G324

1. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Ben Winter
G324 – A2 MEDIA STUDIES – EVALUATION –
QUESTION 3

2. WHAT TYPE OF AUDIENCE FEEDBACK DID I
COLLECT?
At both AS and A2, audience research played a key role in developing my ideas in the
construction process. However, it was more useful at A2 due to the requirement of writing for
a target audience, and ultimately selling music. This could only be achieved if the target
audience were satisfied with what they consumed, therefore collecting responses from a focus
group provided me an insight in to what the wider target audience’s demands would be. My
audience feedback came from:
 Audience Profiling
 Online Questionnaires
 Focus Group Feedback
These all taught me how the consumer reacts to concepts in media theory, as well as helping
me to improve my products to make it as suitable for the consumer as possible.

3. AUDIENCE PROFILING
By forming an audience profile, I was able to justify my ideas by explaining that it would satisfy the
target audience. This process also encouraged me to really explore the demographics and lifestyle
of my target audience, which ended up generating new ideas for the music video, especially the
intertextual references. The target audience I found through audience profiling could be described
as:
• 18-25 year olds (from north-west England)
• Fans of similar music genres: Singer-songwriter, soul, emotional/acoustic, rock
• People motivated by inspirational words
By getting Luke Cusato and his manager to tweet out the link to my survey, I knew that the
respondents would probably fit under at least one the above descriptions, thus making my
justifications for video ideas valid and relevant. I wanted my product to appeal to the target audience
and for them to be able to relate to it, therefore I constructed it with the intention of creating a
preferred reading – Hall, Reception Theory.
Although this does not count as audience feedback in itself, it did inform the process of collecting
feedback.

4. SURVEY ANALYSIS - AGE
In order to further my understanding of my target audience, I created a survey on
SurveyMonkey and distributed it by posting it on social media websites such as Twitter and
Facebook. I had a rough idea of a focus group that would both be practical and offer relevant
feedback.
The first two questions of the survey established
the gender and age of participants, which would of
course inform me of how well they fit into my
audience description (see previous slide). As no
gender was specified, this would simply help me
to spot answer patterns between males and
females. 80% of respondents were within the
initial target audience criteria, with 6 respondents
being 40+, which actually offered a useful
difference of responses.

5. SURVEY ANALYSIS – MUSIC GENRES
These questions (right) asked participants
about their music preferences. The question on
favourite music genres proved that
respondents were a suitable target audience
as ‘Acoustic’, ‘Rock’ and ‘Singer-Songwriter’ all
fit in with my artist’s genre/s. Secondly, the
video link directed participants to the song I
was planning on making a music video for.
Overall, participants enjoyed the song (7.5/10
on average), therefore I was confident that
focus group feedback would be valid and
honest in relation to the actual video, and not
influenced by the song.

6. SURVEY ANALYSIS - LIFESTYLE
• These questions aimed to discover the lifestyle of my participants. Ultimately, knowing
what my potential target audience get up to in their lives could help me to shape
intertextual references to suit and relate to other parts of their lives.
• Although the question on favourite current artist may relate to music taste, I took this as
being a representation of their lives as most people like to identify themselves through the
artists they listen to, hence why merchandise is such an important money-making strategy
for artists. Artists such as Jake Bugg, George Ezra, Ed Sheeran and Tom Odell are similar
to my artist in the sense that they all identify as singer-songwriters. Luke Cusato lists Ed
Sheeran as one of his main influences, whilst Tom Odell also plays piano.
• The question on hobbies (bottom left) found my respondents to enjoy a variety of different
activities. The “Guitar” response is particularly relevant to my artist as he would obviously
have identified ‘Piano’ as a hobby at an earlier point in his life, therefore I shaped my
video around the theme of song writing, being inspired by things you see on the internet
(social networking) and outdoors (motorsports).

7. SURVEY ANALYSIS – TYPE OF VIDEO
This questions was designed in order to
establish what type of video my
participants most enjoyed. As most
participants prefer a narrative-based
video, I shaped my video ideas around
relating the lyrics to the visuals.

8. WHAT HAD I LEARNT SO FAR?
• The online survey analysis helped to shape a more complete version of my shot list and
storyboard, as well as settling on the themes of ‘song writing’, ‘seeking inspiration’ and
‘outdoors’.
• I had planned to include more performance parts in my song, especially when I thought I
could film my artist in the video. However, the survey results showed that my target
audience do not enjoy performance-based videos as much as narrative-based videos,
therefore I reduced the number of performance shots on my shot list.
• All of this led to me producing the first draft of my music video.

9. FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK FROM FIRST DRAFT
• After completing the first draft of my music video, I got in contact with my focus group (the
participants I know did the survey and fitted in with the ‘criteria’ for my target audience)
and asked them to complete a questionnaire. This asked them to comment on my
progress so far.
• This proved to be very useful as I could make adjustments to make my narrative clearer
to the whole audience. This survey can be seen on my blog.

10. FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONNAIRE
Chloe Garland was a very
useful focus group member as
she is from Middlesbrough, thus
making her the most northern of
my participants. She should be
able to relate to the video most
according to my ‘criteria’.
Q1 shows that I needed to film
some filler shots, of which I
responded to in my final draft.
Daniel (bottom left) told me that
the lyrics matched the visuals
well (Goodwin) and that the
pace of the editing was
effective, which was useful in
helping me to keep at this pace
of editing.

11. ANCILLARY TEXTS
• Focus group told me that the consistent theme was effective and that a star image was
created well.

12. CONCLUSION
To conclude, I have learned two main things from audience feedback:
• How Media Theories have played a key role in shaping the representation of my artist
• Goodwin in particular - relating visuals to the lyrics
• Importance of intertextuality
• How to improve my video to reach my target audience
• Focus group feedback informed me of key changes to be made for final cut, as well
as for ancillary texts.