Content Analysis & Visual Anthropology or Ethnography | Movie Viewing 'Avatar'

The third topic is about content analysis and visual anthropology and ethnography. I never knew what they were about before. Through some of my friends’ presentation and my teacher’s conclusions, now I understand a little bit more.

Content analysis in a brief way is to make an objective reasonings of a content by quantifying and analysing the presence of certain words or concepts within texts in a systematic fashion. In this case, text is defined broadly. It can be books, essays, discussions, theater, films, photos and many more. I changed my graduation project’s big theme. I decided to take the Arjowiggin’s brief because I feel more comfortable in it. The brief is about the power of paper in this social medias world. How to promote a social media through paper to people who only embracing technology. I choose Instagram as my client. So in my content analysis I can do so much more. For example, I can look at other designer’s work and what method they used before. In this case, I can see how YouTube promote their brand through paper. Sometimes YouTube would send a mysterious boxes to their influencers. The boxes contain invitations to their gathering or the other ones that contains book of appreciation of the influencers. It is like a thank you to the influencer for using YouTube to be a content creator. While in the other case, Instagram has done some stuffs for their influencers using paper. Instagram would send printed calendars full of photos from the social media every new year. The another one, Instagram would send an Instagram notebook to a new influencer. It makes content analysis is the tool that they describing their past experiences. There are elements to showcase their experiences. If many people using the same kinds elements, I should take a look whether it is effective or not for my graduation project. I should draw the relationship between the element and the effect. These are the elements, these are the effects. Which one is more successful? It just looks at the content. What does the content meaning to me and for my project. I think what YouTube and Instagram had done were successful. There is a possibility in marketing a social media through paper.

Visual anthropology and ethnography are both looking at culture and groups of people. It is to understand better such as walking in their shoes. In my graduation project’s case, I should look how people nowadays use their social medias everyday. I am one of them so I think it would be easier for me to do this brief. It helps me to get one more stage into it. Anthropology is similar to literature review but it looks more at images. It contains photos of my target audience. I choose Instagram as my client so I will look into photos that the people of Instagram uploaded and try to understand them. Some of them are still using papers to express their feelings. Such as the typographer, fashion illustrator, illustrator and many others. It is similar to ethic research but it is not really talking to people. It is looking at outside perspective, So through this research, I do not have to do interview. Ethnography is like a video research so it is an emic research. It is to see what is actually happening the time. Instagram just has a new version. Now people can do a live video and upload a story that will lasts twenty four hours. For my ethnography research, I can watch the live video that people are doing or just people’s story. In conclusion, I can do all the researches for my graduation project.

In the wake of viewing the motion picture Avatar, this motion pictures is truly appropriate for me to separate and comprehend the part in field examines, which there are three sorts of information gathering strategies. To start with, is the individual who is giving the data which called the witness. The individual who giving the data is truly appeared by the given a role as Neytiri, she is the one of the Pandora's indigenous individuals. She tries to help giving the analyst data who is Jack Sully by including him to the genuine experience on what the local is really doing. She showed Jack the dialect of the Na'vi, how to ride a steed, and their conviction. At that point the perceptive who is Jack Sully, he embeds himself to the Na'vi's live and partakes in their exercises. A short time later, when he has returned to his human body he records the majority of his finding in vlogs that is clarifies that he secured member perceptive. Furthermore, the last kind of information accumulation technique is the non members spectator who is Dr. Beauty Austine. Her part is exclusively to watch and take notes of the surroundings when she is in her Avatar frame. I comprehend that field studies is truly , well first time experience can give a fulfill result on the grounds that perceptive will truly comprehend the inclination, the genuine minutes, and feeling through the perception yet it's truly tedious.

Competitor Analyst & Target Audience Profiling or Persona

The next topic is about competitor analyst and target audience profiling or persona. At first, I did not really know what they really are and it was my group’s topic to present. Through researching on the internet and reading material from my lecture, I finally understand it a little bit more. They are in market research types. Market research is the process of collecting, analyzing and interpreting information about a market to help you to find out if there is a market for your proposed product or service.

