1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions are symbols or technical elements which are used to suggest a genre or something that is used to attract a target audience. They are stereotypical signs to show the genre used through camera work, editing or mise-en-scene.

Symbolic conventions are a colour or symbol which can be used to represent something specific to the genre. For example, the colour red could be symbolic convention of love. Or a pop band wearing colourful clothes to represent their genre of pop, as it is upbeat.

Technical conventions are elements of the setting or lighting which connote different hints towards the genre so that the audience who is consuming the media, can immediately form opinions about them and have something which appeals to them s a target audience. For example, the lighting on the stage at a concert of a pop band, may be brightly coloured and bubbly, whereas a heavy metal band, may have a dark setting with a spotlight on an instrument or particular band member to show that they are about the intensity of the music.

Below is a slideshow of comparing real life products, using Florence and the Machine, Birdy and Marina and the Diamonds. I compared different elects of their music videos, websites and album artwork to compare conventions or their products to mine, to find similarities and differences.

Evaluation task 1 final from elizafernandapollock

2. How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

This is our video for our Evaluation Task 2, discussing how effective our main product was compared to our ancillary texts. We discussed how all three of our products linked into each other and how we considered theories, like Dyer's Star theory and Negus' theory, fed into our ideas and the products.



Our three products overall link together to create an image for our artist, to promote her to her target audience. We used Negus' star theory, to create an accessible artist who was relatable to an audience so they could connect to her on a personal level, but also have her as a role model, so therefore inaccessible. We did this as in our music video we used a direct address in a lot of our shots which connected her to the audience, we also used this technique in our album artwork as she is looking directly at the camera on the front cover, which is immediately the first image and impression the audience get from the artist, this makes her personal and connects them immediately, therefore her being accessible to the audience. We also used this idea of accessibility by making the artist relatable by having her fashion similar to a target audience. in the music video, we used the costume to show the style and artistic style to the artist, but in the album covers, we got her to wear, urban clothes, which were typical of members of her target audience.

The unaccessible element of our artist was the fact that her talent was reflected through the organic connotations through the natural setting of her album cover, which made her stand apart from the typical teenager and is obviously shown through her talent in the music video of singing. The fact that she is also attractive and her modelling shots are shown on her website makes her someone that her audience can look up to to look like. The unaccessible theme was also shown across the light themes in the music video and the website homepage, as the colours are synthetic and non-natural which gives a dreamlike perspective to the artist.

The products work together as all of them have an element of nature, to promote her as an organic artist. In the music video, the movement reflected the mood of sound of her song. On the album artwork, the natural setting and use of minimal makeup. And in the website by taking a synthetic looking image which is actually from a natural source and putting a twist on it to make it fit in with a similar colour scheme as the music video, so the link is made.

I think that as a whole music campaign, the products work together as a package because Negus Theory of organic and synthetic artists are put across in a balance amongst the products. And Dyer's Star Theory of accessible and inaccessible is also put across to the audience to make them want to get to know her and therefore have interests in the products and her as an artist.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Below is a Prezi, on my feedback gained from the production stages of creating my final Music Campaign.

What have I learned from my audience feedback?

In the initial stages of our idea development we mainly used YouTube to record and upload the verbal feedback that we gained from so we could repeatedly review and develop ideas based on the feedback gained by our class.

We then showed a focus group our rough cut of our music video. We gave them a questionnaire of open and closed questions and filmed their responses to some of the feedback then collected the questionnaire sheets and summarised the information to develop on.

A demographic audience includes gender, age, race, nationality and job. The demographic audience that we chose to use for our feedback was of both genders as our target audience was of both, that were interested in our artist for different reasons. We used the same age group of 16-18 years old, from a range of different backgrounds, so that we could get a variety of feedback, but from the same sort of demographic. I few had used a different demographic, the feedback would have been useless as we only care about what this demographics opinions are. The readings they produced were shown on our focus group questionnaire feedback. This was a reliable sample size as well as they came up with generally similar answers to the questions and their qualitative feedback was mentioning the things that were specifically targeted at their age group.

A psychographic audience is based on beliefs and views. As our main target audience was of a young age group we decided to use the teenage Vals categories

The disadvantages of using YouTube - We couldn't generate any new feedback it was just a recording of our previous feedback so it wasn't an ongoing source that would be updated.
The advantages of using YouTube - it was a permanent source that could not be lost and we could go back to it at any point.

The disadvantages of using Focus groups - The groups could conform to each others responses even if they did not believe that that was the case. By being in a focus group situation, it could intimidate them to give negative feedback, therefore may not having reliable responses.
The advantages of using Focus groups - We could gain opinionated responses that were immediate responses to watching our music video.

The feedback that was positive in our focus group was that they liked the pink element when we shoed them our rough cut, so we decided to add more clips of the pink section. They also liked the cross fade editing, so we decided to add more cross fades, as they mentioned the it helped add to the effect of dreams.

Some feedback that was not helpful was that someone mentioned in the focus group that they thought that the artist was too seductive. This was unhelpful as we could not change our artist or refill any sections of it. However we decided to work on this, we had less shots of focusing on her face, and included more shots not of her directly looking supposedly seductive.

Using the Uses and Gratifications Model we used personal identity, as our audience has the ability to compare themselves within the media, so they can explore personal problems and perspectives. this theory discusses how an audience specifically choose the media that they consume. We have used this theory and applied the point of an escapism. Our feedback from our music video was that our themes were dreamlike and gave the impression of a supernatural mood, this acts as an escapism as it is bringing the audience to an unrealistic life that is better than theirs, which will attract them to our artist.

For our music video, our readings from our feedback showed that the responses were along the preferred reading as they got the theme of a dreamlike setting an understood that it was meant to be visually interesting and artistic, rather than about a real life scenario which the audience would relate to. However for our album artwork the feedback received oppositional reading, as the audience didn’t see the black and white colour scheme as a sign of an organic artist. 

It has been important for us to gain research into audiences of our product and also get feedback to create our artist from, as without the audience there would be now product. The online media is transforming the way audiences engage with media texts to a deeper level.