Research: Audience identification

Audience identification

What is an audience?

An audience is the people that will buy or listen to your music. When producing an album the artist and the company must identify their audience, this will help them to know  how to attract them through their use of conventions and choices. When considering the audience for our music video we need to think about what age groups, gender and ethnicity we are targeting our music at. 

Audience category table: 

Another way audiences are categorised is by their income and social status depending on their job. According to this table, people that enjoy listening to jazz music they are in the A & B category because people that have a high working background like to listen to classical music. Also, individuals such as students or unemployed people are in the D & E category because they have a low working class background which means that they do not listen to classical music.  

Further identification of audiences:

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Class
• Income

Using this information will further allow you to get to know your audience better so it is easier to appeal to them. 

Advantages of categorising audience:

• The artist knows who they are targeting at 
• Know what conventions to use 
• Know where to promote their products 
• You could be specific with audience feedback
• They are aware of what type of products their target audience will buy 
• The artist is able to use information to advertise on social media 

Disadvantages of categorising audience:

• It doesn't consider that people are different even if they have the same job
• Categorising means generally people are generalized which might not be the case 

Different genres have different audiences:

• One Direction is a boy band, and they are targeted at 8-16 year olds. This boy band produces pop music, they create mainstream music videos. 
• Miley Cyrus was targeted at younger age groups (8-17) but as she grew up, she targeted at a older age range.
• Taylor Swift is an artist that creates country music and she targets at ages 7-25.
• The artist Pink produces Rock music video and she targeted at older years e.g. 16 -30.
• Katy Perry creates Pop music and she targeted at a wider range of audiences starting from younger years and onwards. 

Audience reactions:

• Audience engagement is when the audience interacts with different media text. 
• Audience expectations means that audiences expect certain aspects in a music video to be met from different genres.
• Audience Foreknowledge is the background information the audience know about the music, artist and their song/video.
• Audience identification means when the audience could relate back to the artist. 
• Audience placement means media producers use a variety of different techniques. this helps them to target at a particular target audience and make them feel a sense of importance by making the music suitable for them. 

I would like our audience to be able to engage with our product and have expectations from it. 

Audience reaction to Hebdige, Dyer and Goodwin:

• Hebdige’s Theory – Links with Audience engagement : audiences could react to Hebdiges theory as his theory includes social backgrounds which can lead to different readings by people which are not part of the 'mass culture.' 

• Dyer Theory – Links with Audience identification : Stars are manufactured by their record company as they appeal to a specific genre of audience. 

• Goodwin’s Theory – Audience expectations : Goodwin's theory is related to Goodwin's theory because when a record company manufactures a artist, the artist is created and made to follow a conventional music product which will help them to to a specific target audience.

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Conclusion:

By researching about audience identification, it has enhance my knowledge and will help me when I am creating my own music video.  I want to have a target audience of the young, around the ages of 13-18 as this is an age group, I believe that genre appeals to. I would also like to aim my music video for the Lower Middle Class and the lower class. I think this because we are producing a experimental Hip-hop music video which will not appeal to individuals from a higher class because it will not entertain them as they are not used to listening to music from Hip-hop or Pop genres.    The reason as to why I would like this target audience as I think it gives a range of things to what I can do.