Blog Task 3: Audience – What I learnt from my audience feedback:

To evaluate audience feedback we took data from various sources. Some of these sources included a focus group of which we asked questions and family members who gave feedback. Throughout showing people the video I used open questions and realised this was a small scale trial of the video and the ancillary products.

Our target audience was A, B and C on the Jictar scale. We found through research and first-hand knowledge that bluegrass music appealed to more educated people who were ambitious. This maybe because the music is less easy to listen to and requires a bit more thought to get your head around the instrumentation and structure. Bluegrass music tends to attract an older audience as well. The people who listen to this type of music tend to be 35 or older. Bluegrass can appeal to both genders as it is purely judged musically and not on image.
We wanted to address a few points to the audience such weather they enjoyed the viewing or not and did they understand the message that we were trying to get across. The message of our song was about a girl who was running around recklessly and not thinking about the consequence. We tried to portray this through the spinning of the camera and the lively live performance.

For our focus group we had a group of intelligent and active 17 year olds. We had 11 people in our focus group. 4 of these people were girls and the other 7 were boys. We decided to have an open discussion with the focus group rather than a questionnaire as we felt they could express themselves more freely with speech. We also thought that this would be a good idea as a more serious approach would be taken if we spoke to them and this would give us better answers. At the start of the focus group we showed them the video so that is was fresh in their minds. After that we had a list of 10 questions prepared to ask. As we asked the questions we encouraged them to talk honestly and freely as we wanted the best feedback possible. If someone had an opinion about something then we would ask “does anyone disagree with this statement”.

The questions we asked were:
What did you think of the video overall?
What message do you think was being portrayed?
Do you agree with this message?
How is the each member of the band represented?
Did they think you had the potential to be stars?
Is the video entertaining?
Do you identify with any of the band members?
What do u think could be improved?
Did you find the spinning distracting?

The best responses were:
Do you identify with any of the band members?
No
Too old
Too niche market and to related.

Do you agree with this message?
Yes it looked like they were having fun

What message do you think was being portrayed?
Having a good time,
Fun and Care free

Did you find the spinning distracting?
Yes

Out of 10 what would you give it?

9/8/7 majority over 5 - only one said under 5 of which said 4
We tried to use the theory of Blumler and Katz on ‘uses and gratifications’ to asses our audience response. Blumler and Katz say that audiences respond in 4 ways. The question was did ours respond to our pop video in this way. Blumler and Katz listed 4 broad needs which need to be fulfilled by watching TV.

These are:
1. Diversion – a form of escape or emotional release from everyday pressures.
2. Personal Relationships – companionship via TV personalities and characters and sociability through discussion about TV with other people.
3. Personal Identity – the ability to compare one’s life with the characters and situations within programmes and hence explore personal problems and perspectives.
4. Surveillance - a supply of information about ‘what’s going on’ in the world.

Our video demonstrates diversion as it can be seen as an escape from everyday realities. This is displayed by the mise en scene having the same person in it twice. This would be impossible in real life however due to editing software we are able to create images that would otherwise not be possible. Our entire group agreed that the pop video was highly entertaining. Blumler and Katz say that a media text has to occupy the viewer for 70% of the time to be diverting. The 4 girls all agreed that they did not concentrate for 70%, however they still believed that they were diverted. The 7 boys all said that they were occupied for over 70% of the time.

Stuart Hall explains that there are different ways that the audience can interpret the product. There is a preferred meaning, a negotiated meaning and an oppositional meaning. Our video is aimed at a niche audience who like bluegrass music. This is usually people who are over the age of 35. An oppositional audience will oppose to the music as they would prefer something more commercial and easy to listen to. A negotiated audience will understand why people like the music however they will not choose to listen to it on a regular basis. A preferred audience will love the music and choose to listen to it on a regular basis.