2. MY AUDIENCE AND
FOCUS GROUP
LINK TO FOCUS GROUP ON BLOGGER
My primary target audience for „Beyond the
Essex Girl‟ consisted of 13-25 year olds with
a female majority and a B/C/D demographic
group of mainstreamers and aspirers.
Therefore, my focus group had a number of
teenagers aged around 17, 18 and 19 who fit
within my target audience which was useful
as I could gain ideas and opinions from
people whom the documentary was
specifically aimed at. There were also older
members of my focus group who were
regarded as the secondary target audience,
particularly middle-aged women who could
be the parents of the teenagers watching the
documentary. I used a range of people in my
focus group, those who regularly watched
television and documentaries and those who
didn‟t so I could get a wide base of opinions
throughout the process of production.
3. CLASS FEEDBACK
LINK TO FEEDBACK ON BLOGGER:
My media class and media teacher were another useful audience I could
present my work to and receive valuable feedback from them. Throughout
all stages of the task I could consolidate my class mates for opinions and
improvements. There were various occasions when I presented my ideas to
the whole class such as my 1 minute long treatment in July when I was
planning to do a completely different documentary about teenage
appearances and my feedback included “Be careful to be sensitive” as I
was approaching topics like anorexia. Over the summer this audience
feedback allowed me to reflect on my decision because of the extent of
sensitivity and the need for believable acting so I decided to plan a whole
new idea which led to „Beyond the Essex Girl‟.
4. CLASS TREATMENT
LINK TO FEEDBACK ON BLOGGER
I presented another treatment to my
media class in September when my ideas
had come together and I planned on
focusing my documentary on Essex girls
specifically.
Again, I got some very useful audience
feedback as I learnt that everyone liked
the documentary title I had thought up
„Beyond the Essex Girl‟ and also
someone said "Why not a full
documentary if you have enough
footage” as I was originally planning on
doing a documentary trailer as my main
product. However, this comment allowed
me to rethink my choice and I realized
that a documentary extract would be
more suited for what I was trying to
achieve. This feedback greatly helped me
as it had come from a class of 17-18 year
olds who were within my target audience
range.
5. GOOGLE DOCS
For sufficient audience feedback on all three of my products I
used Google Docs. Google Docs allowed me to create a
series of online questionnaires to put onto my blog and let
my focus group and class fill out themselves. I posted
questions which would allow me to improve my products and
ask for opinions on what I was unsure about.
6. NEWSPAPER
ADVERTISEMENT
LINK TO QUESTIONNAIRE
My responses from Google Docs for my
newspaper advertisement included:
-"Could be a hash tag of the name of the
programme as when the programme is on
and the audience tweets using the hash
tag, people that see the tweets may be
inclined to watch the documentary
knowing that it is on”
-”A twitter hash tag maybe something
#EssexGirl”
These two responses were the only
improvements as the other comments
were overall positive. But these responses
allowed me to add a Twitter hash tag onto
my poster to create an active audience
regarding the use of social networking.
7. DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD
LINK TO QUESTIONNAIRE
My responses from Google Docs were again fairly positive
apart from the „Any Improvements?‟ response which notified
me of some spelling and grammar mistakes that I had missed
within the article. This shows how useful audience feedback
is and how crucial it is to your work as I hadn‟t noticed this
spelling errors. The audience feedback on Google Docs
being positive is good to know because they represent my
target audience who the products are aimed at.
8. DOCUMENTARY
EXTRACT
LINK TO QUESTIONNAIRE
Again I used Google Docs to get feedback on my
documentary when it was unfinished. I uploaded an
unfinished version of what I had done onto YouTube and then
onto my blog for viewers to see.
I received various comments which was very useful feedback
when I was at this point in my production. I had hit a stage
where I was unsure of what to add with 1 minute a half left to
fill. I was advised to add “some statistics about Essex” which
I thought was a good idea as I was doing a documentary.
Along with the ideas to add voiceovers in the introduction
and for Charlotte to talk about her school life. All good ideas
that I ended up using in my documentary
9. FINAL AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK
When I finished my documentary extract and two ancillary texts I
thought it would be helpful to ask for some final audience feedback
from my class and focus group to get a range of opinions. Most
feedback was based on the documentary extract which would help my
documentary finally come together and be very clean cut. Feedback I
received included: a concluding voiceover towards the end, more
sailing footage for Charlotte‟s part and play the “I‟m In Essex Girl” line
of the song when the car is driving towards the Essex signs at the
beginning.
All of these ideas have led to my final product to the best it can be from
the help of my target audience.
10. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I have learned that audience feedback is a
crucial and key aspect of any media work. Consistently
referring back to my focus group and audience who were
under the same requirements as my target audience was
really helpful when I was searching for improvements and
ideas especially when I was having trouble on what to add
particularly in my documentary extract. Without audience
feedback I would probably have completely different
products but their opinion is highly regarded by me and I
wanted my products to reflect what my target audience
wanted.
