"Major Factors that Affect Decision Making of Teenagers in Bangkok to Watch Horror Movies"

Research on "Major Factors that Affect Decision Making of Teenagers

in Bangkok to Watch Horror Movies"

By Pitak Panprem

Abstract

This thesis aims at investigating whether demographic factor, film elements, external factors and social unit are major aspects that direct teenagers in Bangkok to watch horror movies. The study is a survey research of a sample of 400 teenagers, age between 15 to 21, living in Bangkok. The sample is required to complete the questionnaires (self-administered), and the data are statistically summarized to find out its Frequency Distribution, Percentage, Mean Value, Chi-square, Correlation Coefficient Analysis, and Multiple Regression Analysis. 

It is expected from the population samples, who are mostly male, age 19, locally living in Bangkok, studying for bachelor degree and whose family income is between 10,000-20,000 baht/month, that the major factors that determine them to watch a horror movie are its quality of content and its verisimilitude (quality of being true or real). By contrast, the aspect that affects the viewers the least is obscene or pornographic scenes

The external factors that are defined in this research are advertisement and/or marketing strategy.  It is expected that the majority of the sample agrees that television is the most effective media for advertising; it is a deciding factor for teenagers to watch horror movies. The less significant aspect is trailer, and the least important element is radio spot.

Other marketing strategies that should compel young viewers to watch horror films are, firstly, location of the movie theatre, the price of movie ticket, and promotion, respectively.

The social unit such as family and friends is also supposed to be taken into consideration by teenagers. They are likely to watch horror movies when they go out with a group of friends (about 3-4 people). These assumptions are tested and result as follow,

                -Demography: it is found out that age, gender, education, and place of birth of the young samples living in Bangkok relate to their decision to choose horror movie viewing. Yet, their income has no relation to such decision.

                -Film elements: actors in leading role play important part in affecting the teenagers’ decision, whereas other factors such as the name of the director, the movie’s content, cinematic technique, scene and setting, level of dreadfulness and terror, obscenity, realistic aspect, the name of the movie, and sound and music have no relation to teenagers’ decision in choosing to watch horror movies.

                -Marketing strategies: the study reveals that viewers’ feedback, seating comfort, TV advertisement, internet, billboard, posters, bus advertisement, pre-show activities, movie discounting coupon, and souvenir distribution are relevant factors. On the other hand, the price of movie ticket, the movie theatre’s location, theatrical trailer, radio spot and newspaper advertisement are irrelevant to the target group’s decision.

                - Social unit which consists of family and friends has no influence to the expected outcome.

               

The purposes of this research

1.            to study the relationship between demographic characteristics and the decision making of Bangkok teenagers to watching horror movies ;

2.            to study the factors on the composition of the film that affects the decision making of Bangkok teenagers to watching horror movies ;

3.            to study the factors on external surrounding that affect the decision making of Bangkok teenagers to watching the horror movies ;

4.            to study the social factors that affect the decision making of Bangkok teenagers to watching the horror movies.

Methods

This research is the Survey Research in the form of ‘One - Shot Case Study’ based on a random in the form of ‘Multi-Stage Random Sampling’ through the Purposive Random Sampling and Accidental Random Sampling to acquire the sample group and data respectively that meet the researcher’s quality requirement.  The sample group under the study is approximately 400 teenagers ageing between 15 to 21 years who live in Bangkok.

The tools used to collect data are questionnaires - ‘Self - Administered Questionnaire’ which consists of ‘Close-ended Questionnaire’ and ‘Open - Ended Questionnaire’ to be filled out.

The researcher uses statistical analysis in two parts for data analysis.   The first part is the use of descriptive statistics to find out Frequency, Percentage, Mean Value presented in a table format together with descriptive translation to provide explanation on demographic characteristics, economic and social status, elements of horror films, external surroundings and social groups.  The second part is the use of statistical hypothesis testing, that is, the statistical analysis to find out Chi-Square, Correlation Coefficient Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis.

