Narrative Theory

OCR will expect candidates to be able to utilise narrative theory with regards to case studies / production.

Narrative Sheet on Gateway

Narrative : Order of the story + Style that it is represented

Story : Description

Part of the human condition is that we don’t dream nor remember original events (real or not) in linear order.

The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things

Story is the irreducible substance of a story (A meets B, something happens, orders returns), while narrative is the way the story is related (once upon a time there was a princess…)

Media texts are better organised than everyday life.

“The time of the
thing told and the time of the telling”.

What he is basically saying is
that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling

One set experience will create one meaning of the media text while a different set brings another meaning. What this means is that due to my like experiences I will take one certain meaning from a movie where as Sally from down the road with her own life experiences make take a completely different meaning.

Audiences bring different psychology and sociological baggage to a media text which affect what meaning they receive. Plus the meaning can change depending on the context of the viewing, how the person is feeling where they are etc.

Explanation of Audience Research

My research has been laid out in 6 distinctive posts on my blog. Each post covers a specific part of my research whether it is the area of question or the evaluation of the entire piece. This enables you to view information about a specific area of my research in a quick and efficient manner. The 6 areas are:

• Explanation of Audience Research
• Consumption of Music
• Is Piracy really that bad?
• Production Questions
• Have you heard of a...?
• Evaluation of Audience Research

My research has been centred on a questionnaire designed to answer the questions above. I felt 2 to 3 questions on each area would provide me with a better understanding of the audience who would most likely enjoy my Media Productions such as my Digipak or Music Video. By conducting this research before creating my productions I would be able to gain an insight into what was necessary to attract them.

The other purpose was to gain research valuable to my Media Investigation into Piracy and its effects. I felt rather than sending out 2 separate questionnaires it would be more productive and efficient on my part to combine them into one.

I designed the questionnaire to be answered on the internet rather than by hand, this enabled me to quickly spread it across social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter while also saving me time on having to type up the results or enter the information into a Table to design a graph. I sent this questionnaire out to a random selection of individuals on my list of contacts and within a day or so had collected all the information I needed.

The demographic focus of my research was on the age group of around 16-25 because from my own taste in music and experience in attending Indie music gigs I know that this will be the age group most likely to enjoy the Blighters type of music. Furthermore I realise from working in a Computer Services & Training Company that the majority of people in that age group are far more savoury with the internet and technology meaning that they would give me more of a non-biased answer on Piracy. There would be no true result asking if someone would use Piracy as their active method to acquire their music if they can’t use a computer let alone an internet browser.

The demographic would be only slightly heavier on the male side than females but otherwise gender equal. The indie scene is made out of many individuals but can also attract Aspirers who are attracted by the musicians’ skills or even mainstreamers can be attracted depending how popular the Indie band becomes. What this means for my research is that it has been collected off a wide range of individuals which can’t be specifically locked down onto the groups personal aspirations but rather their age group.

Have you heard of...?

When looking into my media investigation on Piracy I came across 2 very good alternatives to iTunes and great sources of listening to music. I was wondering if other people had heard of them as well, or even used them, so I set out to find out if my target audience had.

Not surprisingly with Spotify now being supported on the Ipod Touch and Iphone as well as numerous mobile phones a large majority of people had heard of spotify. A few even used it.

Not surprisingly with Spotify now being supported on the IPod Touch and IPhone as well as numerous mobile phones a large majority of people had heard of Spotify. A few even used it.

On the other hand only 1 person questioned had heard of We7.com. Not surprising considering I hadn't heard of it until doing some research into alternatives to Spotify myself. Even though, in concept, it offers the same things as Spotify for PC / Mac users with it being a radio station very few people would have ever run into it.

What this shows us is that with the internet age being what is and the easy ability to stream music more and more people are hearing of these alternatives to buying music. Why pay for an album when you can simply listen to a small advert instead for free? Spotifys monthly payment concept to remove the adverts may take hold or it may not. Personally I don't see it doing so since I rarely spend more than £10 bi-monthly on music let alone £20.

Link back to Round up

Production questions

Quite a few other bands such Lostprophets or Paramore have used skateboarding in their videos however with both of the mentioned bands leaning more towards rock I was wondering what reaction people would have to a Indie-New wave band having skateboarding. I was also curious to see if anyone had even heard of Blighters before the questionnaire.

