Audience identification questionnaire - 2nd October

By researching audience theories I was able to gain an insight into how audiences consume media to suit their needs and gratifications. Through looking into marketing tactics such as demographics I was able to vaguely identify the social status of my perspective target audience. However demographics as I’ve stated before gives a very vague idea of target audience.

In order to attain a more detailed indication of my target audience I produced a questionnaire that sought to identify what kind of people were attracted to what types of documentary genres. From this I will be able to identify my target audience that I am to aim my documentary toward. I also included questions that invited my questionnaire subjects to identify what channels they expected their favourite documentaries to be broadcast on as well as identify a few conventions that they feel are typical of a certain genre. I did this to gain an insight into what audiences expect from different genres of documentaries so that I can key mine towards their expectations of Mise En Scene and representation.

In order to attain a wide variety of audience I distributed my questionnaire amongst members of the public on Stafford high street. Having analysed my results I will now summarise them and identify how they will effect my production. Below is a blank copy of the questionnaire I distributed.



Questionnaire results

I distributed my questionnaire to 50 members of the public (27 males, 23 females). The ages were varying so that the results of my questionnaire would not by bias toward any certain age group.

My results firstly indicated that the older a person was the more television on average he or she watched. This showed the most increase between the ages 26 and 55+, probably due to younger people choosing to spend their leisure time socialising or using the internet or playing computer games as opposed to watching television. I also became aware that men tended to watch more television than women.

My next question asked how often they watched documentaries. This question made me aware of how little people actually engage in the genre of documentary willingly, though they may sometimes watch programs such as big brother or design programs that they are unaware count as documentaries. My results tended to show that on average documentaries were mostly watched by people aged 30 – 55 and above, though there were noticeable amounts of younger students i.e. 19 – 25 year olds who watched documentaries often. This coincides with my findings through demographics that the main audiences of documentaries were older, more educated people and a small number of students. It also shows me that I will be targeting my documentary at an older, more mature and educated audience.

I then asked what people’s favourite documentary genres were. This question will be very significant in identifying my target audience as it will indicate the type of people whom enjoy investigative documentaries (my target audience). The results showed that the middle aged brackets (predominantly 30 – 40 and some 41 – 55’s) were most likely to enjoy investigative documentaries, as well as historical, political and cultural documentaries, whilst younger ages were more inclined to watch reality and real life documentaries. My results also indicated that men were more likely to enjoy historical and investigative pieces, where as women tended to enjoy reality and home improvement documentaries.

I then asked whether or not they would choose to watch a documentary over and above other genres such as sit com or soap. In the vast majority of cases the answer was either no or rarely, with many younger people choosing to watch sit coms and many women choosing soaps. However once again men from the late 20’s onwards tended to answer yes or more often than not to this question indicated once again to me the primary audience of documentaries as an art form.

Having all but identified my target audience, I included a couple of questions that sought to identify audience’s expectations of how documentaries are distributed through terrestrial and digital TV channels as well as identify their expectations on what conventions are typical of genres, in order to understand how they associate themselves with representations and specific Mise En Scene within any given piece.

Firstly I asked them to identify their favourite genre of documentary. In the vast majority of cases my audiences filed together into the categories laid out by demographics, i.e younger people chose reality documentaries, whilst most women chose home improvement and real life documentaries. Once again the key core of those who chose investigative documentaries were men aged between 30 and 55 with a few of student age as well.

I then asked them what channels they expected that genre of documentary to be distributed via from a list of 12 top terrestrial and digital channels. With most genres the answers were pretty obvious, i.e. historical documentaries appearing on the “history channel” and reality documentaries appearing on “CBS Reality”. However with the investigative documentary genre the results were mixed. The vast majority of people believed that they would be shown on the BBC channels as well as channel 4 as they are channels aimed toward a large and educated audience. The most prominent answer I received was BBC2 and BBC3 depending on the scale of the documentary. This indicated to me the most probable channels my piece would most likely be distributed via.

Finally I asked them to bullet point a few conventions they expected to find within their given genre. Once again certain genres had predictable answers such as the use of an authoritative narrator and footage shot for different purposes in historical documentaries, as well as montages and charismatic presenters in home improvement documentaries. With the investigative documentary genre however I received a variety of different expectations of conventions and representations. The most common of these being a charismatic presenter, who seeks to understand and investigate any given issue through the use of interviews. They also expected voice over narration coupled with talking head explanation of interviews, goings on and findings within the piece as it unfolded and reached a conclusion.


Applying the results of the questionnaire to my documentary.

Using the results of my questionnaire I have been able to identify the primary target audience for my final piece. The questionnaire along with my analysis of demographics have pin pointed males aged 30 and above as well as some students, with a higher intellect and education as the primary audience for investigative documentaries.

Being able to identify my pieces primary audience will be useful for producing the documentary as I will be able to aim it toward fulfilling the expectations of representation and Mise En Scene held by my audience. These expectations I also found out using the questionnaire. It seems that like most examples of professionally produced documentaries I have watched and my research into the conventions of investigative documentaries that the audience come to expect some of the genres traditional conventions such as a voice over narration, interviews and the use of a presenter and talking head. In order to access my audience as much as possible through my documentary I will adhere to these expectations and conventions so that the audience can relate to the representations presented through dialogue, editing and Mise En Scene.

The results also showed me some of the TV channels both digital and terrestrial, that audiences expect to find certain genres of documentaries on. I will now study into the institutions behind documentaries, investigating how they influence the production of documentaries and how institutions profit from them as an art from.