It’s always intriguing to see how the press can collectively group audience reactions in order to make a headline stand out that little bit more.
‘Viewers outraged at how Simon treats contestant on X-Factor’, being a perfect example of where perhaps a few viewers were outraged, but in reality many will have been nodding along in agreement at the selection of terse words the high-waisted trouser wearing judge has used.
Being able to actually understand emotions being used on social media is, as you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, one of the things that makes Blurrt pretty unique. In fact, those often used headline-driving emotions, such as shock, disgust, love and anger, can all be identified accurately within our system.
So with the knowledge that by using Blurrt we can truly see what the actual overriding public reactionary emotion being expressed is, I decided to have a look at how some media outlets have covered the introduction of Channel 4’s rather risqué dating show, Naked Attraction.
C4’s latest ‘social experiment’
The concept is simple. Pick a date based on which naked stranger you like the look of most. Or as Channel 4 describe it, ‘a social experiment to examine whether or not we can rely on our primal instincts to find a suitable partner.”
The telegraph ran an article with the headline, ‘Viewers complain about…’, centering on the fact Ofcom had received over 20 complaints about the show.
(In comparison, an entirely underwhelming number considering the news that 86 viewers had complained about Christopher Biggins being removed from Celeb Big Brother. That’s nothing to do with the actions that lead to his removal, but the actual fact that he was booted out!)
The Mirror wrote a piece entitled, ‘Naked Attraction blasted by viewers as ‘creepy’ and a ‘new low for British television’.
Other stories that have run about the show’s reception have also followed this trend. Wow24/7 ran with ‘Naked Attraction Shocks Viewers’, using other emotive words such as ‘horrified’ to describe the audience’s reaction. The same approach of honing in on shock was also used elsewhere.
One writer for the Shropshire Star went a bit further and wrote, “Make no mistake, Naked Attraction really is a wretched, horrible idea executed with a leer and a smutty Sid James-esque laugh.”
Anyway – back to the telegraph’s article. The following is written within it:
Viewers also registered their displeasure, with some labelling it “disgusting”.
Which then leads to the usual format of embedding 2 or 3 tweets of examples where people have voiced said disgust. That’s it. The article comes to an abrupt end. Similarly, The Mirror’s article detailing how the audience found the show ‘creepy’ and ‘a new low’, only actually uses 4 tweets from which the entire article’s narrative is based.
So we read both articles and are meant to think that there’s absolutely no other emotions on display? Well that’s where it would be wrong to do so.
We tracked every single tweet around the show in the 30 minutes before the show went on air and the immediate 2 hours following. We captured exactly 7,600 tweets and here’s how the public really reacted emotionally.
Emotional reactions to Naked Attraction
75% of sentiment bearing tweets split between happiness, confusion and anger.
9% of tweets expressed disgust, meaning that the telegraph were spot on when they said ‘some labelled it disgusting.’ I mean, sure they could have been a bit more precise and said ‘330 tweets expressed disgust’ but that’s probably too much detail considering they missed that other huge chunk of emotion bearing reactions.
The overriding emotion expressed around Naked Attraction was happiness. There was also some who showed love towards what they were watching. But in the world of leading with negatives, those 2,039 tweets are left out of the story.
Just for stats purpose it’s perhaps also worth including some of these takeaway findings too:
– During the 60 minutes slot for the show, Naked Attraction averaged 89.5 tweets a minute.
– The largest spike in tweet activity was in the 1 minute immediately following the show end (23:00-23:01) which saw 223 tweets posted in a 60 second window.
– Where we could recognise the tweet author’s gender, 52% of tweets were from females and 48% from males.
– 4,753 unique users tweeted about the show, with an overall potential reach of just under 11.9 million.
– 75% of tweets posted were original tweets, 25% were retweets.
Volumes of Naked Attraction tweets during the show
Those involved with the making of the show are likely not too concerned with how the media have covered the show, as ultimately Naked Attraction has been a ratings winner:
The first episode of #NakedAttraction drew an average audience of 1.4m last night on C4. Up +82% on the slot average
— Channel 4 Press (@C4Press) July 26, 2016
Perhaps it’s worth suggesting that the media use more accurate headlines regarding audience reaction to shows going forward. Maybe a change from:
‘Viewers Shocked / Disgusted’ to ‘Viewers react in a multitude of ways, but primarily with positive bearing sentiment’ would work – but then nudity on tv, just like proper queuing etiquette, is one of those things that gets us flustered anywho. Plus that’s a pretty big mouthful for a headline, so let’s just stick with what we know – good old outrage and disgust!