In the past two decades, big data has been offered as a means for more exacting
viewer profiles in the streaming content landscape. Media measurement suppliers, from
custom research houses to Nielsen, have scrambled to align different, sometimes
incompatible, data streams and to develop new media metrics to account for all the
prospects in digital viewership. These moves privileging quantitative data to explain the
behavior and choices of the viewer appear to leave a reduced role for qualitative
research methods. Even burgeoning methods looking at individual viewers, such as
biometrics and neuroimaging, rely on gathering quantitative data as a means of
explanation. In the pre-digital landscape, qualitative methods, from focus groups to
ethnographies and in-depth interviews, played a larger part in the audience research
marketplace. While the delivery method and formats have shifted, entertainment still
relies on character, storytelling and connecting emotionally with a media text. All these
issues can be gauged in a more meaningful way through qualitative research. This
presentation addresses the role of qualitative research in a digital media environment
increasingly defined by media metrics. Without diminishing the value of the developing
quantitative audience metrics and methods, the goal is to understand what can be
gained by returning to specific qualitative research approaches to understand the new
world of multiple screens, multitasking, social media marketing, and fragmented
viewership.
Bio:
Justin Wyatt is Chair of Communication Studies at the University of Rhode Island. He
worked professionally for 15 years on both the client and supplier sides of the media
market research industry. His book, Creating the Viewer: Market Research & the
Evolving Media Ecosystem (2024), considers market research methods and protocols in
the digital television marketplace. He has published on media marketing, history and
industrial practice over the past three decades. He holds a PhD in Film and Television
Studies from UCLA and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of
British Columbia.