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Audience Research: 2.1

The audience research aspect of this project for me is an interesting one. This is because for the documentary I wanting to produce, I think that the audience will be very niche as it’s going to be focused on pupils of a local dance school. Meaning that the potential audience is likely to just be pupils and parents of the dance school. So, within this section I am going to explore who the audience are and if there is a wider audience than I am imagining.

Who are the Audience?
(19/2/24)

Before I can go further into audience research, it’s important that I have an understanding of who I think the audience is. As my piece is focused on pupils from a dance school, my initial thoughts of who the audience are going to be is that they are the pupils + parents of the dance school. Now initially this makes my audience seem very niche as there is a limited number of pupils + parents at the dance school, so really is there an audience for my piece? I would say yes there is because at the moment the audience would consist of the dance schools' pupils + parents as well as friends + family, it isn’t a guarantee that the friends and family would watch but if the piece were to be distributed then there’s a chance, they would watch it. But then you could say that about any media piece that exists. So, at the moment of writing this, my understanding is that that audience are those who attend the dance school and the parents.

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However, this is just the current audience I haven’t thought about the target audience yet. The target audience are who I am trying to aim this piece at, which is still dance school pupils + parents, but it’s also those who have interest in dance and want to learn a little bit more about what it’s like behind the scenes of a dance show. This is an area I need to explore with more detail, which is likely to lead to a survey being created to see potential areas of who my target audience may be.

Initial Survey (20/2/24)

To start off this research, I made the decision to create a survey asking for feedback on my idea and if people would like to watch it. I posted the survey onto two of my Instagram accounts because I want to explore if there is a wider audience outside of the dance school pupils/parents. The reasoning behind posting on two of my Instagram accounts is that one of them is for my personal use, and the other is a media account where I post content I’ve produced and BTS content. I feel as though creating the survey is a good way to get quick feedback and a general consensus to whether the idea is one which would be watched.

On the left is the survey I created. Within the survey I asked mainly quantitative questions because I found that when asking other peers what they would expect to see in a dance documentary their responses were mostly just ‘people dancing’ which isn’t what I was looking for. So, in the survey, rather than giving the people answering a text box to write what they think, I decided to use a checklist and add in lots of different options of content that could be included. Doing this means I can see what content the potential audience would like to see within the documentary, without me needing to filter through people putting ‘idk’ or ‘dancing people’.

Instagram Story

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Survey Analysis (07/03/24) - 

Below you will find the analysis of the survey I conducted. Within this I have gone through the rationale behind asking the questions and analysed how these answers have helped to inform my idea and help me visualise it more.

Question 1 + 2

Question 1 and 2 were the typical basic questions of age and gender. Asking these just helps for me to gauge who exactly has the survey and if there are any patterns in the answers given. With the age question, I made it a multichoice where I wrote down age ranges and people had to select which one they were in. I chose to start from 12 because I know that I don’t have anyone younger following me on Instagram (where the survey was posted) so this felt like a sensible age to start at. Along with this for the documentary I feel as though the minimum age I would say the audience should start at is 10+ because during the interviews some topics covered may not be suitable, so having the survey start at 12 just helps to aid this.

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From the results shown, the majority of people who answered were aged between 16-19, which is likely due to the people who follow me on Instagram being within that age bracket, however it is still useful. Having results from this age group allows me to see if people who are more young adults would show interest within the documentary I am planning to produce. The rest of the ages vary, with the other two main groups being 12-15 and 40-50. I was able to get my mum to send the survey to her work colleagues, so I could have a range of ages answer the survey, as mentioned above its useful to see if my documentary would be watched by those who aren’t within the audience I originally thought it would be.

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I will mention that I don’t have many people from the dance school following me on Instagram so the results here aren’t from who I think the main audience is. This is just going to help me understand if there is a wider audience out there for my documentary.

From the gender question, primary females answered the survey with only 8 males answering it. I expected this to happen, but I feel as though this documentary is likely to be watched by women more than men, mainly due to the topic it’s on. Obviously, this isn’t to say it’s not for men because it’s for anyone who wants to watch it but from the survey results, I feel as though in the end I will concluded it’s a primarily female audience.

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As mentioned at the start, these first two questions are just the baseline so I can understand who has answered the survey and work out who the audience is likely to be.

