G324 Media Studies Evaluation - Question 3: What did you learn from your Audience Feedback? Joe Weston Candidate No: 4231 www.joewestona2media.blogspot.com

1. G324 Media Studies
Evaluation
Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Joe Weston
Candidate Number: 4231

2. What forms of Audience Feedback did I have?
An influential factor throughout the entire construction process for my A2
portfolio was my Audience Feedback. My Audience Feedback came in many forms
during the course of making my music video, informing my choices and
discovering what my particular audience wanted and hence, the expectations
within the genre. The types of audience feedback I had include:
 Initial Audience Research – Audience Profile
 Online Questionnaire - SurveyMonkey
 Physical Questionnaires
 Focus Group Feedback - Questionnaires and Face-to-Face comments
 Focus Group Feedback – Ancillary Texts
Each of these examples came at one of two main stages of production; up to and
including the first draft, and then the progress from the first draft to the final
cut. My audience feedback taught me a variety of things, allowing theoretical
media concepts to be seen in action, and how to generally improve my product
to make it as professional as it could be.

3. Initial Audience Research
and the impact this had on my feedback
The first step I took was researching my target audience, which although does
not classify as audience feedback itself, has a great impact on the entire process
of feedback from my questionnaire respondents and focus group.
The Audience Profile acts as a basis for all of the succeeding analyses. From it, I
discovered who my audience would actually be- summarised in my audience
profile as:
 Fans of different music genres: Acoustic, Pop Punk, Hardcore, Rock
 A mixture of teenagers, young adults and over 18s
 People of different lifestyles: Working, Studying, different interests.
This was appropriate as it meant that near enough all responses I received in any
form of feedback would be from this demographic and hence relevant to
improving my product. I constructed my product in a way which would have a
preferred reading (Hall, Reception Theory) that would appeal to the target
audience and their interests, within the genre. This meant, in turn, that the
feedback I received would suggest that I did not succeed in achieving this
preferred reading, and would need to make an adjustment to resolve this.

4. Online Survey Analysis
The first two questions help to form the basis of my questionnaire, age and gender. From my initial audience profile I
found that my artist appealed to both males and females almost equally, probably more in favour of males due to lyrical
content of him singing about relationship issues and love that would be about females. Also, as discussed above, the ages
do differ, but predominantly my artist appeals to young adults/teenagers and then some adults also. By distributing the
link on the two accounts I managed to gain some representation of different demographics. 78% of those who completed
the survey were 17 or 18, around my age, and I myself fit the audience profile well as I like the artist. There was a 52:48
(nearest %) split between males and females so I managed to get an equal voice from both genders, which is makes
responses more beneficial to me as I can make my video more appealing to both genders if opinions are shared.
I constructed an online survey, which I distributed through E-mail and personal social
network sites to ensure it reached the demographic outlined from my audience profile,
thus making feedback more appropriate and beneficial, and then constructed 9 questions
that would help me get a better understanding of how to construct my video. The
following is taken from my Survey Analysis post, with extra detail to highlight how the
research was beneficial as a form of audience feedback and what I learned from it; i.e.
the evaluation of its effectiveness.

5. Online Survey Analysis
For the third question, I asked what my audiences favourite genres were. I included a wide range of genres, but was also careful to not include so many genres, or specific
genres that were not relevant to my artist/audience profile. From my profile, I established Rock, Acoustic, Pop Punk and Post-Hardcore as the four genres that my
audience were most engaged with, from their Twitter pages and bios. 3 genres tied as the most favoured, on 58%- Indie, Rock and Acoustic, closely followed by
Singer/Songwriter. My artist, Abandoning Sunday, fits three of these four genres, showing the link between the demographics of the audience and their musical tastes,
i.e. what the more favoured genres are of today. For example, "Pop" ranks quite low, with about 25% saying they listen to modern pop music- what is more popular are
sub-genres such as Pop Punk, which has recently regained popularity, and is one the other genres that my audience profile includes. Metal and Post Hardcore, arguably
more niche genres, proved least popular, although I know from my audience profile that some people who listen to my artist do like this genre. However my audience is
far from a metal act and this graph shows that the new album, which features more rock and acoustic based tracks, will appeal to my audience, as will the track I have
been assigned for my music video.
I then asked how my audience consumed music. A sign of the times of the music industry at present is that Digital Downloads are most popular. This is actually quite
interesting as all of my artists EPs and Albums have been exclusively digital downloads, and downloads are exceeding CD sales. Next is YouTube, where 68% of those
surveyed say they use YouTube for music- this is where my video will be released, and Music Channels only achieved 32%, showing that my audience are used to viewing
music videos on YouTube and that this is the more common platform, as everyone can access it or post things to it.
From this I learned that my video would be most suited to a release on YouTube- an easy to use platform I am familiar with, that serves its purpose for a music video and
allows a wider audience to be reached. I also learned that conventionally, I would look into the aspects of rock tracks to determine conventions and codes that I would
apply to my own video to make it more appealing to my audience, resulting in the analysis of UK rock bands Deaf Havana and Lonely the Brave. I also investigated pop
punk band Real Friends’ digipak to see if I could include conventions of other appealing genres within my work to make it more engaging, and hence was able to establish
some themes that are conventional within the genre to explore in my video, and allow the audience to engage with them as they choose, pertinent to the Uses and
Gratifications model, which highlights the importance of audience engagement and what audiences do with media texts.

