Assignment 4

So the second term is whizzing by at a tremendous speed and we're onto our fourth design studies assignment. For this one we were asked to continue our primary researching techniques and carry out a number of face-to-face interviews with people we did not know on our chosen subject, the reason they were strangers was to ensure their answers were not influenced by the fact they knew us.

So I decided to ask the question, "How do people access the news and obtain information on current issues in the 21st century? And if or how their views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with?" This is carrying on from some secondary research I carried out last term on a similar subject.

First of all I had to think very hard about the questions I was going to ask, I had to be careful to not limit the responses to one word, like yes and no. And I carried out a pilot test on my brother to check the questions.

I asked three males age ranging from 20-50 years and a female aged between 20-25. When asked What is the last news story you remember hearing/reading/seeing, do you remember where you head/read/saw it? Two out of the four interviewees said the murder of MaryMcLaren, one of the male(aged 40-50) subjects saw it on Reporting Scotland (TV) and the other female interviewee read the story on the internet although she could not remember where. The news that Facebook were not going to place a "panic button" on their site was the last piece of news male(20-25) remembered and male(40-50) remembered a video of a Lorry pushing a car along a motorway as the last think he remembers seeing on the BBC news website.

When asked if they had discussed this story with anyone female(20-25) said she had talked about the murder case with her boyfriend, likewise male(40-50) discussed the story of the murder with his wife. Male(20-25) however did not discuss the Facebook panic button story with anyone and male(40-50) had not discussed the video however was thinking of posting it on Facebook.

Three of the interviewees listed Facebook within their top three websites, They also listed, Google, Twitter, Google Reader, ifanboy.com, BBC, The Chaos Engine and another German social networking site (one of my subjects was German).

The subjects favoured radio stations were, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio 4, Wave 102 (he claimed it was only for the traffic updates!), Classic FM and Tay FM. Only one of the interviewees said he did not listen to any radio stations.

Two of the subjects do not read a newspaper regularly, but both claim to read news online, primarily though the BBC news website.

Another of the subjects, male(40-50) reads the Guardian every day, his partner also reads the Guardian, although he said that she mostly only read the magazine supplement. He did however say that he discussed his views on news and current affairs with his wife.

The male(20-25) subject only occasionally read the Guardian, and stated that his parents bought the Daily Express, he does believe he interacts on a daily basis with people who hold the same opinions and views to him and discusses his views with them.

The German female subject stated that she talks with her friends in Germany on matters regarding politics however she does not know enough about British politics and couldn't tell me if she socializes with people with similar beliefs to her in Scotland as she does not discuss her views with them.

One of the male(40-50) subjects believes he does not socialize with anyone who holds similar opinions and views to him and only occasionally discusses these matters with them.

All four of the subjects confirmed that the primary medium which they obtained the majority of information on current news stories was though the internet, there was not a large amount of variation of locations, the BBC News was very popular and Google Reader/RSS feeds coming second.

From my research I can conclude that the majority of people I interviews use the internet to access news stories and obtain and share information on current issues. Only one person still bought a newspaper everyday and even he supplemented the information with further reading from internet news sites. From my results I would state that people's views are not influenced by others around them. However although my research has been insightful I do not believe it is conclusive, as only four people have been interviewed as I feel if I was to do a second round of interviews I would be better prepared with more in-depth questions as I've now had the time to reflect on my first results and can think of further questions. Another factor is that I wouldn't be as nervous asking the interviewing strangers a second time as I have gained knowledge and experience from this assignment.

I therefore think more research has to be carried out wither people's views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with.

We carried out a class discussion which was interesting to hear others results and views on their findings as we had all done different questions and subjects. It turned into a really interesting talk about all our topics and we started adding our own opinions and ideas.