Having collected a variety of feedback for our pop video and ancillary products from members of the target audience and from other members of the audience demographic. (Via YouTube, a Focus Group and other sources).
Our target audience was 16-25 year old males from JICTAR groups C, D and E. Generally speaking, groups C, D and E are less sophisticated people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds, but these social categories are big spenders on pop music and related commodities. C is people who are skilled but not academically educated, such as builders and electricians. D is families and people who labor and E are the unemployed. This applies to these JICTAR groups because of the people and the content of the video; the video features people of a poorer socio-economic background and the video details needless violence and vandalism.
The video was posted on Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook, from the three only YouTube and Facebook received comments, and all of these comments were positive. The comments included;
From YouTube
− “This is amazing” – bonesbilly545
− “Yesssss this video is ill” – skeme14
− “Amazing video” – kreitylowTheNINJA
From Facebook – On the Facebook liking system, 17 people like this.
− “Amazing. X” – Natalya Holley
− “Sik Video” – Kaleem Khan
The Focus Group contained of seven students, four male and three female. We gave a questionnaire containing ten questions to the group. We wanted the group to watch the video once before answering the questions, this would allow time for the group to think and come up with sensible answers before answering them. The idea was to simply find out if they enjoyed it, and to see if they understood what had happened and perhaps if they had gained any other meaning from the video or even the song. After they had answered the questions, we had a discussion as a group, in which we discussed questions, and their responses, and we attempt to usher them to elaborate on their statements. The supplementary discussion was actually more useful than the questionnaire itself; the verbal response seemed more emotional. One male student, Will Edgely, an 18 year old from Dorking said the video was “to a great song, and the emotion of the song, despite the lack of lyrics, really fitted the video”
The questionnaire was as follows:
1) Did you enjoy it? Why?
2) What did you get out of it?
3) What did you think the message of the story was?
4) Did you think the brand was established? How?
5) Do you think it is sexist/bias in any way?
6) Did you identify with any of the characters? How? Who?
7) Did it tell you anything about relationships?
8) Did it give you any information about the world today?
9) What is the official image that you received?
10) How do you think it can be improved?
In terms of Blumler and Katz’s theory of uses and gratifications, we tried to fulfill two of the specified areas as defined by them; we also aimed to apply their theory to our audience response. Blumler and Katz say that watching TV fulfills four basic needs. These are; Diversion (a form of escape from everyday mundanity), Personal Relationships (companionship via TV personalities and characters), Personal Identity (the comparison’s drawn between the characters and your own life) and Surveillance (a supply of information concerning the welfare of the world). In terms of our pop video, diversion occurs, when the audience watches and empathizes with the activities of the gang, or feels envious of the nonchalance in their daily activities, but because they are bound to the confines of their life, they cannot do these random acts, instead the relate with the video because it forms an escape for them. Surveillance occurs because the video shows the world in a state of disarray, where amongst a dystopian society, the broken lives appear to be the ones that shine, and the activities of young people are needlessly violent because there is simply nothing else in their lives.
Stuart Hall suggests a theory that producers encode a preferred message that the audience proceeds to decode in any one of three ways. These ways are either the audience accepting the preferred meaning, or they become oppositional readers, rejecting the preferred message, or negotiated readers, wherein they decipher their own meaning. The pop video has a preferred meaning, wherein the DJ is edgy rebellious and controversial. The meaning of the narrative is that the world is potentially violent and dangerous. The males in the focus group read the preferred meaning of both, but the females in the group rejected the second meaning, not believing the video was an accurate representation of a state of affairs in modern gang culture, instead arguing that the video “glorified needless aggression”. However, the Internet comments received were positive from both genders, so we cannot draw the conclusion that women reject the second meaning.
Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, not by any means a media theorist, introduced his ideas of Ethos, Pathos and Logos, arguing that the goal of argumentative writing was to persuade the audience that your ideas are valid, or more so than someone else’s. Ethos or simply credibility was the convincing of the characters and narrative by means of the author, meaning that we tend to believe people who we respect. Pathos or the emotional is the persuading by means of appealing to the reader or watcher’s emotion. Logos or words, was the persuading by mode of words, or in the case of pop videos, lyrics. With regards to our pop video, only Ethos and Pathos apply, as our video features no lyrics. Ethos applies because the DJ, the author, imposes the narrative and the DJ is a respectable character, his musical prowess demands respect from all ages, giving him the deserved credibility. Pathos applies because the video details emotions at their highest peaks, the viewing of the destruction of modern artifacts, and at their most suppressed, the gang members themselves who look like they have had it hard all their life.
I think that overall the performance element of the pop video worked beyond expectations; maybe if we were to reshoot we may have changed location to bring him closer to the narrative and emphasize the dystopian society. The narrative did work, but I felt we tried to hard to blur the lines between the gangs, and that they appeared too similar in appearance, we did try to achieve a certain similarity between them, but this could have been achieved through camerawork and editing, and if we were to reshoot I would the gangs wearing noticeably different clothing, with different modes of destruction, and perhaps alternative semiology that showed their unison as a gang.