6. Online Survey Analysis
Question 5 was aimed to split my audience. Those who attended lots of live concerts could possibly be better for a focus group as they
will probably be more passionate about music, whereas those who don't attend many account for the other side of this argument and
what those who don't go to concerts think, and their interests. I found from my audience profile that my audience lead a variety of
lifestyles and this question helps to account for this. This was significant and beneficial as it did allow me to construct my focus group
with music lovers in mind, for example Elisha and Jack (see Focus Group later) were avid music fans and offered vital contributions.
For Question 6, I showed my audience an image of Abandoning Sunday and challenged them to discuss what they would expect this
artist to be like style-wise, to see what conventions they would come up with. The respondents did acknowledge that this artist fit into
the genre of rock, singer songwriter and acoustic, from his appearance in the image. Hence, I would use similar costumes and locations
to convey the same things the respondents picked out, such as the "deep lyrics" and stylish clothing. As a result, Elliott, the main actor,
was dressed in similar clothing, a dress shirt and jeans, to appear like the artist, creating a “Star-Image” motif (Goodwin).
Question 7 was a test question to check that those answering the survey were in fact fans of the genre- I showed them my artist last
track via a YouTube link, and all said that they liked it, meaning their contributions to feedback were more valid.

7. Online Survey Analysis
For the penultimate question I asked which type of video my audience preferred, and hoped that
by this stage the previous questions would've helped to establish this as a concrete answer I can
develop my video from. However, I was hoping that performance wouldn't be the most popular,
as the logistics of getting my artist in the video would be impossible, and upon hearing the song I
would be using, titled "Real Talk", I was glad that Narrative came out as the top response, at
47%, shortly followed by a concept. Hence, I will make my video a narrative, and could perhaps
include some conceptual motif, such as the “effect that music has on people”.
This idea, which I had during my initial survey analysis, was ruled out by feedback, as after
discussing it with my focus group, they said that the idea I had from my shot list, of having
people on the beach etc, would simply not work logistically, and would be very difficult to even
then pull off. Hence, I adapted this to create a more accessible and easier to follow narrative,
with more subtle meanings.
The final question was asked with the hope of obtaining specific examples of things I could
include, intertextually or conceptually, to make my video impressive. After analysis
“Backroads”, and this answer, I felt that a video with meaning in the images pertinent to the
ideas of the song (Goodwin) was most appropriate, following the narrative structure (Todorov)
that my audience would be able to follow.

8. Physical Questionnaire
Analysis
Alongside my main online survey, I also
constructed a physical questionnaire to hand
out to people in my college and at a local
music venue, Epic Studios, before a rock
band was playing that night (Balance &
Composure). This meant I reached the target
demographic a) by age, 16-18 at my college,
and b) by interests, as a few respondents
answered from outside the venue.
The questionnaire was largely similar to the
online survey bar the limitations present in a
physical survey, i.e. I could not link the
respondent to YouTube. Hence, I included
other questions that would be beneficial to
my research.
This largely supported the findings of the
online survey, with similar aspects being
observed across each section. This solidified
the earlier hypothesis that my findings were
more apt to this particular genre and
demographic and hence the findings should
be applied to my own product.

9. First Stage – What did I learn?
Changes I made to the initial shot list to make the First Draft
Since my initial drafting of a shot list in my Treatment, after conducting audience
research, I made several changes, after I learned from my responses:
 Who my audience were – Audience profile
 Hence, what my audience expect from a music video within the rock genre –
Surveys and Questionnaires
 What media texts (videos, digipaks) to analyse to benefit my product the most – by
looking into the rock genre specifically, namely Deaf Havana and Lonely the Brave,
with aspects of other genres, to establish the conventions I must employ in my
own video (See Question 1).
 What aspects to focus on in my video – rather than looking at a conceptual idea of
music bringing people together shown in my original shot list, I switched to the
widely preferred narrative and focused on creating emotion in my video, as my
research and audience feedback showed this to be most effective and engaging.
 This allowed me to construct my first draft.

