Intro of text
Explanation of the fluid concept/ difficulty of conceiving audience - (McDougall) but the importance of establishing one
1) How we found our audience - sigur listeners, questionnaires, IMDB, Hartley Classification
2) Ien Ang - psychographics, Young and Rubicam, Uses and Grats (Katz and Blamer 1974), Maslows Hierarchy
3) Focus groups/Stuart Hall/Reception Theory
Conclusion
The concept of audience can be applied to my Advanced Portfolio music video task. This was a narrative and performance based project concerning a man fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, who battles his fears and anxieties by discovering a form of escape - drumming. The soundtrack used for this was 'Festival' by Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Although the concept of a target audience can be relatively fluid, and it is important to recognise that the actual audience may differ slightly from those that are implied, it is beneficial for a producer to recognise their target audience as it allows them to adapt their production to a certain group, which is more likely to ensure economic success.
Explanation of the fluid concept/ difficulty of conceiving audience - (McDougall) but the importance of establishing one
1) How we found our audience - sigur listeners, questionnaires, IMDB, Hartley Classification
2) Ien Ang - psychographics, Young and Rubicam, Uses and Grats (Katz and Blamer 1974), Maslows Hierarchy
3) Focus groups/Stuart Hall/Reception Theory
Conclusion
The concept of audience can be applied to my Advanced Portfolio music video task. This was a narrative and performance based project concerning a man fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, who battles his fears and anxieties by discovering a form of escape - drumming. The soundtrack used for this was 'Festival' by Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Although the concept of a target audience can be relatively fluid, and it is important to recognise that the actual audience may differ slightly from those that are implied, it is beneficial for a producer to recognise their target audience as it allows them to adapt their production to a certain group, which is more likely to ensure economic success.
When carrying out research to find out our target audience prior to carrying out the production, we considered it to be necessary to gather a base demographic, in order to find who will be most likely to watch our music video. Due to the nature of the music video genre, our primary research questionnaires suggested that generally, audiences that watch music videos do so most frequently because they are attracted by the music rather than the visual content. Put simply, fans of music artists watch their music videos. Following obtaining this information, we set out to discover Sigur Rós' typical audience demographic. In order to do this, we carried out secondary research, by setting out to find which types of audience enjoy experimental post-rock music (Sigur Rós' genre). From doing this, we found that generally more mature listeners enjoy this genre, due to its ambience and thought-provoking content. Furthermore we analysed the demographic of viewers who watched Sigur Ros' documentary "Heima". We did this using IMDB's rating statistics, which tells users the demographic of IMDB raters for the documentary. From doing this, we found that users who rated the documentary tended to be between 18 and 26, and mostly male. Although this method of data collection may not have been entirely accurate as other viewers will have consumed the text but not reviewed it, we considered this to be a fairly reliable foundation to build upon - reinforcing our other research.
Ien Ang suggests however that "Audiencehood is becoming an even more multi faced, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences", meaning that psychographic and behavioural factors should also be factored as well as demographic factors when it comes to considering audience. This meant that it was necessary to scrutinise our target audience in more depth in relation to the narrative of our product, rather than just considering factors such as Age and Gender from the Hartley Classification. Young and Rubricam suggested 7 psychographic characteristics of people that can be considered when analysing audience (Cross Cultural Consumer
Characterisation
)- mainstreamers, aspirers, succeeders, resigned, explorers, strugglers and reformers. Given that the narrative of our music video was based around escapism and giving the audience an immersive experience (which we found to be an important factor in an audience's viewing experience from a primary research questionnaire given to our target audience pre-production), we decided to aim our product at 'explorers', as the music video provides them with an opportunity to suspend disbelief and escape. The Uses and Gratifications theory, theorised by Blumler and Katz, which suggests that audiences are active rather than passive individuals and consume media for different reasons, can be applied similarly, as we can target an audience that would seek diversion, again due to the escapist and immersive nature of the narrative.
)- mainstreamers, aspirers, succeeders, resigned, explorers, strugglers and reformers. Given that the narrative of our music video was based around escapism and giving the audience an immersive experience (which we found to be an important factor in an audience's viewing experience from a primary research questionnaire given to our target audience pre-production), we decided to aim our product at 'explorers', as the music video provides them with an opportunity to suspend disbelief and escape. The Uses and Gratifications theory, theorised by Blumler and Katz, which suggests that audiences are active rather than passive individuals and consume media for different reasons, can be applied similarly, as we can target an audience that would seek diversion, again due to the escapist and immersive nature of the narrative.
We ensured to accommodate the audience of the text throughout the production and planning by ensuring the narrative suited their preferences. We done this by carrying out various focus groups consisting of members of our target demographic, which allowed us to ensure that the desires and needs of our target audience were being achieved in our production. We also used online polls, carried out throughout the production process to do this, which enabled us to gauge a stronger understanding of the audience's preferences in terms of narrative and the audience's overall experience. These proved particularly useful and allowed us to adjust the products before their completion so that they were best received by our audience. Although we strived to ensure that our production suited the audience's preferences, it could be argued, as it is outlined in Stuart Hall's reception theory, that different audiences will decode texts differently, so viewers within my target audience could take different meanings from the text given the fluid nature of 'audience' and that viewers will still differ on an individual level, although they may still be a part of a similar demographic.
In conclusion, we considered it imperative to consider a target audience for our production in order to ensure its satisfies the needs and wants of Sigur Rós listeners, and to ensure its economic success (which would be a necessity in a live brief). We also made sure that a sample of the audience were consulted regularly in the production of the project to confirm that it would be well received by the wider audience. However, we also noted that although we had an idea of the types of viewers that would be consuming our music video, the audience is not fixed and there is opportunity for individuals to interpret and decode the text in different ways - which was complimented by the fact that our music video provided scope for this - through an extensive use of symbolic and enigma codes.
In conclusion, we considered it imperative to consider a target audience for our production in order to ensure its satisfies the needs and wants of Sigur Rós listeners, and to ensure its economic success (which would be a necessity in a live brief). We also made sure that a sample of the audience were consulted regularly in the production of the project to confirm that it would be well received by the wider audience. However, we also noted that although we had an idea of the types of viewers that would be consuming our music video, the audience is not fixed and there is opportunity for individuals to interpret and decode the text in different ways - which was complimented by the fact that our music video provided scope for this - through an extensive use of symbolic and enigma codes.
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