TASK 3 ‘What I learnt from audience feedback”

To Asses the audience feedback we took data from various sources – youtube, focus group, our peers and our family. I tried to use open questions throughout and realised this was a small-scale trial of our pop video and ancillary products.

Our target audience was primarily to a female audience aged between 20-60. This aged target is because folk music tends to be enjoyed by older aged groups. According to Billboard and NME folk music is especially strong with the over 35’s and is growing I’m popularity with those in there 20’s. This is why we aimed at this audience.

The Jictar social scale can be applied. The ABC areas were are target audience as again the magazines say that these social categories are drawn to folk music. Category A is the wealthy and the educated. Category B is the educated but not necessarily wealthy such as teacher, managers and lawyers. Category C is the skilled working class who have some education but probably not to a degree level. In terms of social class and gender this was our target audience.

We put our music video up on the hurtwood youtube account to get feedback and see how many hits we would get. The video was up for 2 weeks until the band decided there were a few changes that they wanted to be made, which resulted in the video being taken down. During the 2 weeks we got 178 hits but no comments. As a result this was quite difficult to get some feedback from the public, so we therefore decided to do a focus group.

The points that we wanted to address to the focus group was, did they enjoy it? Did they understand the message being portrayed or was in not clear ? Representation and narrative of the performance and how might it be improved ?

With the focus group we took 12 AS students aged 17,8 girls and 4 boys and 4 A2 students aged 18 2 boys and 2 girls, to get a balance and perspective of our pop video. We then showed the group our pop video and then asked a series of 11 questions towards the pupils to get their feedback from the video. This came across as a lively discussion between our group and the students, which was very helpful towards our audience feedback.

The ten questions that we asked were -

1. What did you think of the video overall ?
2. What message do u think was being portrayed ?
3. Do you agree with this message ?
4. What narrative do you believe was being shown ?
5. How is each member of the band represented ?
6. Do you think they have the potential to be stars ?
7. Is the video entertaining ?
8. Do you identify with any of the band members?
9. What do u think could be improved ?
10. Did you find the spinning distracting
11. Out of 10 what would you give it?

The overall response that we got from the focus group was good feedback , they all liked the pop video. Some answers that we got were - Did they have the potentionl to be stars ? Vibrant and vivacious Mimi 17 from Sussex said 'no, maybe in a different country, but the band looked quite random and european. What did you think of the video overall ? Bubbly Charlie 17 from london said 'couldnt understand the words and the spinning made me feel quite dizzy afterwards' What do you think could be improved ? quiet will 17 from east london said 'More time on their faces, slower spinning to see the image clearer and possibly stop spinning after a while to allow the audience to understand what it going on' We then asked the group to give us a rating out of 10 , of which 14 out of 16 rated it a 8/9 and 2 rated it 6.

Blumler and Katz had a theory of 4 broad needs fulfilled by watching TV:

1. Diversion - a form of escape or emotional release from everyday pressures.This part of Blumler and Katz does apply to my pop video as the performance is a form of escape for the audience into a happy, carefree world.
2. Personal Relationships- companionship via TV personalities and characters, and socialabilty through discussion about TV with other people.
3. Personal Identity - the ability to compare ones life with the characters and situations within programs, and hence explore personal problems and perspectives. The audience can identify with the members of the band, perhaps envy them and enjoy the fun they are having in there performance. Our series of closups of the band having funn stresses this. The tracking shots that circle the band stress the intimacy , the closeness that we wanted to create for the band, with the audience.
4. Surveillance - a supply of information about 'whats going on in the world'

Stuart Hall had a theory offering 3 positions for an audience to take differnet meanings from whatever film or pop video they watch. These are :

1. Dominant - where the audience accepts the viewpoint of the producers (sometimes known as the preferred meaning). In our pop video our preffered meaning was that our band was having fin and saying that life can be good. Of our 17 focus group members, 13 agreed and understood the prefered meaning. Nial, 17, said ' good band. good atmosphere.'
2. Negotiated - Where the ideological content is altered to fit with the audience's own viewpoint. Of our 17 focus group members, 3 thought that the pop video shows women in a sexist and demeaning way, which was a negotiated meaning.
3. Oppositional - where the dominant viewpoint is understood but contested and a reading which opposes it is produced. One of our focus group did not like the video at all.