10. Post First Draft – Focus Group Feedback
 After I had completed the first draft, I sent out an Email
to my focus group members (see right) asking them to
complete a questionnaire regarding the progress I had
made so far.
 This proved to be the most useful stage as it showed me
how I could make my narrative clearer to the audience.
The full questionnaire can be seen on my blog.

11. Focus Group Questionnaires
Here is an example of a completed questionnaire, from focus
group member Elisha from Cambridge. This was the most
useful piece of audience feedback I had throughout the entire
course. It highlighted that I successfully portrayed
intertextual references, British values, and examples of
Goodwin’s theories (links to visuals, etc). However, when
asked to summarise what she thought of the narrative,
unfortunately, she got it completely wrong- or, rather,
perceived an oppositional meaning to the preferred meaning I
endeavoured to encode within the text, shown bottom right.
As a result, I needed to make sure I made more of an explicit
link between the man (Elliott) and Ria, who was yet to be
shown in the first draft, so this would become more apparent
in the final cut.
My preferred reading: A young man seeks to make amends in his flawed relationship whilst
dealing with own issues of self-worth and faith, whilst another feels at his best, and also worst,
when he is alone, and his friends seek to find him and show him what he is worth to them.
Jacks’ survey- he highlighted how some parts seemed
repetitive- I decided to cut these sections, and
include more sections of Ria to improve the narrative.
Elisha’s survey, showing she picked up on the intertextual references.

12. Second Stage – What did I learn?
Changes I made from First Draft to Final Cut
My focus group feedback after completing my first draft made clear to me the
improvements I needed to make in order to succeed in conveying my preferred
meaning that I encoded in the video to my audience (Hall). To do this, I learned
from my feedback that I must:
 Place a clearer emphasis on the separate parts of the narrative – using fade
cuts between parts of the narrative that are linked, at the start for instance,
and jump cuts to otherwise show a change in location, or utilising similar
mise-en-scene, such as phone calls showing one character talking to another.
 A clearer emphasis on the role of the female character to enhance the
narrative – Elisha, for example, was confused as to the role Ria’s character
would play in the video, as she had already assumed an oppositional reading.
This would be done by having more shots featuring her character, and linking
them to Elliott’s sections.
 Eliminating excess or extra shots that bared no or little relevance to the plot
to avoid confusion and as a result make the narrative clearer.

13. Audience Feedback – Ancillary Texts
 For my ancillary texts, I received verbal feedback my focus group who I could
meet, such as Jack and Robbie, and text messages for members like Elisha
who lived further away.
 I first showed them the blog post showing ideas for the digipak and music
advertisement, and discussed the ideas I had, of using the dog on the front
cover, and asked them what they thought. The group were largely positive
about it, and said that with editing and conventional features of digipaks, it
would look simplistic, yet effective, and hence would make use of the Uses
and Gratifications model’s findings- the focus group all made different things
of the image, some seeing the dog “smiling”, showing happiness, contrasting
the album title, and others, like Robbie, who simply saw it as a dog on a field,
and very minimalistic. However selecting an image for the background of the
magazine advertisement meant picking a photo that would work best in
bringing out the back drop, and originaly the inside cover of the digipak was
considered before Jack and others said it would be “too bright”, and a darker
background was needed to make the digipak stand out more. Hence, the
Marriott’s Way backdrop was selected.

14. Summary & Conclusion
To conclude, I have learned two main things from my audience feedback:
 How to improve my video to reach my target audience more easily
In both stages, before the first draft and before the final cut, I learned what changes I should make
to my video to make the dominant reading more apparent to my audience and hence how to make
my video more engaging. I also learned effective ways to convey ideas, through emotion etc, and
mise-en-scene to create intertextual links (CDs, posters, etc) and showing British values (Poppies,
Religion, etc.)
 How Media Theories are apparent in my own products and how to apply them
I saw first hand the differences in dominant and oppositional readings, stated by Hall, and also
understood the conventions of videos (Goodwin, Evaluation Question 1) and how utilising them
would engage my audience further. With narrative being the preferred format for videos, I
implemented Todorov’s narrative theory, where a disruption is resolved to restore equilibrium, in
my video, and the Uses and Gratifications model in the images for my digipak.
Thus concludes Question 3 of my Evaluation.