media survery results music videos

1. Survey Results: what they
concluded.
Beth Hall

2. Who was it that took my survey
• The majority of my survey
respondents were middle aged
women. This may result in
biased conclusions being drawn
and inaccurate audience uses
and gratifications being fulfilled
depending on what our final
target audience will be for the
product we create.
• However, it will give us insight
into what audiences generally
prefer.

3. What genre of music do audiences
prefer?
• The most commonly chosen option from
my survey when I asked ‘What type of
music do you prefer?’ was Pop music, with
58.335 of respondents choosing it. This
could be because the most prominent genre
of music in media today is pop music.
• I found it interesting that with such a high
percentage of my respondents being middle
aged that this genre was the most
commonly picked, despite options such as
‘New Wave’ and ‘Rock’ which I would’ve
assumed would apply more to this age
group.
• To me this suggests that a pop music video
would have a wider potential audience and
therefore be the most successful out of
videos for different music genres.
• Therefore, it would be ideal when regarding
the success we want our final music video
product to have that to choose a pop song
would be maximise potential achievement.
• Other popular answers were ‘Indie’,
‘Rock’, ‘R&B/Soul’ and ‘Alternative’.
• These are all other options for music
videos that will be similarly
successful as a pop music video will.
This also will allow us more freedom
and creativity when deciding what
music genre to create a music video
for as we have the knowledge that all
will be successful.

4. Do people even watch music videos?
• As this donut graph implies, the majority of people who participated in
my survey do indeed watch music videos. But the question of when
and how they watch this type of media text still remained.
• So I asked all who answered yes, how often and how they watch music
videos and what they like to see in a music video. The conclusions are
as follows.
74%
26%

5. How often do audiences watch music
videos?
• As this pie chart shows, the majority of people
who completed my survey and answered yes to
the question ‘do you watch music videos’ said
they only watched music videos when they saw
one they were interested in.
• This suggests to me that a higher percentage of
audiences are willing to watch a music video
that they find interesting and therefore a music
video’s success depends on audience’s attention
being drawn to the video.
• However, what audiences find interesting is
completely dependent on the individual or what
type of consumer characterisation they fit into
(according to Young and Rubicam’s Four C’s).
Which means that what type of music video we
make is reliant on which characterisation we
chose to make our target audience, whether that
be mainstreamers or reformers.

6. What do audiences like to see in a
music video?
• The survey results to this question were fairly even with 43% liking an
interesting story, 39% being more attracted to pleasing visuals and a majority of
55% preferring to see the band or artist performing.
• Again, this allows us as creators a lot of freedom when brainstorming ideas for
our final product as audiences generally seem to accept whatever is put in front
of them
• Some other interesting opinions of respondents were ‘humour’ and ‘no over
sexualisation of women’. I found the latter an interesting opinion as it can be
argued that a common feature of popular music videos these days is the
inclusion of the misogynistic objectification and sexualisation of women.

7. How do audiences watch music videos?
• My survey told me that the majority of people watch music videos on various internet
websites such as YouTube, and the second majority being Television.
• I believe this to be down to the increase in internet usage and popularity over the past few
decades. As well as the fact that in this modern day statistically more younger people watch
YouTube than they do Television.
• This means that in order for a video to be easily accessible by audiences, therefore successful,
it has to be uploaded to the internet on several different video viewing sites. This also allows
for a vaster potential audience as internet usage is something many people in the world have
access to, whether it be in their homes or in internet cafes.
• This is helpful to us when making our music video as we will know that in order for it to be
the most successful, uploading it to YouTube and/or Vimeo is the best option.

8. Narrative, Performance or Concept?
• Like the answers to the question what the respondents like to see in a music
video, when I asked survey participators to rank three music videos the
results were all very similar. I asked them to rank examples of a narrative
video, a concept video and a performance video.
• In the end however, the narrative video ‘Taylor Swift – Blank Space’ was the
most popular, with The Strokes coming 2nd and OK Go! last.
• This was not surprising to me as the narrative video seems to fulfil the
majority of audiences uses and gratifications and therefore satisfy them more
than any other, so it was not unusual that this was the most popular among
respondents. It is interesting, however, to consider that the Pop music genre
was the most commonly chosen when I asked which genre they preferred.
The Taylor Swift video was a pop music video so it is fascinating to consider
if these two aspects are linked to the results.
• Despite the most popular video not being surprising, I thought that the
concept video coming last was very compelling as I personally found it the
most interesting and appealing to watch. Therefore I assumed it would be
more well liked.

9. Further suggestions that our
respondents said they like to see in a
music video.
• ‘Something visually
stimulating and not
seen before’
• ‘celebrities’
• ‘dancing’
• ‘abstract
visuals’
• ‘creativity’
• ‘something new
and different ’
• ‘unusual story
line’
• ‘meaning behind
the video and
how it relates to
lyrics’