Competitor analyst is an assessment of strengths and weaknesses of current and potential customers. In other words, competitor analyst is analyzing the competitive environment in which your business operates or wishes to operate. It understands the market. It is looking into other companies who are in the same market as you and some companies that might be entering the market later. It aims to establish a profitable and sustainable position against the forces that determine industry competition. It helps a business to choose their ways to compete with other businesses. Competitor analyst is like a strategic that can improve your position in the marketplace. Too much focus on the activities of competitors might result in a lack of innovation and unique identity in the market. So it is better to know until when and where to do the competitor analyst.

The next one is target audience profiling or persona. Target audience is a particular group at which a product or service is aimed. Target audience profiling is called as audience profile as well. It might include multiple target markets, which will likely have one or more demographic characteristics in common. It understands what is important and what motivates a business’ target audience. It is more into looking for what the customer wants or needs. After collecting the target audience profiling, it will continue to target audience personas. Target audience persona is an archetype, a fictional character profile of your ideal or typical customer. It is created based on the collected target audience profiling. It is great to go into details. However, one of the disadvantages is overuse or too much using personas.

I think that target audience profiling or persona is more important than competitor analyst because if I have a business, I will be more interesting in fulfilling what my customers’ needs rather than watching continuously my competitors. Competitor analyst is important as well but I will not spend too much time on it. In my graduation project, I will do target audience profiling or persona to know what people think about education. What the education need to improve, what they feel about education nowadays and other questions that are related to improve the education in the future. It helps me to know better and get some ideas from the problems that they might have. Because I need problems to have solutions. After that, I can create some personas that are interested in my graduation project. It helps me to know whether my graduation project is on the right track or it is still missing a lot of things. I am not sure in doing competitor analyst because I want to create something that is new to the education. Something that I can contribute to the future education. I might research on how other companies have done to make education better so I can avoid to do the same thing as what they have done. In conclusion, both are important. It is just the target audience profiling or persona is more worth to spend time on it than the competitor analyst.

Formative Research & Summative Research

I never really listened carefully to the lessons before. Through presentations from other classes’ and my classmates and also conclusions from my teacher, I get a better understanding of formative research and summative research.

I have learned that formative research is an exploration of the community in which an agency is situated and it helps agencies understand the interests, attributes and needs of the community. It is used to gain insight into the subject the project deals with and helps in problem identification and solving. Formative research is essential in developing programs as well as improving existing and ongoing programs. It is an objective of doing research. One of the main advantages is developing knowledge. One of the disadvantages is it is time consuming because mostly processes are followed monthly, weekly or even daily basis. It can be in any forms of methods as long as they have goals. It is included service, focus group, interviews, observations, anything. It can be done at the beginning and throughout the process of the project. Formative research gives you questions such as what is the objective? What are the critical ideas and point you want to make sure you reach? What are the key areas that you want to develop? What kind of formative research that can help you with that? It gives clues to what to do next or what are the ways to continue. The question for formative research is, “This is my objective, what are the ways?”.

The another one is summative research. It is done at the end of the project to determine the success of a particular program or activity, framing the outcome of the investigative process. One of the main advantages is it is a simplified information that is understandable for a mass audience. One of the disadvantages is it is not accurate which the mass audience will not be able to get every details of research conducted. It is not product oriented but it is more to concerning how people receive the product. The example is if I do a graduation project’s summative research, I will ask questions such as how many people go there? How many people read my creative process journal? What type of questions do the audience asks? The question for summative research is, “This is my objective, did I achieve the objective?”.

In my graduation project, I would like to do formative research. In a mean time, I am interested in doing the rethink of the future of the education topic. I would research on how the education is right now and how people feel about it. Is it good enough? Is it boring or even bad? Interviewing some people could give some ideas. But before that, I would ask myself about how I feel of nowadays’ education. I would make a mind map to solve how I think about education. Right now, I am still researching on the website. I read articles on education such as the stage of education today. I am not sure if I would do summative research for my graduation project. If I have enough time, I will do it. It is useful to see if my graduation project is a success to the public or it is only a so-so project. It could be a report that I could put it in my portfolio later. Summative research could give me a time to think and a self reflection after the project. It could be an example guidance for my next project so I could avoid some common mistakes. Both research are useful to me but I prefer to do formative research right now.