An invitation for fans and critics - Share your views on DOS in the International Hobbit Audience Project

THE INTERNATIONAL HOBBIT AUDIENCE PROJECT

In this survey we are keen to hear people’s thoughts, responses and feelings about The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug following its international release, and we’d like to hear from people with all kinds of views - from those who loved the film as well as those who hated it or were critical of some particular aspects. Whatever you thought of the second Hobbit movie, we’d really love to hear from you!

Some of you may have already participated in this survey through our recruitment efforts on TORn - in which case, a sincere thank you!   If you haven't yet participated and wish to do so, there is still time.  You can participate in our survey on The Desolation of Smaug here: http://flashq.rcc.ryerson.ca/Hobbit2/

We would be very grateful if you would pass this invitation on to friends, other fans/critics, family members or any others who may be interested in participating regardless of their views, as we are keen to capture all of the diverse responses viewers had to this film.

AND: If you haven’t yet seen, or do not plan to see the second Hobbit movie for whatever reason, we are also conducted a short and more informal survey on reasons for non-viewing - please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LLNKFTX

NB: The main reception survey won’t work on Apple iPads, but may work on other tablet devices. A large-screen laptop or desktop computer is ideal. The non-viewing survey should work fine on tablets or desktops.

About us: We’re a team of academic researchers located at the University of Waikato (Hamilton, New Zealand), Roskilde University (Denmark), Ghent University (Belgium), and Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada). We are interested in the nature of audience reception, and in understanding why different people often have very different views and understandings of the same film.  

What is involved: Completing the survey will take around 30-45 minutes, and involves a combination of sorting and ranking a selection of statements relating to the Desolation of Smaug, as well as a more traditional questionnaire with click responses and a few open ended questions where you can tell us what you really thought of the film, in your own words.  If you do decide to complete the survey, or want to learn more about the project before deciding, clicking http://flashq.rcc.ryerson.ca/Hobbit2/  will take you to the formal consent agreement, which looks rather ominous but provides important details about the project and your rights as a research participant.  The most important things to know are that your participation is entirely voluntary, your answers will remain anonymous, and you can say as much or as little as you wish.

Thank you!


Carolyn Michelle (PhD)

Lead researcher, The Hobbit Audience project

I filled out one of these for AUJ- where I can see the results?

I remember taking this survey when it was posted on TORN, and I believe we shared it here too. I'm wondering when and how the results will be made available for the public. Will you be conducting a similar survey for the final hobbit movie?

Done and suitably crabbit about it too    (Not that it will do any good, its too late now to make good films out of them)

HI Pettytyrant1 and Bundobaggins,

Thanks very much for participating in our earlier survey .  We had over 2800 responses in 6 different languages to the AUJ survey, generating a very rich data set, but naturally all of that material does take some time to analyse. I can report that we have completed almost all of the analyses now in each language and are in the process of writing up our results in a series of publications, some of which will be out very shortly.  We will be posting these on our website as they become available, along with an executive summary once this is finalised (this will be a little more digestible than the academic papers): http://www.waikato.ac.nz/fass/research/centres-units/aru/research-projects/hobbit-audience-project  

As you will see, this project is a longitudinal study of audiences for The Hobbit, and began with an initial survey in the pre-release period charting audience anticipation for the films.  We will be conducting a survey following the release of the final film, and hope to have a cohort of respondents who have done all four surveys, as this will comprise a unique data set tracing the evolution of audience responses to the trilogy over time.  This is already showing some intriguing results in terms of the growing polarisation of viewpoints on the films around a few key issues.  

A preliminary summary of our results from the pre-release survey is on the website and we have a full length research article about to be published in Participations: International Journal of Audience Research this month - I'll pop that on the website as soon as it is out.  The other articles relating to AUJ are either under review or in preparation, so will take a little longer to be made available I'm afraid (academic publishing is notoriously slow...)

Best wishes,

Carolyn Michelle
Lead researcher
The Hobbit Audience Project

Thanks for the response and information caromichelle.

And do feel free while you are here to have a nosey around our informal little site. You are most welcome.

I completed the research too.

I like that at least some of the Phds associated with this study are based in New Zealand. It seems appropriate somehow.

tried taking it but it glitched

Speaking of Glitched. What in-story element did the title of that refer to Petty? Unless I'm missing something obvious.

Forest-

Spoilers incase anyone hasnt read it yet but want to at some point-

Spoiler:

Of course, thanks.
I'm guessing that wasn't a pun on Tinuviel's part, oh well.

On a similar point Forest-

Spoiler:

Well, I don't remember really getting that from reading.

Spoiler:

I'm not entirely certain I even said anything there that you didn't already, but hey, it's all in the cause of further Norcing things around here!