Question Four- Who would be the audience for your media product?

To find out about my target audience I did both primary and secondary research. My primary research included making two questionnaires (online survey monkey and print out leaflet to give to people) as well as asking questions to my peers and recording their answers. This made my survey accessible to all people. The online survey helped me to get a detailed view of my target audience and get their opinions on my ideas which aided me to make a focus group with various genders of an age that was reflective of my ideal target audience. My print out questionnaire was given out to my peers in both AS media classes to broaden my target audience answers. The secondary research I did was looking on YouGov Profiles for the target audience for similar films to mine as well as researching diagrams that others had done on the internet to compare the gender, ages and types of thrillers that people enjoyed which helped me narrow down my ideal audience for my film. To gather my research I used IMBd, Rotten Tomatoes, Survey Monkey, Google, YouGov Profiles Lite and Social Media Platforms.





 From my survey, I found out that my demographics for my film were 17-25 year olds of both gender. A total of 77 people answered my questionnaire and out of these 83% were female however from my secondary research I found out that the male gender also watched the thriller genre which made me come to the decision that I would aim my film at both gender. Both my primary and secondary research agree on the age group of the target audience as according to my diagram 43% of thriller genre audience are in the age group and with my survey I had 95% age group of 17-25.





I researched other films from the thriller genre to broaden my knowledge of the typical audiences. The films is researched were the Revenant and One Hour Photo. I chose these films as the One Hour Photo has a similar narrative and The Revenant is a newer film with violent scenes. The One Hour Photo is a 15 rated film which means that lots of 15+ people will have gone to watch it in the cinema. The narrative is psychological drama thriller which according to my research is the favoured genre of the 17-25 age groups. The film includes young characters which viewers might be able to relate to which makes them want to watch it. The Revenant uses violence to attract 17-25 as this is a convention of the thriller genre that attracts this age group.

Overall, from my primary and secondary research I found out that the thriller genre has various target audiences for example some thriller films are aimed at 17+ as there is violence which could be disturbing for a younger audience. The young adults demographic from 17 to 25 are a typical target audience as they are drawn in by the intense storyline and action which is seen frequently in a thriller film. The main gender that the thriller genre attracts is men. I think this is because of the male gaze theory as the main character is normally male who saves the day. The superior gender is stereotypically male for example Shutter Island has an all men cast apart from the nurses and mental patients. There are sub genres within the thriller genre which attract the other age groups and gender.