Exam Question 1

What are the key issues raised in the article and how has qualitative and quantitative research been applied to explore them?

The Ofcom 2014 report raises some key issues in their article, the underlining results indicate that there are 'Almost twice as many children are going online via a tablet' leading to and increase in of tablet ownership within the 5-15 age bracket of children as presented in figure 1, which displays the availability of key media platforms. Furthermore, there has been a negative relapse effect beginning to occur in other different sectors of the media industry for example Television and more evidently radio which are also stated in the article. Through the likes of In-home Qualitative interviews Ofcom state that parental figures of children 'Express concern about the media content their child has access to', corresponding to the fact that 'Nine in ten parents mediate their child's access to the internet'. To contrast the negative connotations of access to the internet, quantitative survey's have highlighted 'children are making more judgements about the truthfulness online', conveying their ability of applying critical thinking to situations and teasing the active audience theory where an individual that is using social can interpret the content they are seeing in their own way. Moreover, 'in comparison to 2013 it appears that 8-11 year old's are less likely to believe the information they see on websites used for school work or homework is true'. Another key issue raised is 'Word of mouth is important when discovering online and TV content', the Quantitative in-home tracking survey research data is evident through the responses 'when the question was asked "Fun things like hobbies or interests" 33% of 12-15 year old's turn to google for accurate information, 26% YouTube and 18% social media' Impulses both the Hypodermic and Effects model theories as  the audience’s consumption of media text will lead to a domino effect by influencing their behaviour. Not only this but hints at an internet/social media hierarchy where children are more likely to do something because someone of more importance or 'higher status quo' said so.

The introduction of tablets and smartphone has allowed on-demand streaming services via the internet such as YouTube which has been beginning to boom. Figure 9 presents the results of a mass quantitative data survey graph results conducted by Ofcom, there has been a fall in television's, radio and games console media types within children's bedrooms consecutively from the year 2007 onward to 2014. 'Games consoles are the second most common type of media present in children's bedrooms' is important to know because although it has seen decline the fact it is a media type second most frequent to be found in a child's bedroom hints at a contradiction which needs to be explored. However, the article does state that boys preferences to games are more evident than girls and the gender gap increases with age (47% vs 21% for 8-11, 52% vs.19% for 12-15). Overall suggesting girls are the rational cause of the downfall in games console media types within children's bedrooms. Additionally, it appears girls aged 12-15 are more likely to than boys to have any concerns about social media, this is the same age bracket in which the gender gap for games consoles broadens, signifying girls become more invested in social media than games.
In the article Ofcom has predominantly used in-home Tracking survey's which are quantitative data research methods and have limited qualitative data, causing their data to not be entirely conclusive.