Documentary Research

Target Audience
The target audience for our TV documentary about
cyber bullying is going to be 13-18 year old males
and females. The reason for our choice of target
audience is because after researching statistics, we
have found that 69% of teenagers have reported to
being bullied in the UK which is a lot greater than
the per cent of adults/children therefore feel 13-18
years old is most suitable for our documentary. We
have chosen both males and females within our
target audience because research shows it affects
both genders, although girls are more likely to be
targeted than boys.
Some topics that target a similar audience to our
documentary are:
-eating disorders
-binge drinking
-teenage pregnancy
 In the documentary about anorexia, the first five minutes start off with
people that are being affected by anorexia themselves while showing
background footage of a girl drawing what she can see in her mind that
makes her want to not eat. This allows the audience to get an insight
straight away of what the documentary is about and gets their attention
straight away as the introduction is intense.
Anorexia is most common in teenagers around 13-18 years old, usually
more common in girls, (around 10 out of 100 girls suffer eating disorders
in the United States) as they are pressured by society today into looking
a certain way. This documentary is similar to the documentary we are
going to be making as it showing an insight to what many people don’t
have a full understanding of even though it is something important and
serious, like cyber bullying, as many people are confused as to what it
actually is.

http://teenadvice.ygoy.com/2010/07/18/anorexia-in-teens-eating-disorders/
 Teenage Pregnancy is another issue that is related to a similar target
audience to our documentary.
Studies show:
-The UK has the highest teenage birth and abortion rates in Western
Europe
-In 2006 the teenage pregnancy rate in the USA increased for the first
time in 10 years to 71.5 per 1,000 15–19 year olds. Around a third of
these ended in abortion
-Groups who are more vulnerable to becoming teenage parents include
young people who are: in or leaving care, homeless, underachieving at
school, children of teenage parents, members of some ethnic groups,
involved in crime, living in areas with higher social deprivation.

The last point especially relates to our target audience because cyber
bullying can be started because of many different things where people
are picked out because of differences in their lives to the bullies. For
example, someone involved in any of the points above may be targeted
by bullies.

In this particular documentary, it starts with the person most concerning

the topic, the mother of the baby. She tells her story in the comfort of
what looks like her own home, relaxing the audience and maybe helping
them relate to her more as she seems to be your average teenager. Her
sister talks about her views on the issue and so does someone who
works in a Pregnancy Centre, a profession related to the topic. This helps
us understand that we need to include people in our documentary that
have an understanding of cyber bullying through working with it in their
profession, yet also need to use people in our documentary that can
relate to the target audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQP3K3j_SbY
http://www.fpa.org.uk/professionals/factsheets/teenagepregnancy
 The video regarding teenage binge drinking starts off with an example of
what may happen during binge drinking, where the target audience may
be able to relate to some of the behaviour shown. Pop ups of facts are
shown during the documentary and a professional is interviewed during
the documentary. Teenage binge drinking is targeting a similar audience
to us because binge drinking can be caused because of peer pressure
into consuming alcohol from a young age, which is also the reason for
some cyber bullies actions, as they feel like they need to impress their
friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbJhMumorNY
In the three different documentaries I have watched, they have all contained facts about the topic, professional
interviews and in some the person most involved in the topic talking about their experiences.
The way that the documentaries are filmed give an idea of how our documentary should be set out and how we can
relate to our target audience in a way that will make them understand what cyber bullying is.
As our target audience are teenagers, they are more likely going to get bored of an uninteresting and overly factual
documentary so we need to make sure we keep the audience entertained, like how they have in the documentaries I
have watched, where they have broken up facts with interviews, experiences etc.