Question 3

At the beginning of my survey, I gave a brief description of what the documentary is about to give context to those undertaking the survey. From this I thought it would be good idea to ask question 3, which title do you think is the best. In this I gave them 3 options I had thought of and another option of other. Adding in the option of other just gives the people taking the survey a chance to say a title idea that I may not have thought of, although from the only answer I got responding other they just state that ‘if it's about people who it is the last show (which I assume it is) then one of the top two’. This answer isn’t ideal because it is just them stating to choose one of the top two, which they really didn’t need to do

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it felt unnecessary to do. So, in the future I wouldn’t add in the other option within the same question, instead I would add in another question asking, ‘if you don’t like any of the names above, why?’ or something similar to that. This would’ve been more beneficial for me to do as then I could’ve had more qualitative answers rather than quantitative.

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From the other 58 responses 64.4% (38 people) said that they think ‘behind the 

curtain’ is the best title idea. This is the title I am more inclined to use due to the nature of my idea, the fact that it is looking into the behind the scenes and what goes on for 3 of the people during the dance show. The second most popular response was ‘the last dance’ which I feel is very fitting because the 3 people who I am focusing on, it is their last dance show at the school. So, using a title which features the word last would help to emphasise this message.

​Now looking back, I should’ve asked why they answered what they did, but at the time of writing the survey I was more concerned about people not answering the written questions or just writing ‘it’s good’/something along those lines. Making this decision should’ve been thought about more, but in all honesty when creating the survey, I just felt I needed to create one and get it out there, rather than adding in good quality questions.

Asking this question has allowed me to see that people agree with the title idea I was more inclined to do, but I should still consider using one which is related to the last show factor.

Question 4

Question 4 was one of the questions where I wanted to put a text answer so that they could write their own response, however as I have mentioned before if I were to do this, I would have likely gotten more responses saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘people spinning’ which isn’t what I want as it isn’t useful.  Because of this I made the decision to use a multi-choice tick box where I gave 8 suggestions of content that could be on the documentary, and they could select however many of them as they wanted.

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From the responses I got, the most popular area of content that they would like to see is them getting ready for the show. This is something I would love to record, however as where they get ready is technically a changing room, I would have to be very careful on what I film as well as who I film, as not everyone within the changing room has given consent. I could adapt this and just do more close-up shots of them doing their hair, button headdresses on etc, so still have the getting ready aspect of it but just not set footage. The least popular answer was to see pupils walking to the stage, I expected this as it would be visually uninteresting for the audience and bore them. There were 4 suggestions which had a similar number of answers and each of these are areas of content I think would be good to have within the documentary as it would bring variety within the documentary rather than just being people talking at a camera about what they have done over the last 3 months.

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This question gives me an idea of what a potential audience would want to see and not. I can see that there are more popular areas of content that people want to watch, so I will focus on that when it comes to fully structuring the documentary.

Question 5
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Asking question 5 was more to help me make an appropriate decision on how many pupils should I focus on within the documentary. This was an area I was really struggling with as I didn’t feel 1 person was enough, but then I could solely focus on them, or is that just too boring for them. So, asking the question ‘how many pupils do you think would be an appropriate number to follow?’ allows me to guided through my decision. As shown in the image to the left, 

over half the people who responded said that they feel 3 is an appropriate number of pupils to follow within the documentary. Seeing as over half of the people who responded said this, I feel as though this is a good decision to make. 3 people is just enough for there to be engaging content and not be too rushed and not too little, so it becomes boring and repetitive.

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I found that this question helped me with my decision making, meaning I can focus on the structure in more detail, fully understanding how this documentary is going to work.

Question 6
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Following on from the last question, I asked which age range is the most appropriate to follow. I gave the options of 4-6, 7-14 and 15-18 as this is the ages that are in the dance show. With this they could answer 1 or 2 of the options given because of the fact that there could be multiple people featured so the ages may vary. The most popular answer given was 15-18 with 46 answers, this shows that the people answering my survey would rather watch older pupils than the younger ones. I feel that due to the ages of people who responded to the survey is the reason I got the answer of 15-18, this means that the target audience would be within the ages of people who answered my survey, as the responses are what they want to watch.

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From this I have made the decision to focus on those aged 15-18. I feel that this is the most appropriate age to follow, and I will be able to get more engaging footage for the audience, with deeper stories to be told.

Question 7
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Here I got a really good response of 56/59 people saying that they would watch this documentary. For this means that there is a wider audience than I originally thought, due to those who did answer saying that they would watch it. With this question ideally, I should’ve gone on to ask why they gave the answer they did above, but again I didn’t want a lot of answers which weren’t needed so decided against it. But I can still take from this that there is a wider audience for this 

documentary than I originally thought, which was that the only audience would be pupils of the dance school and the parents.

