Audiences will interpret texts differently. A meaning of a text will not just have one meaning as many different people will have their own different interpretations of texts. Stuart Hall states that the meaning of a particular text is not essentially in the text itself suggesting that when analysing a text it is almost impossible to identity its one true ‘meaning’ as many different people who approach the text will make different interpretations of it. Hall believes the technical and symbolic codes that have been constructed and we as an audience see are the same however the producers of that media text have intended their own meanings and we as the consumer will make our own interpretations of that text. This type of audience response will vary from social factors such as our education, background and experiences. Hall states that there are three main types of readings of texts of how audiences view them. The first is preferred reading which is when the encoded meaning of the text made by the producers is intended, the audience is more likely to accept and share the text’s ideology. The second is negotiated reading which is where people’s social position and beliefs is outside the target audience; this type of audience is more likely to question the representations being encoded in a text. And the third is oppositional which is where the attitudes and values of these audiences are completely different and can’t accept the intended meaning. Conducting audience feedback was extremely beneficial for us throughout the production and post-production stages as it allowed us to gain feedback from our target audience and question them about what they like about our music video, what they didn’t like and why? We gained many different views from many different people within our target audience. The two key props which helped make the idea of ‘gender bending’ successful was the mask and the suit. This was because many people questioned the gender of our performer as they were unable to tell because of the fact that we had decided to hide our performer’s identity so that we could explore and show our audiences the meaning behind this, which was in fact to portray our chosen themes of childhood, isolation and awkwardness. Many also favoured the quality of the editing and the stop motion. They enjoyed watching the stop motion; they found the clashing colours, patterns and textures made it more creative and more visually interesting to watch. The continuity of each of the shots flowed well with the beat of the song which helped bring the out the live performance of the video.
However, we received negative feedback which included comments from our target audience such as many where not too keen on the idea of the shaky hand held camera work as they felt at times it was overwhelming. This was a surprise to us as we felt that the shaky hand held camera work created a lively and more engaging atmosphere and should have made the audience feel more part of the singer’s performance. Also, people thought that our video could have been improved by instead of making it a conceptual music video we could have added a narrative instead as some were slightly confused with what was happening in our video.
Overall, I feel that the process of gaining audience feedback has help us understood what our audiences have thought of our music video, what they liked and didn’t liked which is very beneficial for us as we now know what we could have done to help improve and better our music video.