Results

Demographic characteristics

The results of the research showed that the majority of the samples were male and most are between 20 to 21 years, studying  in higher education (bachelor degree) than vocational education(vocational certificate, high vocational certificate), and senior high school .   As for their economic status or family income, it was found that most of their income is between 10,000 to 20,000 baht per month, and has a domicile in Bangkok rather than provinces.

Element Factors in horror movies

The elements of horror films for study in this research are contents of the film, violent scenes, obscene scenes, filming techniques, locations, verisimilitude, title, story, sound-track, actors/actresses, and directors.

The results showed that the elements in horror films influence the decision making to watch a horror movie among the samples to the maximum level.  The elements that influence the decision making the most are the content of the film followed by verisimilitude and filming techniques.  The elements that affect the decision making of the samples the least are obscene scenes and sexual implied scenes.

In the context of the content of horror films, it is found that the contents about ghost or devil are the most appreciated and wanted to watch followed by contents about a psycho killer, the character is in danger locked in a confined space and with no way out, natural beast and creatures from outer space.

Speaking about the characteristic of the story of the horror film, the samples pay attention to the unprecedented, non-monotonous modern story as well as famous and popular compositions in this order.

The characteristic of actors/actresses starred in the horror film rather than their appearance, fame or previously winning any awards have been given the most attention by the samples.

Likewise, the characteristic of the director has an effect on the decisions to view a   horror movie.  The samples give attention to their favorite director whose works they follow regularly rather than the director’s fame, popularity or ever winning any awards before.

The elements of the filming techniques, that is, the Special Effect is being given the highest attention followed by make-up to make realism, (Make Up Effect) and sound techniques (Sound Effect).

As for the sound technique, the samples prefer to listen to the natural sound focusing on the atmosphere or events going on in the films rather than dreadful horrible screaming of ghosts, devils or the growl of the beast.  Likewise, they also want to listen to the music that fits the ongoing events in the film.

It is interesting that the results of the research showed the scenes which the samples want to view most are not the brutal, disgusting scenes but ones that focus on frightening and horrified atmosphere.

External factors

The external surrounding factors relating to this study are a media exposure and the movie business marketing strategies.

With regard to the media exposure, the samples view that the sources of media that highly affects their decision to watching horror movies most are television followed by  trailer and cinema while the least influence is through radio spot.

Study into the details of the reception of information relating to the horror films through all kinds of media, it is found that newspapers that receive the most acceptance by the  samples are Thai Rath, Daily News, and Khao Sod respectively and Matichon gets the least acceptance.  As for the media magazines related to the movie, the most attractive among the samples is Movie Times followed by Entertainment and Star Pics.  The television media that is most accepted among the samples is Channel 7 followed by UBC and Channel 3 and the least accepted is Channel 11.

In acquiring information relating to comments on Horror Films by all kinds of media, newspapers that have obtained the samples’ highest attention are Thai Rath, Daily News and Komchadluek and Matichon gets the least acceptance.  The movie magazines that provide the samples with maximum information are the Entertainment followed by Movie Time, Star Pics in this order.  And the television stations that provide the samples with the maximum criticism about horror movies are UBC, cable TV followed by Channel 7, and Channel 9 and Channel 11 provides the minimum criticism.

The majority of the samples watch the horror films at cinema less than once a month , followed by once a month and 2-3 times a month respectively.  The majority group also watches some horror films followed by almost all films.

In connection to film viewing behavior, it is found that the majority of samples would go to the cinema for horror movies viewing at whatever day and time depend on occasion and convenience followed by Saturday - Sunday and weekdays evening and afternoon respectively.   Likewise, the samples prefer to go to any cinemas which are close to department store, home and school in this order depend on occasion and convenience.  It is also found that the nature of nearly half of these samples chooses to watch the films with   friends and watching with family would be the final choice.

Marketing strategies of the film business pose high influence on overall samples decision making to watch the horror movies.  The location followed by ticket price and market promotion is the factors that affect the decision making.

