Research Project - Artefact 6 Ideas

For my final artefact I want to sum up and bring together all my previous artefact's, and come to some sort of conclusion to how the issue of online piracy can be successfully tackled. I think the best way for me to do this is by producing a research document, that looks into strategies that were used previously and ones that are being used now, to ones that are newly being introduced and compare their success rates.

I think I can also look to where the future of online TV and content is leading to with its association with online piracy. I will need to look into new laws and legislations being introduced and how they affect it. I believe the new Digital Economy Act enforced in the UK last year (2010) will play a part in the argument for stopping pirates and prosecuting them for future decrease in piracy.

For this, I will need to do thorough research to come to a strong conclusion that justifies its findings.

Research Project - Artefact 4 Evaluation

For my fourth artefact, I set up a series focus groups in the well-known school called the Nottingham Academy, with the time I had there as part of my PGCE work experience. The aim of this artefact was to see whether students were being made aware about the issue of piracy at school and the role teachers had in this.
It presented a class of twenty-two sixth form students with three popular anti-piracy adverts by to watch and followed by them completing a short questionnaire with feedback. They were also shown an anti-piracy advert I produced as part of this. From the class, 82% of students had never seen these piracy warning videos before.
Most students in the class were aware of what online piracy was and 91% of them admitted to downloading content without paying for it. When the students were asked whether these videos will make them change their minds and stop them from downloading illegally in the future, 21 out of the 22 students said it would not.
These videos were then presented to a series of teachers. I specifically picked teachers that could relate online piracy to their subject of teaching. I showed the videos to a head of Media Studies, a Media Studies teacher, and two heads of ICT for year eight and eleven. When asked whether the issue of piracy is in any way made aware to their students in their subject of teaching, 100% of the teachers answered no.
This is a clear indication that more needs to be done in schools to make children aware about the issue of online piracy, which may help in tackling the issue in some way. My next artefact will interview a film industry expert and see what measures they have in place to tackle this issue.

Research Project - Problem

For my third artifact, I initially had the idea to look into how easy it is to download content from the internet. This followed up from the results gained from the diary in the previous artifact about time-shifting in TV in the UK and US. This artifact would include two users; one a regular online TV consumer and one that isn't and get both to download a video online after broadcast in the US to see ho quick they can get it.

However, after talking to my tutor Danny, I realised that I could not get my participants to do this as it would not comply with ethics for my research. Therefore, after several discussions I decided to continue the same experiment, but only having the users 'locate' the certain video file online rather than download. I think this will work well and I have got two people lined up to do this experiment.

Research Project - Evaluation 2

This is the evaluation for the 2-week diary of television viewing habits I collected for two students:


For my second artefact I collected a two-week television diary from two students; one was 20 years of age and the other 30. I have followed this up from results on my questionnaire that showed me that most television is consumed by students; therefore
I decided to get a wider age range to compare.

These results show that the younger student watched a huge amount of pirated/illegal content online whereas the more mature students didn’t consume any content online. I believe this may be due to young people, especially students, being more computer-active and having knowledge of software allowing them to download content for free.

The 20 year old student watched thirteen programmes online that were not yet aired in the UK, in the two-week period. These included American TV series, which were ahead of schedule by as much as 6 weeks. For example, the weekly show 90210 in the UK is currently on Series 3, Episode 9. However, the student had already watched up to Episode 15 online. I believe this shows a huge problem with the programme time-shift between the UK and US and the impact this could have on viewing figures.

The 30-year old student spent a lot less time watching programmes compared to the younger student. The 30-year old student also tied themselves to the main free channels which where BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, and Channel 4. The times they watched their programmes were either afternoon or evening, whereas the younger student had a wider mix of timings for their viewing.

The schedule for the 20-year old student was more fixed as they watched the same programmes daily on the allocated times, both online and offline. For example, Eastenders was watched every day and if it was missed; online catch up services were used.

Research Project - Artefact 2

For my second artifact I have collected a two-week diary from two students, one ages 20 and the other 30 to get a wider student age range following from my questionnaire.

Here is an image of the tables showing the results:
(sorry about the quality, couldn't get a table into here - click image to view bigger)


Diary of the 20-year old student:
























Diary of the 30-year old student:

Research Project - Artefact 1 (re-done)

So, I have had my questionnaire checked over. A few minor mistakes, and one question was left out. I think it is important to get a questionnaire checked through by several people before distributing it as the results gained will reflect a lot better. The previous link to the questionnaire is now CLOSED, and the following is the link to my first questionnaire artefact.

Here it is:

Online questionnaire

Feel free to fill it out!

Update: Research Project

Haven't blogged in a while. Completed my Research document, and work on plans for my artifacts over the Christmas holidays.

My research project topic is about Online TV. My research question is: 'How has online TV affected the user's viewing experience?'. This researches how online TV has changed users habits for watching their TV programmes. It looks into how online TV has changed viewing figures, how digital piracy links with this, and technoligies that are already implemented to make the user's viewing experience better. I have looked at the various onine TV platforms for my research and read two books (The Television Will Be Revolutionzed, By Amanda. D. Lotz and and a book called 'Online Television). A website that has helped me a lot during research is Pew Internet. It is a website that gathers surveys, and it contains alot of information about online teleivision statistics and figures.
This is an example of a survey that Pew Internet have done, this shows the increse in online video from 2007-2009 by age range:

--------Groups---------------------2007----2008----2009
1.------Young Adults 18-29---------76%-----72%-----90%
2.------Adults 30-49----------------57%-----57%-----67%
3.------Older Adults 50-64---------46%-----34%-----41%
4.------Seniors 55 and Up----------39%-----19%-----27%



















I have looked into different research methodologies and I have breifly got an idea of which ones would work with my topic of Online TV, but these may change as my artifacts come along. I want to include questionnaires, expert interviews, gainig information from television companies i.e. BBC, ITV, Channel 4 who also have an online tv plarform, peoples diary of viewing habits.