Research:Audience Identification

                                                      Audience Identification

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


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

•  Age 
• Gender 
• Race 
• Class
• Location 
• Income                                                       

This information is used alongside other information to develop audience categories.

 An example can be shown here, audience being categorised into class and wealth are split into groups of six.

Categorising audiences can have differing advantages and disadvantages.

        Advantages:

• You can make your  content that will suit what the audience are interested in.
•  You have an idea of what people are interested in.
• The information may be used for advertising.
• You can pick the right location if you know your genre of music.
• You would know what sort of products they would buy based on how much money they have to spend.
• Use the information to encourage companies to advertise on your radio station. 

       Disadvantages:

• It doesn't consider that people are different, despite having similar job.
• It doesn't consider people's interests, just their income and status.

Different genres have different audiences.The majority of  the viewer for hip hop genre,would consist  of the E  category and maybe some 'D ' category.This could appeal to these people as they aspire to have cars, money and girls portrayed in music videos. For example for window shopper, the artist is seen in the boutique wanting to buy a expensive shoes and cars the lyrics is about window shopping  about how he spends his money on, having a lot females on the video.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 already have money and wealth. 

                                                      

On the other hand classical music genre  has a completely different target audience.The 'A category  are groups of people  that  would  associate themselves  with classical music genre  which  consist of  sophisticated lawyers , doctors and other professionals.In  the music video  Il Divo. 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 weird.

Audience engagement describe how  an audience interacts with media text.how different people react in different ways to the same text which this link to Hebdige theory.

Audience expectations:These are what  the audience thinks  about an artist and their music,for example audiences expects certain  aspects from different genres. Such as the eight characteristics from Goodwin's theory of music videos.
 Audience foreknowledge: This is what the audience knows about  a music artist and their song or videos.
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 helped me develop ideas for my own music video. I now are aware of how different  audiences are categorised, and what appeals to specific category.My music video would be targeted mainly to audiences of 'E'  category as the content would be conventional to unemployed, casual workers and student.