Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? (Rough)

Target Audience:

The potential target audience for our promotional package are politically aware 18-30 year olds who are concerned about the effects of austerity on young people. However, I would say that it could also have the appeal of a wider audience, notifying and making other young people aware of issues involving inequality and economic injustice (A more detailed identification of demographic can be seen in my audience profile, under the G324 Research into target audience label).

Audience Feedback:

In order to gain audience feedback, we used two methods of retrieving responses; firstly, we gathered ten people from our sixth form across the day and sat them down to watch our music video, then, each participant was given a physical copy of a questionnaire to asses the all aspects of production. Secondly, I created an online survey using the same questions as the physical copy we gave individuals previously, the online survey was then sent to a select group of individuals, along with the music video via Facebook.  As can be seen from the profile I created above, the audience we are targeting is quite niche, although we are in essence targeting the average working to middle class person, a key quality our demographic should posses is an interest in current affairs as well as will to fight for what's right.

Music video:

Both the online and physical questionnaire featured the same four first questions that were about rating aspects of the overall music video on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = worst and 5 = best. By adding up each individual response to the question I have been able to calculate an overall average answer for each question, bear in mind this is over 16 participants (8 male/ 8 female). These questions and their average ratings are as follows:

1) How much did you enjoy the music video? - 4.75
2) Did it hold your attention? - 4.62
3) How do you rate camera work and editing? - 4.75
4) How do you rate standard of mise-en-scene? - 4.68

Moreover, this shows that in terms of the enjoyability, as well as our use of techniques within the music video, we have learnt that our production is satisfactory to a select audience with individual answers being no less than a 4 rating and average results not dropping below 4.5. This could perhaps be in some way related to the reflective nature our music video imposes on society, as well as the fact that the protestor character is portrayed as a similar age to those who gave us feedback (ages ranged from 17-19 years). Subsequently, linking to Bulmer and Katz's research in to uses and gratification, particularly how an individual may use a text as a better understanding of personal identity i.e. finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from text. However, it has to be taken in to consideration that the feedback could suffer from being bias; this is as individuals who took part in the feedback process are people who me and my partner are either friends or acquaintances with, and so, although I specifically instructed that they do criticise if they find it fit, some of the participants could have based some of their answers on pleasing me and the other group member.

Interestingly, the difference in feedback between gender is not at all what I expected, although there is only a very small gap between scores; on average, for the first question, female participants rated enjoyability of the music video higher than male participants. The reason that this is unexpected is because our production features a heavily dominated male screen presence, being almost complete devoid of female roles. Therefore, I assumed that men would be able to relate more to these characters (in particularly the protestor) because of the gender similarity, and furthermore enjoy the music video more than women. However, this could be explained by the empathising-systematising theory created by Baron-Cohen; whereby, he found through objective research that on average females scored higher on measures of empathy than males. Moreover, according to Baron-Cohen, women were better at identifying and understanding the thoughts and feelings of others than men; in relation to our music video, we present characters that are struggling (e.g. homeless man) at the hands of government corruption and hypocrisy, and so Baron-Cohen may explain that women enjoyed our music video more because of the stronger empathy for certain characters.

In terms of the following three questions, on average male participants rated higher than female participants. This is again an interesting result, as these questions were about attention, aspects of production and mise-en-scene; moreover, relating yet again to Baron-Cohen. This is because although Baron-Cohen found that women scored better at men in terms of empathising, men were recorded as scoring a higher average in systematising (construction or analysis of a system). Therefore, this interestingly relates to the production of our music video. However, it should be noted that I don't entirely believe in this theory outlining a difference in the functioning of male and female brains, it can in some senses be seen as quite sexist, but it works well as an example to highlight gender differences in feedback.

Furthermore, one of the next questions was "What do you believe was the best part of the production?". From both the physical questionnaires and online survey it is evident to me that the individuals appreciated the editing most, in particularly, the use of split-screen to strengthen the concept. This feedback links in positively with reception theory, specifically, Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model; whereby, a text is encoded by the producer and encoded by the reader, and there may be two different readings of the same code. In this case, it seems that from viewing our music video participants have decoded our production just as we intended when encoding it. This is as their comments indicate that they have understood and appreciated the concept, knowing full well how the split-screen is operating in conjunction with the track; one piece of feedback even goes on to note the theme of self-reflection, stating about how our production "seemed to develop upon the messages of the song and not just stick to them". Moreover, I've learnt that we've been successful in making a music video that appeals to a wider audience, as the message we were trying to convey seems to have come across well.

Still of feedback from the online survey

Additionally, every participant agreed that our music video reflected the style of the music well, and so this leads me to believe that we have managed to construct such a text through the strength of our research. Subsequently, showing that investigating the conventions of the trip-hop genre extensively has paid of in our ability to execute such techniques within our own production.

One of the last questions on the feedback form asked participants whether there were any parts of the production they found confusing or hard to understand, 15 out of the 16 participants said no. This shows that primarily, our music video is very clear to our audience, with nothing that's really left them stumped; preferred reading could well be an explanation, whereby, we've used recognised codes and conventions to create an agreement between ourselves and the audience upon what the code means. However, one of the participants commented saying he understood the overall message, but noted that some of the contrasts could have been made more clear, going on to explain his confusion about the point trying to be made at 00:41 in the music video. This tells me that although mostly clear, our use of binary opposition in some of the split-screen sequences are too ambiguous, leaving questions that we didn't intentionally want to be asked. In order to make this less confusing, we could have strengthened associations of business man and protestor at 00:41 by depicting the man in the left split-screen with a sign and the man on the right conversing with other business men. Moreover, this feedback shows me that we have primarily coded our text well for the majority audience; however, some viewers may aberrantly read the text and confusions can arise.