Our main production idea was to base the music video around Skateboarding, knowing that the demographic from this question would suit the Blighter band perfectly I was hoping to see a majority in favour. Thankfully I found that the majority of those who answered my questionnaire, 9 out of 12 (75%), were in favour. This put more confidence into creating our music video and cantering it around skateboarding and performance shots.

My second question was more out of interest, I myself had never heard of Blighters until we found them as an unsigned band and decided to use them for our production project. However 3 people had heard of them before the actual questionnaire, 1 of which had seen them live in Norwich!

The 2 above graphs show that my target audience, on the majority, are interested in the idea of a skateboarding music video regardless of the fact very few have heard of the band.

Link back to Round up

Is Piracy really that bad?

Is Piracy as wide spread as people think? Is it really the greatest threat of the internet generation? What do people use to do this illegal act, if they even know how? This section aims to answer these questions.

Interestingly only 8 of 12 (75%) knew how to download music illegally, from within the post Consumption of Music the graph of how people 'acquire' their music shows us that 5 of those 8 use illegal downloading as their main source. So even though downloading music illegally no longer requires such skill, especially due to programs such as Limewire making it exceedingly quick and easy, it is very surprising that not everyone knows how to download and use it let alone use it as their main source of acquiring music.

The graph above is a question more relating to my Media investigation than Audience Research. There are quite few methods to how you can go about downloading music illegally. The 4 above are the main 4 and any other method is generally derived from one of them or a cheap knock off such as Frostwire instead of Limewire.


I was surprised on how many within the group I asked use torrents because of the technical ability needed is far higher for them than either of the Limewire or Rapidshare users. Likewise those using Youtube would need to have a specific ‘Ripping’ program or an Audio recorder which most cost money.

I am a firm believer that Anti-Piracy laws will never be enough, or in reality work, so I was very surprised when just under half of those I asked felt that they were enough. I expected more comments along the lines of "piracy laws don’t stop anyone from downloading music" or "They still haven't managed to prevent it at all" where as I got comments as "There's enough advertising to put me off".

To conclude piracy may not be in the utmost thoughts of many of the public, but it should be for those in the media industry. With this many people knowing how to download music it clearly is too easy to do so. Even with my own opinion of the law never being able to fully stop it, the ones currently in place put very few people off, even the advertising campaign is more something we chuckle at that take seriously.

Link back to Round up

Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

Her Morning Elegance is moderately unique music video by being filmed primarily in the form of stop motion. Stop motion is the method of taking numerous still shots and then quickly streaming them one after another, creating the appearance of moving inmate objects. While sounding simple it is far from the truth; Her Morning Elegance consisted of roughly 3225 still images. Taking these shots spanned a period of 4 weeks where the characters were represented by 3D dummies. Frame by frame it only took a shocking 2 days for the live actors to replace the dummies.

While the technique’s used to create this video via animation and stop motion is very impressive it extremely reduced the ability to use different angled shots or ranges of distance. This is due to the unfortunate reality of the editing procedure. To produce a smooth moving stop motion video the camera must remain stationary. Thus this meant we only see a minimal amount of shot types yet on the plus side we have a firm establishing shot at the beginning of the sequence displaying the master shot as well as a brief array of close ups of the protagonist introducing you to the character.

The music video itself is run through via an impressionist narrative with a seemingly unrelated array of different areas within the protagonists dream sequence. This uniqueness and slight childish feeling as well as the calm and almost eerie folk track draw the audience in. The simplicity of the video with the ability to easily distinguish between the different scenes, such as the dark blue bed sheet representing the sea and the white socks representing fish, also adds to the character of the video.

The technique’s and narrative employed in this video are both of quality that will attract a broad audience due to the humour, such as the socks as fish or shirts as birds, as well as the aesthetic appeal of the surroundings by having them as a simple bedroom. A feel-good factor is also employed by reminding us all that no matter the dream good or bad we always wake up after it in our comfy bed to the blazing sun.

Consumption of Music

How do audiences consume their music, is it through the Highstreet, the internet, CD Players or even the radio. How do they purchase or acquire this music they listen to? This section aims to address these questions and analyses the results.

