Blog Comments ( post 8)

This week we need to comment on each others blogs about qualitative research. As we have established, qualitative research is a method of research that emphasizes the participant's perceptions and attitudes. It is used many times to gain insights into people's  behaviors, concerns, beliefs, aspirations, and motivations alike. I personally spoke about focus groups in my previous blog relating to qualitative research, but Lisa's Blog spoke of a different form of qualitative research. She spoke about ethnographic research, and gave a real life spin on it. Ethnographic research is the observation of customs, beliefs, and behaviors of a certain culture or group for an extended time.

Lisa spoke about a television serious which is now being aired on MTV. Although MTV does not usually excite me, this show is different. Lisa wrote about The World of Jenks. Jenks is actually performing ethnographic research himself. He is actually  placing himself into real life situations within other cultures or unfamiliar situations to gain an understanding of the way others work. Lisa does a great job relating The World of Jenks to Ethnographic researching, and it now leaves that impression in my mind, that what he is doing in his show is ethnographic research. Lisa asks if she would let Jenks spend a week conducting ethnographic research with me. I would have to say maybe at this point, only because recently he has had some truly inspirational people on his show, and I would have to step up my game to be on it as well.

Straying from ethnographic research, was Francesca's Blog on social media. Social media can be used as a qualitative research method, and Francesca is proving why it may even be more effective than a focus group. Francesca goes on to speak about how Facebook, and Twitter are great vehicles for gauging such things like audience awareness, and their attitudes of course. She uses a nice example by sampling a new movie that is coming out. As an example she speaks about how a production company may release their movie trailer on YouTube, and on Facebook/ Twitter by adding a link. These links usually come equipped with comment and text boxes where fans can respond to the posts. This was certainly a great idea. At least I think it is a great idea because I find my self doing things such as commenting on movie trailers myself, especially on Facebook with friends and strangers. 

An example of a film that is advertising on Facebook is The Town. This movie has set up its own page, and allows users to " like" and comment on the film as well. I think that this is a great mode for advertising and public relations specialist to capitalize on.