Still of feedback from the online survey

The contrast in the music video that caused some confusion.

Finally, participants were asked whether they had any further comments regarding how the music video could be improved; again, we've been lucky enough to receive mainly positive feedback with the majority of comments stating that they thought it didn't need any adjustment regarding improvement. However, one individual stated that she thought some of the shots were a bit too long, showing that this is perhaps an aspect of our production that could make viewers loose focus. Unfortunately, we were unable to change this in the editing process as we didn't have enough footage to make shorter cuts due to underestimating how much we would have to film to fill the split-screen. 

Audience Feedback by mada96

Print Productions:

To obtain feedback for my print productions, I used a physical questionnaire similar to that of the one used for music video responses. These questionnaires were given out to five individuals in my media class and they were presented with my printed out ideas for both the digipak and magazine advert. Firstly, the questionnaire asked participants to rate aspects of the overall package out 5 (1 = worst, 5 = best). Below are the questions and their average rating score for each answer:

1) Does the package successfully reflect the genre of music? - 4.2
2) Does the package successfully promote the band/artists? - 4.4
3) How do you rate the standard of graphics, text, finish of digipak? - 4.8
4) How do you rate the standard of graphics, text, finish of advert? - 5
5) How successfully is the Britishness of the package established? - 4.6

These results show that the creation of my digipak has mainly been executed well, scoring 4.8 and 5 on the overall aesthetics of the package shows that audiences are pleased with how the CD panels and magazine look, indicating to me that I've managed to create a product that has visual appeal to the demographic being targeted by us. Additionally, on average participants gave me a 4.6 rating for the establishment of Britishness, which tells me that the locations and subjects work well (particularly on the front cover) in conveying a notifiable representation of this nation. However, in some other feedback I received via a post it note in class activity, someone posed the question "Does the American Flag distract from the 'Britishness' of the band?". This is very important point, as the back cover of my digipak features said flag on top of the American embassy; a classic example of how when encoded by the producer, texts can sometimes be decoded by the reader with a different reading of the code, also, referencing aberrant reading. This is as I intentionally used the American flag to draw similarities between the corruption of the wealthy in high positions of power in USA and Britain, in relation to my overall video, the flag connotes economic downturn in America such as the wall street crash, with similar events in Britain e.g. the housing crisis. Moreover, the feedback shows me that perhaps the link made was too vague or that the audience perhaps need a more focused awareness upon current affairs to understand the connection.

Furthermore, the first two questions gained the lowest average scores; lower scores on question one tell me that perhaps my research in to trip-hop print productions wasn't as strong as it could of been, and had I have been more extensively exploring the forms and conventions of existing album covers, the design may have ended up better reflecting the trip-hop genre. Additionally, the lower average on the second question indicates that the overall package doesn't promote the band as well as it could. This may be due to the fact that the covers don't feature establishing images of the band members themselves; however, from my research in the trip-hop genre, I found that most album covers of this genre don't usually use the band themselves and so it may perhaps be that I've given questionnaires to individuals who aren't specifically acquainted with the genre. Therefore, the result could be due to a methodological issues, whereby, the feedback lacks validity as it doesn't specifically measure what it sets out to measure.

The next question asked participants whether the covers would encourage individuals to buy the digipak, astoundingly, everyone who took said yes. This shows that the overall quality of graphics and composition of elements works well in both its design, and subsequently, gaining the band more sales and furthermore notability. However, as I mentioned with some of the music video feedback, it has to be taken in to account that the participants were fellow classmates of mine and so some of their answers may be based on the premise of pleasing me. The same can be said for the following question (Would the advert encourage you to go to an event by the artist?).

The first open question asks whether there were any aspects participants found offensive about the print production, here, all feedback indicates that there was no issues with the representations within my print productions. Moreover, I've learned that my digipak and magazine advert fairly represents aspects of British culture, gender, age and ethnicity. The following question asked participants what they believed were the three strongest features of the ancillary texts, here, I primarily got a lot of positive feedback about the layout, strength of images and the clear link with binary opposition in the music video. For example, one individual said "Panel 2 + 3 with Robbie's face creates a really nice sense of binary opposition and reflects the video more effectively". This shows that the audience have understood and decoded both the music video and print productions well, using their understanding to create a link between the two texts. Moreover, showing how I've linked the overall package effectively to accommodate for the audiences understanding, allowing for a high reception of preferred reading.

In addition to this, I also gained some feedback from post it notes that individuals stuck to my designs in a classroom activity. The majority of the comments are positive, touching on the same strong points of my productions as the questionnaires; however, a few individuals gave me some feedback for how I could perhaps improve my designs and so I acted on this promptly. Firstly, the text on the front cover was quite hard to make out and so a few people asked if it would perhaps be better if I made it bolder; therefore, I enlarged the font and made the red and white more vibrant. Secondly, someone luckily spotted that I made a spelling mistake in my magazine advert, reading "musix" as opposed to "music", this feedback informed me to revise changes in order to make the ancillary texts more coherent.

Various post-it notes, containing feedback.

Audience Feedback 2