Question 8

The final question I asked wasn’t mandatory, and it stated, ‘are there any there any other comments you would like to make?’ as this gives the people undertaking the survey to make any final comments. Realistically, this should’ve been a follow up question from the previous one, asking to give reason for their answer because then I would’ve been able to explore the reasoning behind their answer and see the real reason they would watch the documentary. However, from this question I was able to get some useful results.

The first comment I highlighted mentions that ‘following more than 3 people will become overwhelming’ which I completely agree with. 3 is an appropriate number of pupils to follow, not being too little and not too many, giving enough variety for the audience watching. In the second highlighted comment, they talk about how they ‘love the idea of having rehearsal shots of stuff going wrong and that 

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being juxtaposed with the show going really well’. This is something that I would like to incorporate within the documentary, so hearing that the wider audience would also like to see this is encouraging. The final two comments I highlighted were more about the narrative, stating that I should ‘make sure this is what the pupil wants and not a pushy parent’ and that it should be more ‘about the personal story – don’t want to know about the logistics of the show’. Both these comments are extremely useful as I was on the fence about how personal I make it, so through these comments I can see that they would rather be watching the personal stories of the dancers rather than the logistics of the show itself.

Through looking at these questions I have been able to discover that there is a wider audience for my documentary, and that the content shown should be more personal and about the pupils rather than focused on the dance show itself. This is going to help me structure the documentary and tailor it towards the potential audience, giving them the content they would like to see.

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The next step in this audience research is to explore the audience theories. Audience theories are important in allowing me to understand the audience for my piece and how I can tailor it towards them. These theories include audience reception theory, uses and gratification, as well as exploring demographics and psychographics.

Audience Theories
 (08/03/24)

Audience Reception Theory - Stuart Hall 

As I discussed in Unit 12, Stuart Halls audience reception theory argues that media texts are encoded and decoded, and different audiences will decode the media in different ways. They will have one of 3 preferred readings:

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  • Preferred reading – the preferred reading is the one that the producer wants the audience to have. This will only happen if the messages within the media text are very clear and if the audience member can relate to it, dependent on age, gender, culture etc. if the piece has a simpler narrative which is easy to follow, dealing with current themes, then this reading is likely to be achieved.

  • Oppositional reading – this is the complete opposite of the preferred reading, as the audience are rejecting it and making their own meaning for the given text. Usually this happens when a media text covers controversial themes that the audience member disagrees with, or when the narrative is complicated causing confusion from the audience. With the preferred reading the audience members would attain this if their age, gender, culture etc. were related to the piece, but with the oppositional reading the opposite happens. The audience will attain the oppositional reading if they aren’t the correct age, gender, culture etc.

  • Negotiated reading – where the preferred and oppositional are set readings, the negotiated reading is where the audience accepts a section of what the producer is intending but rejects the rest. This happens when there is a combination of factors from the other two readings mixed together leaving the audience member to make their own reading.

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There are a number of different factors that will influence the reading that an audience member has, some I have already mentioned, but others are beliefs, life experiences and even mood at the time of watching. For a producer, this means that they need to ensure the media text is encoded to engage the correct audience, leading to the preferred reading being attained, due to them being able to decode it with ease.

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For my documentary, it is important that I understand what I want the preferred reading to be, as I am the producer of it. As of this moment I am unsure of the structure of the documentary however I know that I want the audience to better understand these pupils and their journey + how dance has impacted and helped them. So, the preferred reading for the documentary would be for the audience to be engaged with the three pupils and understand their journey through the shows. To do this I have to make sure I have encoded the documentary enough for them to be able to attain this reading. If I am not successful in this then the oppositional reading or negotiated reading is to be attained.

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​However as mentioned previously there are a number of other factors that come into play, other than just the documentary being encoded correctly. These categories are known as demographics and psychographics, demographics being the more basic areas and psychographics giving more detail and depth. These are explored in more detail below.

Harvard referencing - 
Demographics and Psychographics - 

Before I can delve into the details of psychographics, I need to understand the basis of demographics, something I have explored over time of the course. Demographics are what media producers use to categorise and define the target audience, which are known as demographics profiles. These profiles are made from things such as age, gender, income, job, education etc. With demographics they are very broad meaning that they just classify everyone into certain groups, mainly to do with income and working status. These groups are known as A, B, C1, C2, D and E which each group going lower in the social chain.

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  • A – upper middle class

  • B – middle class

  • C1 – lower middle class

  • C2 – skilled working class

  • D – working class

  • E – those at the lowest level of subsistence

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The classification shown above is for mainly written media so for movies or cinema they use a similar system but is measured on ticket sales, which divides them into 4 major quadrants – male, female, under 25 and over 25.

