an analysis of my starwars audience research survey

1. MY AUDIENCE
RESEARCH SURVEYS

2. The survey
My survey is something I made so that I could be able to calculate the lifestyles and preferences of people who may or may
not watch the star wars franchise. I chose to mainly focus on ages 14-40 so that I could have a range of answers from new
watchers and possible old fans of the films to see a difference within the age gap of fans. I have also focused on targeting
peoples reasoning when watching these films by asking about uses and gratifications and what characters they connect
themselves with, this will hopefully give me a clue as to what sort of people star wars watchers are perhaps personally and
socially.
Another way I have categorised the watchers of star wars is through spending power by asking how much they have or would
be willing to pay for star wars related products, this gives me an idea as to where fans are on things like the NRS and 4C’s
scales.
I also asked a question about how they heard of star wars or how they watched there first star wars movie, giving an example
to see if the 2 step flow within media is really a thing that is being used to this day.
ACTUAL SURVEY

3. Analysing survey results
I managed to get a total of 16 responses to my survey, which gave a variety of
different answers meaning I can adequately analyse a portion of the star wars
audience.
The first 2 questions asked are shown here, from the responses I can see a large
majority of watchers are of male gender and within the 17-20 age bracket. This is
what I had expected from the results as the original star wars was a focus for a
male teenage audience, this was very successful for them so they were most likely
going for the same with the newer ones like force awakens as well. However if you
were to take this survey when the first films came out the male proportion would
have been way higher, but now we are starting to see a female demographic come
in more, most likely to do with the more lead strong female characters that pull in a
female fan base.

4. As from my previous questions I learnt that the majority of my
responses came from a bracket of 14-20 years old (a younger
audience). The fact that the majority also answered yes to being fans
of star wars and having watched Force awakens and liked it proves that
star wars is still appealing to the younger audiences that they focus on.
Also knowing that a larger portion f responses were male this also
shows that it is also appealing to the targeted male audience these
films are made for.

5. From this this question I asked about what uses and
gratifications people look for when watching star wars.
The most chosen was diversion which is what I
expected as sci-fi conventions tend to be something
people look for to be able escape from real life. This
proves that the hypodermic needle is something that
still applies. As we are told constantly that sci-fi genre
films are used for diversion and escapism more than
the others and my results prove that this is true this
shows that we may like to follow what we are told to
influence our decisions.
The second most picked one was personal identity
which I suspected to as star wars is and has always
been a very divers film with many characters with
different backgrounds that can connect to all kinds of
people.

6. The first question I asked here was to try and understand the
audience more personally through the use of connection with
the characters . From the survey we can see most people said
they related to Han Solo a character that’s been in star wars
from the very beginning. From this we can see that maybe
people who watch star wars still prefer the older characters and
films even if they are newer watchers of the franchise. Han solo
is also someone who is quite easy going and rebellious which
stereotypically isn’t something a star wars audience will apply
with, perhaps suggesting that people are using their connection
to Solo as another way of escaping who they really are, almost
like a role model.
The next question I asked tried to get an estimate on the type of
spending power the audience has, from this most said that they
would spend £0-£100 on star wars related items, this can be
down to the extreme of liking towards the films but mostly it
shows the region in which people are in within the NRS scale.
Maybe around C or B being working to lower middle class which
is something expected from a typical star wars watcher.

7. These next two questions I asked were to analyse
whether or not the 2 step flow audience theory
was really something that applied in media to this
day. The 2 step flow theory is that most of what
we here and watch is something that someone
else has recommended or told us about that
influenced us to watch it. Although quite a large
portion have said neither of their parents are fans
the bellow answers still show a 2 step flow, plus
most of the survey takers parents are fans
meaning that they are most likely fans due to
them.
The bar chart bellow shows all results saying that
had heard of the films from friends or family. This
perfectly represents that the 2 step flow is much
used even to this day.