Joanne Perry

AS Media Studies

Questionnaire Findings

After creating my questionnaire, I asked 5 teenage girls to fill it out with their own opinion in order to allow me to gather the findings and look over them thoroughly in order for my website to meet the needs of my target audience. My first question allowed people to tell me how many images they would like on a website to support and help people suffering with an eating disorder. 80% Of the people I asked chose either 5 or 6, or More than 6. This represents that my target audience would like a large number of images in order to make the website more appealing to them. There-fore, in order to ensure that my website fulfils the needs and expectations of my target audience, I will ensure that I have a minimum of 5 striking images to ensure that my charity campaign website is a success. Images give off more of a verisimilitude perspective on an eating disorder and there-fore the audience will feel as though they are gaining more knowledge through looking at a picture and finding the expressed emotion in a picture, rather than the website being overloaded with text which the audience will not want to read too much due to the target audience being a fairly young age of 15 to 24 year olds.

My second question asked the audience if they think that a website to support eating disorders should feature real life stories. Just over half of my audience thought that stories would be benefi-cial on this campaign website. However, 2 people out of 5 objected to the idea. In my personal opinion, stories based on real life events can sometimes be scary, especially to somebody who does not have to deal with the illness. Moreover, real life stories are a conventional element, often produced on charity campaign websites, allowing people to gain more knowledge through a verisimilitude connotation of the illness. Therefore, most people like this conventional element as people’s stories show a very polysemic approach to often, specific niche audiences. Usually audi-ences who suffer with the illness, know someone who has suffered or is suffering or has a link with the illness in any form. Stories represent a narrative which people can relate to and feel as though they are not alone, whereas they may have been unsure before. I feel that stories would be a very positive feature which I should create on my website to ensure that my website meets conventions of other charity websites and the audience feel as though they are part of a community by feeling as though they are not alone.

Thirdly, I asked the audience whether they think that having a celebrity figure who has also suf-fered an eating disorder, telling his/her story and offering support, will help others who also suffer an eating disorder as well. The feedback I received on this question were strong and positive apart from one ‘maybe’ answer. However, due to nobody disagreeing upon this element, I feel that this would be a strong, persistent code in which would anchor the audience in due to it ensuring that the website receives more publicity as well as ensures that this also helps people who suffer from the illness to find their path to recovery, just like the celebrity figure.

For the fourth question about the effect upon the images on the website, I received very mixed feedback from the audience. The options were black and white, colour or other. Black and white and other were the most popular, with colour still being selected on one persons feedback too. As I imagine images for a charity campaign to create an emotional impact upon the audience, I feel as though black and white will induce the emotion further onto the audience due to the dark emotions which are portrayed more clearly in order to create more emotion for the audience to feel as they view the image. However, one person specified that they would like ‘both’ black and white images and also coloured images to be used after selecting the other option on the questionnaire. I like this idea as I feel that this could fulfil everyone’s different needs and can portray the emotions through various ways as a construct in order to make the audience feel emotional impacts through a variety of verisimilitude aspects.

The fifth question, I asked the audience whether they thought that music featured by a celebrity fig-ure such as Demi Lovato, singing about her recovery on the website, would appeal to them. Over

half of the target audience agreed that this is a good idea however some disagreed. This could be due to people not wanting the illness to be sugar coated and people wanting the illness to be per-ceived as serious as anorexia is often overlooked and people forget that it is a disease and is not a chosen lifestyle. However, due to most people agreeing that it would be a good element, this shows that by having this feature, it could inspire the audience to be like the celebrity and start re-covery through the use of my website. Therefore, I feel that this would be a good element to have as a sign to the niche audience that recovery is possible and they can be just like the celebrity if they use my website to allow themselves to get better.

Moreover, another question I asked my audience was if they would like a lot of facts and statistical figures placed on the website. The results for this question shocked me as 80% of people said yes, they would like a lot of facts and statistical figures and the other 20% said that they would like some but not a lot. This represented to me that facts and statistical figures are necessary on a charity campaign website in order for the audience to learn more about the illness as well as it al-lowing the website to look professional, assertive and informative for the target audience to receive as much information as possible and trust the website due to their large amount of knowledge about the illness.

For the seventh question, I asked the audience whether they thought a video would be a good ele-ment to feature on a main page of a website. Only one person disagreed to this whereas every-body else who filled out my questionnaire agreed that it would be a good feature. By including a video it ensures that the website looks more professional, as well as allow it to provide more infor-mation instead of having too much text which my target audience may not find as attractive. A video on a main page is a conventional element to a website which is shown within my research as most websites which contain videos, are regularly placed on the first page in order for it to immedi-ately stand out and grasp the audiences attention in order for them to continue looking further into the website. A video will also provide an ideological interpretation of the illness in order to appeal further to the target audience due to the verisimilitude representation of an eating disorder to cre-ate an emotional impact on the audience.

The eighth question allowed me to ask the audience for specific colour schemes they would choose from as a theme for an eating disorder campaign website. The options were: pink and white, black and white, grey and black or other. I also included a comment section in order for people to write their own opinion on colours to support the illness. I received a variety of responses for this question, 2 people choosing pink and white, 1 person chose black and white and 2 people chose other. The audience who chose other wrote that red and white would be a good colour theme and another person wrote, all of the colours put together, would be a good colour scheme. I like the idea of interpreting all of the colours together in order for it to appeal to a larger audience. This would allow the website to appeal to a mass number of people as well as appeal to a small amount of boys. Due to my target audience being teenage girls/young women, I will prioritise the conventional colour pink in order for it to appeal specifically to my target audience. However, by in-cluding a variety of other colours suggested, this would allow other audiences to feel as though they are welcome to the site too and therefore would increase the popularity of my website by gain-ing a larger audience as well as meeting the main conventions for a website aimed at teenage girls.

The next question I asked the audience was whether or not they would find it useful to be directed to another website supporting eating disorders, for more information when selected. I had mostly positive feedback for this question with 80% of my audience telling me that it would be useful. Therefore, I feel that this should definitely be included on my website in order to represent a pro-fessional website who is associated with other anorexia campaigns and therefore allows the audi-ence to feel as though they can trust my charity and represents my charity to be reliable as well.

The final, tenth question which I asked my audience within my questionnaire was the type of back-ground that they would like on a charity campaign website. I gave the audience two options which were: a plain, assertive background or a bright, colourful background. 60% Of my audience said that they would prefer a plan, assertive background for my charity campaign website. Eating disor-

ders can often be a heavy, touching subject for teenagers and therefore by having a plain, as-sertive background, it represents my website to be more professional and caring. White regularly represents purity, innocence and vulnerability and therefore as an example, by having a plain white background, this could allow the audience to feel as though they can relate more to the website as they are not at their happiest stages and therefore feel vulnerable (if they are suffering an eating disorder).Therefore, after taking all of my feedback into account, I will interpret all of the most pop-ular options into my website to ensure that it is conventional and fulfils the needs and expectations of my target audience.