Survey: Interesting Statistics

From the survey answers I have posted below I have made some charts of some of the things that I have found out. The two below are the ones which interest me the most and will help me in making my documentary.

This is a pie chart showing how often those who took part in my survey watch documentaries. From what I have found out, the majority do watch documentaries at some time or another with roughly 40% actually watching them quite alot. Although no was brave enough to say that they watch them all the time, it was encouraging that only 10% of the people asked actually didnt watch documentaries at all.

Another part of the survey which I found really useful was when I asked which parts of the documentary young people found the most important. I asked each person to pick two answers out of the choices given above. What I found really interesting was that people told me instead of finding out what other people's opinions on the topic of the documentary were, they would much rather be given a good amount of facts from which they could make up their own opinion. I was also interested in seeing that the pesentation of the documentary was also high on peoples list, with it even being above the use of evidence and the idea behind the documentary.

Survey: What do young people want from Documentaries?

For some primary Audience Research I decided to hand out some surveys to young people about what they wanted to see in a documentary which would make it more relevant to them. I chose people who roughly matched the description of Lucy and Tom earlier as they are my main targetted audience. I have scanned in each of the surveys completed below. I found reading through the answers very interesting and it will no doubt help me in making my own documentary. To see what people have written you can click on any of the images below to see a larger version.

         

Audience Research Planning

Audience Research One
The showing of a rioting clip. How does this make you feel?

• How does this clip make you feel?
• Why does it make you feel like this?
• How do you think the people in the video are feeling?
• What do you think has sparked off this feeling?
• Do you know what and where this is taking place?

Audience Research Two
General questionnaire about the riots. What do you know?

• Do you know any Greek people?
• Have you ever been to Greece?
• Were you aware of riots in Greece in 2008?
• Were you aware of the follow up riots earlier this year?
• Do you know what the event was that triggered off these riots?
• Do you understand why they took place?
• If you know people with Greek links how do you think they would have felt at the time?
• Did you realise that the main cause for the riotting was that young people felt mistreated and betrayed by their government?
• How does this make you feel?
• How would you feel if as a young person, your future prospects and the future of your country had been jeapordised by the poor actions of the government you trusted and elected into parliament?

Audience Research Three
Questionnaire about young people's documentaries. What do you want?

• Do you often watch documentaries?
• Do you enjoy watching documentaries and why?
• Which part of a documentary do you feel is most important?
• Facts
• Opinions
• Presentation
• Use of evidence
• Being an original idea
• Do you feel a documentary should be biased? Explain why.
• Is there anything that you feel could improve the content of a documentary?
• Do you feel that documentaries are aimed at audiences of young adults?
• Is there any way that documentaries could be made more relevant for a younger audience?
• Is there anything that could be included to make a younger audience member feel more in touch with the issue in the documentary?

Greek Riots 2010 - Research

2010

Background:

• Giorgos Papandreou comes to office with his PASOK government.
• March 5^th 2010 they passed the cost cutting, Economy Protection Bill.
• On April 23^rd requested a bailout from the EU and International Monetary Fund.

Austerity measures

Included:

• Public sector pay cuts
• Pension reductions
• New taxes on company profits
• Increase tax on luxuries
• Increased VAT

The measure aimed to save around €30 billion through to 2012.

Through doing this, the EU and IMF would agree to give Greece an immediate €45 billion loan charging interest of roughly 5%. The total package would add up to roughly €110 billion. Papandreou submitted this bill to his parliament on May 4^th. The bill was put up for a vote which would take place on May 6^th.

This would become the biggest government overhaul in a generation. However the Greek people already feeling cheated by their governments for getting them into this mess in the first place did not agree that they should be the ones who were paying for this huge debt, especially seeing as they would be the ones feeling the cuts the most in the first place. New Democracy (who had recently lost office) vowed to vote against the bill, however being in the minority it was predicted it would probably pass anyway.

Greek Riots 2008 - Research

Background Rioting

2006 –             Government attempts to reform Education system

2007 –             Student groups begin demonstrations which end in conflict with the police.

2008 –             Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens appointed.

2008

Murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos

• 
  
  Fatally shot by police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas
• 
  
  Protesting in the Eksarcheia district of Athens
• 
  
  Part of protesting group of Students
• 
  
  Led to widespread rioting and engaging of police.
• 
  
  Riots spread to Thessaloniki and then protests in the rest of Europe including London, Paris, Frankfurt, Copenhagen and Madrid.
• 
  
  Newspaper Kathimerini called the rioting ‘the worst Greece has seen since the restoration of democracy in 1974’.

Archbishop proclaimed "the youths are not enraged for no reason”

Although this was the catalyst of the rioting, there were deeper reasons lying behind the revolt. There was a widespread feeling of frustration from young Greeks about the economic and educational state of the country which is affecting the spiralling unemployment rate.

People in general also feel betrayed by the Government as the inefficiency and corruption it promotes only makes the situation worse. As it is a socialist government people feel that they should be working harder to make things better for the people, rather than for personal profit.

Communism – KKE

The Communist Party of Greece used the death of young Alexandros as a way of gaining political support. It showed the police’s role in the shooting as escalating authoritarianism, with them being used almost as soldiers to lay down their ‘marshal law’. This was a clever move by the communists, playing on the fear of ordinary Greeks who already view the police in a suspicious manner due to their corruption and ‘thuggish’ methods. The important thing to remember is that this was NOT a communist uprising.

PM Kostas Karamanlis of ‘New Democracy’ declared the passing of 7 new laws to help out those businesses who had suffered loss or damage during the riots. The measures also aided those businesses who were unaffected, which was seen to aid the people and offer jobs to level out the rate of unemployment.

The Greek public saw this as at last a small positive move by the government, however they were not told how much these laws would affect the already spiralling debt.

My Big Fat Greek Mood Board

For my mood board I have decided to use videos of pictures which display certain characteristics that I wish my piece of work to carry. Below is a very stereotypical version of Greece, something anyone from this country may expect to find when visiting as a tourist. However, when you compare it to my other videos posted it you will find that life in Greece is not all as nice and relaxed as you would imagine.

In many respects this is a true representation of the country. Ordinarily life goes on relatively quietly and peacefully until something goes wrong. The Greeks are a very passionate breed and if they do not like something then they will not hesitate to tell you about it. Years of oppression from other cultures has left them demanding only perfection from their own government, however the government themselves had other ideas. Below I have displayed the kinds of images for my mood board that I want to portray through my own piece of work. Do not get me wrong, such images do not appear very often in Greek society, but when they do they are devastating. Some people may find the images a little disturbing.

All of the images posted give me great inspiration to carry on with this documentary. As a viewer from another culture, you should be asking questions all the time, and I believe that these images will both shock and intrigue a British viewer, and it will therefore be my job as the person documenting to answer these questions through my filming.