Premises factors that affect the samples decision making most are seating comfort followed by the location of the movie theater.

Factors on market promotion that affect the decision making most are trailers followed by television advertisements, posters or billboard, discount coupons, Internet advertising,  souvenirs and giveaways distribution. The bus side advertising received least attention.

Considering all the sub-factors, it is found that seating comfort is the factor that affects the decision making to watching the film of the samples most (mean 4.08 ), followed by the trailer shown in theaters (average 3.98) and location of the cinema (average. 3.82).

Social factors

Social factors have high influence on the decision making to watching horror films of the sample group (average 3.58).  The sample group chooses to watch horror movies with a group of friends most (average 22.4) and to watch horror movies with up to 3-4 friends at a time (average 4.22)

Conclusion

This thesis aims at investigating whether demographic factor, film elements, external factors and social unit are major aspects that direct teenagers in Bangkok to watch horror movies. The study is a survey research of a sample of 400 teenagers, age between 15 to 21, living in Bangkok. The sample is required to complete the questionnaires (self-administered), and the data are statistically summarized to find out its Frequency Distribution, Percentage, Mean Value, Chi-square, Correlation Coefficient Analysis, and Multiple Regression Analysis. 

It is expected from the population samples, who are mostly male, age 19, locally living in Bangkok, studying for bachelor degree and whose family income is between 10,000-20,000 baht/month, that the major factors that determine them to watch a horror movie are its quality of content and its verisimilitude (quality of being true or real). By contrast, the aspect that affects the viewers the least is obscene or pornographic scenes

The external factors that are defined in this research are advertisement and/or marketing strategy.  It is expected that the majority of the sample agrees that television is the most effective media for advertising; it is a deciding factor for teenagers to watch horror movies. The less significant aspect is trailer, and the least important element is radio spot.

Other marketing strategies that should compel young viewers to watch horror films are, firstly, location of the movie theatre, the price of movie ticket, and promotion, respectively.

The social unit such as family and friends is also supposed to be taken into consideration by teenagers. They are likely to watch horror movies when they go out with a group of friends (about 3-4 people).

These assumptions are tested and result as follow,

                -Demography: it is found out that age, gender, education, and place of birth of the young samples living in Bangkok relate to their decision to choose horror movie viewing. Yet, their income has no relation to such decision.

                -Film elements: actors in leading role play important part in affecting the teenagers’ decision, whereas other factors such as the name of the director, the movie’s content, cinematic technique, scene and setting, level of dreadfulness and terror, obscenity, realistic aspect, the name of the movie, and sound and music have no relation to teenagers’ decision in choosing to watch horror movies.

                -Marketing strategies:  the study reveals that viewers’ feedback, seating comfort, TV advertisement, internet, billboard, posters, bus advertisement, pre-show activities, movie discounting coupon, and souvenir distribution are relevant factors. On the other hand, the price of movie ticket, the movie theatre’s location, theatrical trailer, radio spot and newspaper advertisement are irrelevant to the target group’s decision.

                - Social unit which consists of family and friends has no influence to the expected outcome.

                The hierarchical pattern of factors that affect decision making of teenagers in Bangkok to watch horror movies is that:

1.            Demographic factor

2.            External factors, such as advertisement and/or marketing strategies, which also need to correlate with the young viewers’ reception

3.            Film elements, which contains the minor factor of leading actors

It is noted that social unit is irrelevant factor to teenager’s decision making in watching horror movies.

Bibliography

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Bruce A. Austin, A look at movie audiences: immediate seating (USA: Wadsworth, Inc., 1989)

Hutchings, Peter. “Modern horror and the 1970s” The Horror Film, 2004.

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Mitchell , Alice Miller , op . cit ., footnote 64,

Mitchell, Alice Miller. Children and Movies (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1929)

Otis, Laura. “Selective Exposure to the Film Close Encounters,” Journal of Psychology 101 (197) : 293-295.

Richard M. Gollin, A Viewer’s Guide to Film (USA: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1992),