Media Research and Investigation

Research Proposal

Within this research, the topic that will be focused on is 'Children and Television'. This therefore coincides with the chosen research question which is 'Why are children's Television programmes in Britain so popular?'

The reason for basing this research on this question is due to the increase in children's television programmes from the 1980's to present day. This is now becoming even more visible than before on British terrestrial channels as well as on satellite/ cable channels.

It has been said that within children' television programmes in Britain, it represents a 'Great Tradition'. So in accordance to this research, there will be a focus as to what extent some programmes represents this view in relation to the quality, diversity and cultural identity of these television programmes.

As the focus already mentioned is on children, points will be derived in this research as to how broadcasters determine their target audience for specific children television programmes. As we all know through researches carried out in the past by sociologists 'child audience' clearly depends on a whole range of psychological, moral and ideological assumptions, and so these assumptions will have to addressed and analysed systematically in this research.

Also within this research there will be a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods used. Whereby one of the ways in which to gain some secondary information from, is through television programme ratings which is the most significant/ influential form of information, but on the other hand, has been condemned as unreliable.

There will be other research methods used such as survey research which will be combined with focus group research carried out children. Also there will be the use of Participant Observation which will be entailed with content analysis.

The use of the combination of these research methods will enable this piece of research to produce a better and deeper understanding of the topic focused on.

Bibliography

Buckingham, David - Children's Television in Britain: History, Discourse and Policy.

Gunter, Barry - Children and Television.

Buckingham, David - Reading Audiences: Young People and the media.

Robinson, Muriel - Children reading, Print and Television.

Hansen, Anders Et al - Mass Communication Research Methods.