The graph above shows you the answers I gained from the question on “How they ‘acquire’ their music normally” which aimed to find out if the highstreet is truly dying out like the Media Industry fears. From the graph it appears that the highstreet has lost popularity with just being tied first with 5 out of the 12 participants in the questionnaire. This shows us that ~58% now prefer other alternatives to going to highstreet and buying their music. This step can be explained however by the fact it is far more convenient to use the internet to get your music whether illegal or by using programs such as iTunes or Spotify.

However with the options Highstreet, Internet D/L (download) and Streaming all being legal it seems the majority still prefer paying and owning their own music over illegal downloading. Out of those options it seems that the majority still using legal methods prefer owning a physical Album over the music tracks floating around in the internet ether of iTunes or Spotify.

But with just under half of the votes illegal downloading clearly shows the change in perspectives. If anything this graph shows us that the majority of people no longer own huge album collections but rather store their music on their computers or laptops. This in itself makes sense because with my demographic being of the age range 16-25 I would be greatly surprised if even 1 out of the 12 do not own a mobile phone of IPod that they use to play their music

With the massive increase in options and alternatives on how to listen to music I decided to find out what technology people use to listen to their music collection. The question asked was ‘What technology do you use to listen to music?’ to do this the question was setup as a multiple answer. My expectations were that the majority would use iPod/MP3 because of convenience. The small size and long battery life provides superb portability. Likewise I'd expect most people to use a PC/Laptop to listen to music, especially because without one you would not be able to upload your music collection to your IPods, MP3s or phones!

Furthermore due to how technology has moved forward and how MP3 players are now easily affordable I would have been greatly surprised to have found out if anyone still carried around a bulky CD player. Likewise with many mobiles phones now having a functioning music player just as capable as an MP3 player it makes sense to see a few people using this option. On top of that many IPods & mobile phones also offer radio services, but still many of us wake up in the mornings to Radio 1 as our alarm.

To conclude it is quite clear that the music industry is moving on with technology with more and more people using iPods/MP3s over the old bulkier tech. However it seems out of the legitimate options of listening to music people are still going out to stores to buy albums, but with illegal downloading having an equal amount of support it is no surprise many artists like Lily Allen detest Piracy and see it as a large challenge for the industry to face. Then again this fear may not be about the legality of it but more based on the fact that the demographic I’ve used is very similar to the audience of hers.

Link back to Round up

Evaluation of Audience Research

The research carried out has been successful in shedding light on the audience I hope to attract to my Media Products whether being the Music Video, CD Case or Magazine advert. The demographic I have concentrated on should be more than likely to enjoy them.
The primary method I used to gather data was a questionnaire. While providing easily graphed quantitative data it does not provide as much qualitative data as an Interview would. However it does provide a few key lines of opinions which I have used within my research as well as to shape my own personal opinion. So the strength of the method used is the ability to create a visual demonstration of the results through the graphs, but a weakness is the inability to provide in-depth opinions of the audience.

Also another strength of the method is the ease of getting the data. Doing a questionnaire is normally no more than a 5-10 minutes task where as an interview, even with 10 questions, can take up to 30 minutes. What this means is that while 12 have done my questionnaire out of those 12 I may have asked to do an interview only 1 or 2 may have agreed due to having their own studies or work to attend to.

When evaluating the questions themselves I feel on the whole they are entirely successful but I do feel that I should have asked “What is your preferred method of listening to music” along with “What technology do you use to listen to music?” because it would have provided more specific results instead a general picture of the technology they own.

When it comes to evaluating whether the demographic I have mentioned throughout the Audience Research is accurate for my Productions and the Blighters band I can now confirm it does. By having a mixed gender group between the ages of 16-25 with social aspirers, mainstreamers and individuals who I know from attending gigs all can enjoy Indie type music I have now got relevant data for my Media Studies work.

Just by looking at those attending gigs for bands such as Arctic Monkeys, Death Cab For Cutie, Radiohead you can see similar qualities between the demographic mentioned. That is because all the bands fall under the indie / Alternative music banner.

However a large weakness of my Audience Research is the fact I have solely concentrated on single demographic. While this provides good information for my own projects it doesn’t provide me any data to compare tastes or differences in consumption of music. I can say that within age range of 16-25 everyone owns some form of music playing device however I can’t say that mainstreamers are more likely to own an Apple IPod where as Individual aspirers are more likely to own a Zune MP3.

In conclusion I would say my Audience Research is a success on the whole but if I did come to do it again I would more than likely design more questions to compare differences in music tastes and consumption.

Link back to Round up