Audience Feedback

What have you learned from you audience feedback?

Collect a variety of feedback for your product from members of your target audience and from other audience deomgraphics on your blog, via YouTube or other sources.
Discuss how this feedback relates to your own view of the strengths and weaknesses of your product and use it to demonstrate Hall's concepts of preferred, negotiated and oppositional meanings.

For this part of our evaluative tasks, we created a survey online in order to gain audience feedback, this was so we could find out information more in depth in different parts of our pop video, for example, ‘What kind of mood do you think the video had?’ We asked a range of people between the ages of 12-47, however, due to our circumstances, being at a boarding school, the majority of our sample was between the ages of 16-18. Moreover, this is the target audience we were trying to aim for. So this was beneficial as we could find out more in depth information about how the audience were receiving our pop video. Here are some of the results we collected and how we interpreted them:

• 40% of people we asked thought the style of song ‘Bruises’ was a pop style – this is pretty much what we hoped, it is not a big pop act but it defiantly had some pop aspects to it.

• 15% of the people thought it was under the category of ‘Other’ – stating that it has a Folk and Country feel.

• The remaining 25% thought it was in the ‘Alternative’ category. To be honest I think the song has quite a unique feel – so it is understandable people believed it would fit into this category.

• 87% of the people we surveyed told us that our pop video was entertaining. From these 87% - it was noted that 70% of these believed the ‘boat scene’ was the most entertaining, with the performance section in the woods falling after that. (Katz and Blumner)

• 67% thought that the ‘bike scene’ was the aspect that people most disliked – to be honest I am quite surprised about this as we think that this element was quite ‘fun and quirky’, I believed it was a definite aspect that the audience would like as it fitted with their star image, e.g. the whole idea of autumnal, rustic feel. (Katz and Blumner)

• 100% of the people asked said that the video had a very happy and upbeat mood. As, most people gave a reason for this answer – and the general trend was because of the lead singers smile and her upbeat dance moves. This is a clear example of Audience Identification; this is the way in which audiences feel themselves connected to a particular media text, in that they feel it directly expresses their attitude or lifestyle. The lead singer, is continually smiling and looking directly into the camera, therefore, making the audience feel connected to the band, allowing them to empathise and may even feel it directly expressed their demographics. (Katz and Blumner)

• 84% of the audience said they would watch the video again after seeing it. Therefore, it is clearly a preferred reading in the eyes of Stuart Hall – they are then responding in the way that we wanted to when we created it.

• 41% of the people we asked said they would not go out and buy the CD after watching the video – a common reason for this was ‘I don’t actually like nor listen to this style of music’. Stuart Hall - Oppositional Reading

• 48% said they would not want to see the band live, again many people stated that the reason for this was the same as above. Also, another common comment was that they did not feel the band would be that great in concert. Personally I am not sure how to quite take these comments, as this is the bands image and style – but I guess this is open to interpretation. This is an example of audience foreknowledge, this is the definite information (rather than the vague expectations) which an audience brings to a media product, therefore this is the feeling they personally got from the video – how do they really know they will not enjoy the concert?

• After looking at our poster, 55% of the people asked said they would watch the concert based just on the poster alone. A few people commented saying ‘It is easy to identify the type of music from the poster’. This is very beneficial as it means that our poster has very much clearly representing the band and their star image. This is a clear example of audience engagement, as some people seem to be instantly attracted to the band without even knowing who are what they are, but it meets their expectations, therefore, they are immediately engaged to the product and would go and see the concert without even seeing or knowing the band. Although, this was probably due to the bright fonts and texts we used in a way of grabbing attention and making the audience engage with the product. Preferred Reading - Stuart Hall

• Of the 48% of the people who said they would see the band live, about 64% said they would buy the bands merchandise if available – with the majority of these being either a hoodies or posters.

• 72% of the people agreed with the bands star image that we had tried to create, saying that terms like youthfulness, originality and creativity are terms they would use to describe the bands star image. However, 8% of the people asked believed that the band had an anti-authoritarian attitude, something that we very much had no intentions in creating, but everybody is entitled to their own opinion. This again is a type of foreknowledge that the sample population have brought to the media product, it’s quite interesting that this kind of star image would be associated with our band; however, I can understand where they are coming from, as it would be expected of the norm of a young band. Preferred/Negotiated Reading - Stuart Hall