“After Decades of Ban on Cinemas” Investigating the Factors Influencing the Saudi People’s Choices of Films to Watch at Movie Theatres

The goal of this study was to identify the factors that Saudi audiences often depend on when selecting particular films to watch at movie theatres. To address this research topic, the following seven factors were investigated: movie stars, directors, trailers, general advertising, word-of-mouth, film genre, and film reviews. A straightforward yet effective research tool, i.e., a questionnaire survey, was created and used to gather the required data. That survey could reach Saudi audiences and investigate the reasons behind their decisions to watch certain films out of the numerous available at movie theatres. A sample of 87 Saudi respondents participated in the survey. According to the data analysis, several factors could influence Saudi audiences’ decisions to watch a certain film more than other factors. The two main factors found to influence Saudi audiences’ decisions were the film genre and the actors starring in it. However, there is a need to conduct additional research with larger samples and look at more factors that are luckily to affect Saudi audiences’ film choices when going to movie theatres.

Department

Cinematic Arts

Publisher

Faculty of Communication - Istanbul University

Sponsor

N/A