication research that deals with the development of a theory. This type of research is carried out by the communication scholars or the researcher to develop theories and to examine various phenomena, exploring the relationship between the people and the media. For example, we can mention some research on conflict reporting and the impact of the community based reports on the general civilians. Another example, we can mention here is the impact or the effectiveness of some good programmes on children.(b) Practical research: We know that applied research aims at finding a solution for an immediate problem facing a society or an organization. Practical communication research can be compared with the concept of applied research. Media organizations conduct practical research in an effort to understand what content and services their audiences want and need. The goal of this types of research is to predict the consumer behavior for the media organizations to increase their audience. The film industry conducts research to determine the popularity of heroes and heroines. Folberts and Lacy stated that the same research topic can be examined by the basic and practical research. To determine how advertising affects voting can be considered as a basic research when it is done by political scientist or can be considered as a practical research when it is done by campaign consultants.They said that mass communication research begins with a paradigm, which is a set of assumptions about the nature of human behavior. We can divide the approach of communication research into two. These are–
(i) Social science approach: For building an empirical measurement to learn about human behavior, we can use the social science approach in the communication research. This approach involves studies such as experiments and surveys.
(ii) Critical approach: This approach seeks an understanding of issues that are raised by the connections between media and society. To achieve the goals by using this critical approach the scholars and the researchers use a variety of techniques and have different economic and cultural perspectives.Different types of research methods have been employed by the communication scientists. Both the qualitative and quantitative methods are used. By now you must be familiar with these terms. In the previous unit we have discussed these methods while enumerating the various types of research. Again, in this context we are going to analyze these methods again. Scholar Ronald Taylor defines qualitative research as “any systematic investigation that attempts to understand the meaning that things have forindividuals from their own perspective”. Quantitative research, on the contrary, involves the use of statistical analysis with units of content or observations about individual behavior or attitudes. In the academic research both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to understand human behavior.Qualitative research concentrates on real life settings and content. Examples of qualitative method include participatory observation, textual analysis and in-depth interviewing. On the other hand quantitative research is based on the measurement of the quantity. It helps researchers to make general statement as about larger groups such as the voter behavior of a country. In communication research content analysis is also used in a wide manner. We will discuss in detail the content analysis in the later stage.CHEERS MARK IT AS BRAINLIEST ANSWER BRO........