In the image shown to the right, the circle shows the primary audiences for a certain film (the research source doesn’t state what film). From the circle we can tell that the primary audience for that film was females with an average age of over 25, if the film were to be a four-quadrant film then it would have to appeal to both male and females, under and over 25. So, if a film were to reach all 4 demographics, then it would be a hit. However, as I stated before, demographics are very broad and not specific at all, which is where psychographics come in. 

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media-studies (2021). Demographics Definition and Examples | Audience Theory. [online] Media Studies. Available at: https://media-studies.com/demographics/.

With demographics it doesn’t give the most accuracy for defining the audience, as just using age, gender, culture etc. can only tell you so much as many people don’t fit into those traditional categories stated above. This is where psychographics come in. Psychographics are ‘the methodology of studying consumers based on psychological characteristics and traits such as values, desires, goals, interests and lifestyle choices’ (https://www.hotjar.com/blog/psychographics-in-marketing/) which tells you about the audiences' attitudes and beliefs, rather than social status. There are 5 common categories for psychographics which are: personalities, lifestyles, interests, opinions, attitudes and beliefs and values. Though these are the main categories for psychographics these are simply for researchers to use, giving insight into potential customers.

From the research sources I found, the psychographics are more about marketing. So, at the point of writing this I don’t know how useful this research is, but I realise that psychographics can be used for tailoring my content towards a specific audience.

Returning to the research, the psychometric audience profile is focused on how they think, through considering the values, attitudes and lifestyle. This was done using Rubicam’s cross cultural consumer categorisation, which was known as the 4C’s. The 4c’s was inspired by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, allowing them to better understand how brands appeal to their target audience. From this they were able to create 7 different personality types based on this, they are –

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  1. Explorer – these are people who typically drive by a need to discover something and challenges. They are often the people who are the first to try something, meaning they respond to brands that offer new opportunities with an instant effect. Essentially, they seek difference, they want to explore and discover.

  2. Aspirer – often materialistic, they are drive by how people perceive them rather than having their own values. Because of this they respond to what others would perceive as being superficial, such as: image, appearance, charisma and fashion. How something looks has equal value to what’s inside. So, in their life they feel the need for status, after all this definition did start with calling them materialistic.

  3. Succeeder – these people ooze self-confidence, very much goal orientated and very organised. Typically, you would find these people in a position of responsibility within society. They seek equal balance with brands, looking for the best quality but also for the smaller and quaint brands. These people seek control.

  4. Reformer – they value their own independent judgement over anything else , essentially the opposite of the aspirer. These people are socially aware and pride themselves with this. Reformers won’t buy something just because its new, they get what they need not what they want.

  5. Mainstream – these are your everyday people who live a more domestic lifestyle. They thrive on daily routine, allowing them to live their life how they want to. This is the largest group within the 4C’s across the world, as it is the group most people fall into. As a result of this they go for big brands, family brands and those which offer value for money. They seek security in life, so that they can live their routine day in day out.

  6. Struggler – live for today, make few plans for tomorrow is how these people live. Often making themselves the victim, with little skills other than their physical ones. These are the people who are the main consumers of junk food and alcohol, so visual impact is more important in their brand choices. They want to escape real life.

  7. The Resigned – predominantly being older people, who have unchanging values built up overtime. They choose brands that are safe and good for the economy, choosing what is familiar to them. They want to survive.

 

From this I can tell that the 4C’s are mainly for marketing but for my audience, I need to know who to aim it at in order to make sure that I can identify the target audience and better understand them. This links in with Dennis McQuail's Uses and Gratification theory, which is focused on meeting the needs of the audience.

Harvard referencing - 
Uses and Gratification - Dennis McQuail

The uses and gratification theory proposes that people will watch certain media texts to meet their own needs/gratifications – to simply put it an audience will watch media if they want to satisfy their needs. There are 4 categories which these needs can be put into, they are:

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  • Diversion/entertainment – this is as it sounds, people will watch media to divert from the real world/everyday life. In other words, they want to be entertained and not have to think about their real-world issues.

  • Personal relationships – this category is focused on helping to develop real relationships. Certain shows may have a large following, so being able to discuss this with someone helps to build personal relationships. So, this category is for shows which engage people and get people talking, allowing personal relationships to grow.

  • Personal identity – media texts often shape our own personality in different ways. Through following a certain character, it can give us ideas on how to solve our own problems. This means an audience will watch a media piece to relate to the character, find solutions and even offer alternative perspectives.

