The document summarizes the responses from a survey of 15 students about their preferences and opinions on documentaries and the pressures facing teenagers. Some of the key findings were that over half preferred a voiceover narrator rather than an on-screen presenter, they preferred one-off documentaries over a series, and over half preferred a female presenter. They also found that facts and statistics and images/visuals were the most liked documentary elements. Most respondents felt there was too much pressure from teachers and families to get high grades. The document will inform the production of the documentary on pressures facing modern teenagers compared to past generations.

1. Audience Research
Documentaries andThe Pressures thatTeenagers Face
Liv, Libby and Soffia

2. 1)Doyoupreferanon-
screenpresenter, a
voice-overnarrator,or
both, in
documentaries?
Type of Presenter
On-screen Voice-over Both
Conclusion
8 of the 15 students we surveyed
(53%) said they prefer a voice-over
narrator to an on screen presenter
in documentaries. From this
research we have decided to make
the presenter of our documentary
a voice-over in order to appeal to
the likes of the target audience,
and therefore make the
documentary itself more
entertaining.

3. 2)Doyoulike one-off
documentariesora
series of
documentariesaround
atopic?
Type of documentary
One-off Series
Conclusion
The majority of our audience (8 out of 15
people) say they prefer one-off
documentaries to a series around a
particular subject.We have decided to
create our documentary focusing on
whether teens have it easier with
pressures now, than teens 25 years ago.
We will format this looking at the
differences between the generations and
looking at the different pressures they
face now and in the past, and present it
in a one-off documentary, for example,
by telling the audience what is coming
up after the break, rather than next
week’s issue.

4. 3)Doyouprefera male
orfemale presenter?
Gender of Presenter
Male Female
Conclusion
Our audience preferred to watch or
listen to a female presenter with
again 53% of students, so more
than half of the people we
surveyed, preferred a female
presenter over a male one. We
have decided to use a female
presenter from this research and
our own preferences, as we feel
that a softer, well-spoken female
voice will relax the tone and create
a less serious documentary around
the topic overall, as students who
will be watching our documentary
will be drawn into the friendly
informal tone, and also this tone
and persona follows the codes and
conventions of a real documentary.

5. 4)What is yourfavorite
documentary?
 This was an open question, where the
audience were free to write their favourite
documentary they have seen, therefore
there were many different answers.
However, a few that stood out to us or
recurred a few times were:
 ‘Supersize Me’ – 4 times
 ‘Blackfish’ – 2 times
 ’Making a Murderer’ – 2 times
Conclusion
These documentaries have some
elements which could be considered
as codes or conventions of a
documentary:
• They are all based around a
serious topic, eg captive wildlife,
crime and obesity.
• They are all biased throughout
presenting the arguments and
create negative representations.
• They all contain a narrative story
along with the facts, statistics,
interviews and background
footage.
• They all include formal and
informal interviews.
We are going to structure our
documentary with these elements to
make it more realistic.

6. 5)What element of
yourfavourite
documentarydoyou
like?
Favourite element of
documentaries
Facts and
Statistics
Humour
Informal
interviews
Formal
interviews
Images and
visuals
Sound/music
Conclusion
The most well-liked element was
facts and statistics by our
demographic target audience of
students (with 11 answers),
meaning that in our documentary,
we should aim to make it as
informative and interesting as
possible, to shock people into
realising the true figures of the
pressures that teenagers face, and
let the audience think about
whether teenagers today really do
have it easier than our parents did
when then were teens. Also, visuals
got 8 answers, making it the second
most well-liked element, and
therefore we should ensure we have
many different shots and cutaways
included in our documentary to go
with the stats, as this in turn keeps
our audience very engaged.

7. 6)What genre of
documentariesdoyou
like watching the
most?
Genre
Wildlife Modern Social Issues
Technology Murder and crime
Conclusion
We found that the most preferred
documentary genre was modern
social issues, with 10 out of 15
students who we surveyed answered,
being 67% of our audience, and
therefore we feel that our topic of
the modern growing social issue of
the pressures on teenagers is a good
and interesting topic for our
demographic target audience, as we
can explore what creates these
pressures, how we deal with them,
and how they have changed over the
years.

8. 7)Whatdoyoufind the
mostpressuring about
college life?
College Pressures
Deadlines Classwork
Decisions about the future Making friends and fitting in
Finding time to socialise
Conclusion:
10 out of 15 students (67%) said they felt
pressured about making decisions for the
future, meaning that they feel college either
doesn't give enough information to them
about future decisions to allow them to make
the right choices, or they feel pressured by
external social factors, such as family or
parent pressure to go ahead in certain careers,
despite wanting to pursue another career
internally. We want to investigate how this has
changed from when their parents were
choosing their career paths, and what
influenced them to make these decisions. 2
out of 15 students (13%) we surveyed felt
pressured about making friends and fitting in.
We want to find out the effects of this
pressure and the cause of it, and also how this
has changed from the previous generation.

9. 8)These pressures
affectayoungperson’s
mental health.
(Strongly
agree/agree/disagree/
strongly disagree?)
Teenage Opinions
Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
Conclusion
10 people of the 15 surveyed
strongly agree that the pressures
young people face today have an
impact on their mental health,
and only 1 person said they
(strongly disagreed).This is only
7% of the students surveyed. And
therefore shows, from a first hand
perspective of the people dealing
with these pressures, how easily
they think they are the causes to
mental health problems, such as
anxiety, depression and eating
disorders.

10. 9)Doyouknowofany
youngpersonto suffer
amental health
disorderdueto the
pressuresofsociety?
Conclusion
 Only 2 of the student
audience we surveyed said
they didn’t know of any
person to suffer a mental
health disorder due to the
pressures being put on them
by society (from education,
family, friends, or the media,
to name a few.)This means
that 13 students said ’yes’
(87% ) and this points out the
consequences on a
teenager’s mental health the
pressures can have.
Do you know somebody with a
mental illness?
Yes
No

11. 10)What doyoudo to
relieve stress?
Conclusion
 As this was an open question, our audience wrote what they
personally do, as teenagers, to relieve stress. A few common
answers were:
 Watch films (3 people)
 Read (2 people)
 Listen to music (4 people)
 Other answers included eating and sleeping
 This demonstrates that the majority of students do not relieve
their stress build up effectively, and instead deal with it in
unhealthy ways, such as sleeping and eating, which leads to bigger
consequences on their health and mental health.This data shows
that the pressures young people face in society are not properly
dealt with in healthy ways, causing bigger problems overall.

12. 11)Doyouthink there
is toomuchpressure
fromteachers/families
to achieve high
grades?
Is there too much pressure
to achieve high grades?
Yes
No
Conclusion
Only 4 of the 15 students we
surveyed (27%) believe there
isn’t too much pressure on
them too achieve high grades
at college, put on them by
both educational and social
figures. In our documentary,
we will look into how these
figures relate to the different
stats on how many end up
university, compared to how
many went a few years ago.