Task 3

Defining the audience: It is useful for institutions and academics to be able to build up detailed accounts of how audiences are constructed. Rather than seeing audiences as masses or in simple numerical terms, it is common practice to find ways of segmenting the audience

This segmentation can be achieve both demographically and psychographically

Demographic segmentation = audiences are segmented according to various significant social criteria e.g. gender class race, sexuality

 One of the most common approaches to audience involves the JINCARS scale.

JINCARS SCALE=

A - high mangement/ administration/ proffesional

B - middle management/ administration/ professional 

C1 - supervisory/ clerical/ junior management

C2 - skilled manual

D - semi and unskilled manual

E – subsistence income/ pensioners/ wifows/ casual labour/ unemployed 

What have I learnt from your audience feedback? 

The target audience for my A2 pop video are middle aged, middle to upper class citizens who are fans for the country and western genre. Due to our interpretation of the genre, and modernizing it in many ways – such as location, star and costume- I believe it will appeal more to the younger spectrum of the middle aged members of society.


In order for us to measure the success of our pop video, we decided to think of many ways in order to get feedback. I took the liberty of showing the video to individual people in the community, asking their opinion on such areas as: themes, editing, imagery etc. I then organized a questionnaire for my group so that we could put together a focus group. I bought together a wide spectrum of people ranging from 16 – 30, men and women, media students and non in order to get a fair range of results. An example of the questionnaire is on the link below.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YFYT56X

After combining the feedback from the various sources. I found that just over 55% of the people recognized the country and western genre simply by looking at the album artwork and poster. This mixed reaction is exactly what we were looking for as the idea was to create a new, modern, subverted country and western portrayal.

From the survey, I saw that nearly all members at the same pre-conceived stereotype of what should be in a Country and Western genre. That being; cowboys, cowboy hats, horses, natural landscape and barns. This is precisely why my group and I decided to veer away from such stereotypes by setting the video in a modern, inner city location, with only one stereotypical reference - the guitar. This alternative approach to this genre helps structure the artists star image as an alternative, mysterious, rule breaking man. This provided ‘Jouissance’.

 I wanted to find the reason why audience would watch and listen to my artist. Taking work from the theorists Kats and Blumler, I gave them 4 choices to choose from; Diversion, Surveillance, Investigate personal relationship and to use it for personalization. Results showed that over 80% of audience members would used the artist as diversion from the real world, with the lowest reason being ‘Surveillance.’

The use of identity was key in successfully portraying and successfully communicating the star image of our artist. With reference to the JINCARS scale, I believe it communicates to all identities up to ‘B’. This is due to the strong theme of urban decay and reference to deep emotions that I think the ‘A’ category would not find appealing. This fact is backed up with the results of the feedback as the video was most appealing to those studying, teaching and not working. There are two main ways in how the audience could interpret the video in terms of identity. Either they learned something about themselves, or they formed a new one with the artist. Response to this video included such comments as ‘it made me realize that my life wasn’t so bad’ and ‘I really felt his story.’ The use of direct address was a point that nearly all audience members picked out. This is probably due to the fact that this is the one of the only moments where they audience and the artists have an intimate moment.

Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, that is incomplete and ‘open’. Richard Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes

1) the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer
2) the star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer

Did they give a preferred reading, aberrant, negotiated?

According to the Stuart Halls theories, audiences can have three different reactions to a media text, whether it be a film, documentary or newspaper:
1) Dominant, or Preferred, Reading - how the director/creator wants the audience to view the media text;
2) Opposition Reading - when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning of the text;
3) Negotiated Reading - a compromise between the dominant and opposition readings, where the audience accepts parts of the director's views, but has their own views on parts as well. From response, we realized that a ‘preferred reading’ was made. Meaning the audience got the themes of destruction and love that we were trying to communicate.