  • Surveillance – people like to know what’s going on, so the surveillance category covers that gratification. Also, media texts are consumed by audiences when they want to be educated so news programmes and documentaries satisfy that need.

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For my documentary, the audience would fall into the surveillance category. This is because they will be watching a documentary which isn’t focused on everyday life, it's about the behind the scenes of a dance show, learning about these three pupils who have been at the school for years and how dance has helped them. Some audience members may fall into the personal identity category however the main one that the audience is focused on will be surveillance.

Now I understand why audiences consume media texts, I am going to explore the different types of audiences. This will allow me to deepen my understanding of audiences as a whole, and my own audience for my piece too.

Harvard referencing - 
Types of Audience engagement - 

There are two main types of audience engagement which are known as active and passive audiences. Active audience members are those who engage with the piece and watch it with intent. These are the audience member who will go onto social media and speak about a media text as they liked it that much. Whereas passive audience members are those who just put a media text on to have in the background while they do other things. Jeremy Tunstall recognised that audiences would consume media texts in different ways/levels dependent on context and the situation they are in. There are 3 subcategories that the audience can be split into:

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  • Primary – this audience pay attention to the text; they are fully immersed within the text. Often, they become invested in the narrative, looking for key details to piece the story together.

  • Secondary – here the media text will be being played in the background/acting as background noise, meaning the audience's attention isn’t 100% focused on the media text. So, you are still consuming the media, but just not as much as if you were actively sat watching.

  • Tertiary – while the audience are watching the media text, they aren’t aware of the message behind it. This is more common when you’re walking and see an ad/billboard you read it but don’t pay much attention.

Harvard referencing - 

Understanding the types of audience engagement means I can explore how I want the potential audience of my piece to engage with it. Obviously, I would like everyone to be a primary audience member, so to do that I need to ensure my piece is engaging and has an interesting narrative to follow.

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The final audience theory I am going to explore is modes of address. Doing this means I will understand how a media text communicates with the target audience, and how I can use this with my idea.

Modes of Address - 

There are 4 modes of address which are, informal, formal, direct and indirect. Each of these has their own characteristics which have been explored in more detail below, stating with the informal mode of address.

Informal mode

With the informal mode of address, it is often used in media texts which is aimed at a younger audience. To do this they use slang, colloquial vocabulary, abbreviations (situation dependant) etc. this means that the audience are able to understand the media text, without it having a formal feel. It helps for the audience to feel engaged within the piece as well, as they can understand areas that other audience members may not.

Formal mode

Unlike the informal mode, the formal mode will have more complex vocabulary and dialogue will be more pronounced/understood with ease. With this mode, the target audience is likely to be more sophisticated and wanting to watch a media text that they can understand with ease, without getting confused with slang words every 2 seconds. An example of this is the News as they speak in a formal manner with a serious expression, leading the audience to feel as though they can trust this source of information. Unlike the informal mode, the formal mode will have more complex vocabulary and dialogue will be more pronounced/understood with ease. With this mode, the target audience is likely to be more sophisticated and wanting to watch a media text that they can understand with ease, without getting confused with slang words every 2 seconds. An example of this is the News as they speak in a formal manner with a serious expression, leading the audience to feel as though they can trust this source of information.

Direct Address

This is when the media text directly speaks/communicates with the audience. On a television programme, often the presenters will be looking directly down the camera, as though they are looking at audience. This makes the audience feel as though they are involved with the programme and engage more. Direct address links with an active audience as they are more likely to watch if they are being directly addressed and want to watch. Another way direct address is used is in commercials, they will adopt a similar technique by looking down the camera, making the audience feel as though they are being spoken to, leading them to possibly buy the product being advertised.

Indirect Address

This mode isn’t commonly used within film or tv, however if a programme is trying to get a message across, rather than having a character look directly down the camera, the message will be involved in a conversation between two characters. Or they will have text pop up on a blank screen, to emphasise the message that has just been implied. This isn’t direct address as the audience aren’t explicitly being told the message, its subtly hinted at throughout  instead.

Harvard referencing - 

By undertaking research into audience theories, I have come to the realisation that I need to understand what the preferred reading of my piece should be and how I am going to meet the needs of the target audience. If I am unable to do this then I will end up creating a piece with no meaning and no real narrative, leaving me with an unengaged audience who don’t attain the preferred reading, and aren’t satisfied with what they watched. For me, I need to identify the target audience better (which will be done in the conclusion page) so that I can move on to producing a piece of media that incorporates the audience theories correctly, leaving the audience satisfied with what they watched.

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