Research: Audience identification

Audience identification

Audiences in relations to music videos are the group of people who take part in watching a music video. It is important to know about audiences so that you are aware of what groups are more likely to listen to your music video.  

Audiences are categorised into differing sections. Audiences could be categories based on:

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Class
• Income

As shown in the example, audiences being categorised into class and wealth are split into groups of six.

Categorising audiences can have varying advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• You can make your content suit what the audience are interested in
• You have an idea of what people are interested in
• You are aware of the sort of production they would buy, based on how much money they have to spend
• The information may be used for advertising

Disadvantages:

• It doesn’t consider that people are different, despite having a similar job
• It doesn’t consider people interests, just their income and status
• It categorises people that may not be true

Different genres have varying different audiences. The majority of the viewers for the hip hop genre would consist of the ‘E’ category and maybe some the ‘D’ category. This could appeal to these people as they would aspire to have the cars, money and girls portrayed in the music videos. For example the music video for Cash out – Cashin’ out The artist Cash Out is shown with chains around his neck riding a fancy car and the lyrics about making a lot of money and having a lot of girls. All these themes seem admirable to the young and unemployed audience. This wouldn’t appeal to higher categories as this would be irrelevant to them as they would have money and wealth.

On the other hand the Classical music genre has a completely different target audience. The 'A' category are groups of people that would associate themselves with the classical music genre which consists of sophisticated lawyers, doctors and other professionals. In the music video from Johann Sebastian Bach. We can see them wearing suits and smart clothing which the target audience can relate to within their profession. Lower categories would not find the tone of music and content not appealing as they would find it bizarre.

Audience research: Measuring an audience is very important to all media institutions. Research is done at all stages of production of a media text and once produced audience will be continually monitored.

Audience engagement: This describes how an audience interacts with a media text. Different people react in different ways to the same text. (Links to Hebdiges theory)

Audience expectations: These are what the audience thinks about an artist and their music, for example audiences expect certain aspects from different genres. Such as the eight characteristics from Goodwins theory of music videos.

Audience foreknowledge: This is what the audience knows about a music artist and their song/video.

Audience identification: This is how an audience relates to an artist. (Dyers star theory)

Audience placement: this is how the media producers, target a particular audience and make them feel that the music video is specially ‘for them’

This information on audiences has helped me develop ideas for my own music video.  I now am aware of how the different audiences are categorised, and what appeals to each specific category. My music video would be targeted mainly to audiences of the E category as the content in every aspect would be conventional to the unemployed, casual workers and students.