Julien Mcdougall explains that 'in the online age of today its harder to conceive media audiences as a stable identifiable group' this shows that the people in society don't have their own ideas about what audience of specific music genres they want to be a part of. My specific production consisted of a music video which was of the pop/dance genre. The song I chose was Cannibal by the artist Kesha, when producing this I made sure that I understood who my target audience were, by using a variety of research methods I found out that females aged from 17-25 where the most common profile that I would go onto focus my whole video production around.
When discussing how I considered the audience in my production of my music video I will use the ideas and views of a variety of theorists. I will be referring to the ideas of Denis Mcquail, Ien Ang, Dick Hebdige, Clark Et Al and Stuart Hall.
Denis Mcquail believes the audience are a ''temporary collective'' of people, meaning the audience that I have targeted my music video to now in the present day, may not consist of the same group in the future years because people's tastes and interests change over time. However because the song choice I chose is of the pop dance culture, it would be classed as 'mainstream' and therefore a large quantity of people would be a part of my specific audience. I believe in this day of age females would be more swayed to my music choice because they will be able to link to my main characters story line and understand what emotions she would be feeling, I would also say the age group would be around 17 - 25 which starts from the actual age of my character and because they are of the older generation compared to smaller children I think they will have an easier understanding of what path I was trying to take when recording this video. However in the future I think this video may be attracted by both sexes because there is a male and female divide in the video and some males may want to view it to see how they would be being portrayed as the opinions would be divided because some males may agree with the interpretation and understand the dominating actions of the female, whereas some other males may not see how that is realistic because they are usually the ones dominating the female to do whatever they say. The variety of outlooks of my video is what's most interesting from the audience and that is why I believe it could be open to a variety of people, ages and sexes because its such a general story line.
Ien Ang believes that ''audiences are imaginary and are constructed'' this means that in the planning stages of production, the creators would simply think of a 'typical audience profile' that they believe the production they are creating will attract, however this won't always be the exact same type of group when the final outcome is released. Basically Ang is trying to explain that audiences are not 'set in stone' and can be changed and altered to different tastes/expectations easily. For my music video personally I believed that the audience would be mainly females because they would be able to relate to the narrative of the story well, but also females are usually the ones who are targeted to listen to music of the pop/dance genre, especially if there is a female based story line that some of the female audience could relate to. However this was my set idea during the planning stages, when time went on I grouped my audience to females aged 17-25 because I believe going from the age of my main character to late 20's would be the type of women who could relate to her story line.
The idea of sub cultures being used in music videos came from Dick Hebdige, these are specific groups of people who are associated with in these 'sub cultures' by there backgrounds. for example goths, emo, indie, burlesque e.t.c Because my music video is of the pop/dance genre I believe the smaller sub cultures could be of a 'hipster' group and because of the up beat tempo to the song possibly seen as 'ravers' these two sub cultures could be interlinked as it's the expressions I would take for the type of music I am focusing on. I also think the females who would have interest in this video would be seen as 'tramps' because they make take influence from Kesha's style which consists of ripped clothing and largely backcombed hair, usually artist's supporters look up to them in every way and if they like their music it usually means they take inspiration from other elements. I do believe that Hebdige's ideas link to any type of music video because any type of genre can have a variety of sub cultures involved within it. These sub cultures where interesting to look into when researching my audience profiles for my production because it meant I could understand the variety of elements that comes with each sub culture and how some of my female audience could be a part of them.
Clark Et Al explains that to find the correct audience you are looking for through production stages ''regular audience research'' needs to be conducted. I believe this is to make sure that you are targeting the correct group of people for the product you are trying to sell and by doing it on a regular basis means it's easier to see the changes and trends that develop over time, this is to make sure the target audience has stayed the same and no drastic problems have occurred. When conducting my personal audience research regarding my music video I used blogs and forums to share my ideas and images to see what people thought of them and hopefully give honest feedback, I was hoping this would come from a variety of people, some including females in my target group. I also used Facebook to ask what they thought about my final product and if it fitted with the usual pop/dance genre conventions that they are used to seeing and if not how well I have challenged them, this would help me determine who exactly appreciated my video and who didn't which signifies my audience. Finally I conducted a feedback lesson with class mates to see if I had followed or challenged conventions as part of my music video and all of these research methods together helped me determine the audience I would be aiming my product at, I changed from only female to a male audience as well because through my research I found that males had some sort of link with the story line I had followed, this shows this theory can apply to any type of production.
Finally Stuart Hall talks about how audience's can read the video you have created, it could be a preferred - a reading which you as the creator want the audience to get the real meaning of the story, negotiated - audience getting some of the meanings, but also making their own choices about what they think the narrative behind it is and finally oppositional - this means the audience don't get any of your real basis of the story line and instead interpret it in a completely different way. I think the audience of my personal music video got negotiated meaning in the way that they knew my main character was the dominating female who had total control over what the male actors did and also that she was hiding behind an obvious identity that she didn't want to share with others, however other points have been altered and seen by them for example that women shouldn't be in charge of society and themselves and men should be the dominating ones and also that I was only concentrating on the females. These points are not in anyway what I wanted my video to perceive but this is where Hall's theory comes into play, because all of the viewers who look at the video won't always have the same feelings and ideas about what story I am trying to portray.
Overall the theorists ideas I have chosen to talk about have related to the stages I have gone through to ensure I know exactly who my target audience is and make sure I focus on specific elements to attract the correct type of people. Most of the theorists will link to most productions as they are generic ideas and I do believe they can back up my audience focuses well.
When discussing how I considered the audience in my production of my music video I will use the ideas and views of a variety of theorists. I will be referring to the ideas of Denis Mcquail, Ien Ang, Dick Hebdige, Clark Et Al and Stuart Hall.
Denis Mcquail believes the audience are a ''temporary collective'' of people, meaning the audience that I have targeted my music video to now in the present day, may not consist of the same group in the future years because people's tastes and interests change over time. However because the song choice I chose is of the pop dance culture, it would be classed as 'mainstream' and therefore a large quantity of people would be a part of my specific audience. I believe in this day of age females would be more swayed to my music choice because they will be able to link to my main characters story line and understand what emotions she would be feeling, I would also say the age group would be around 17 - 25 which starts from the actual age of my character and because they are of the older generation compared to smaller children I think they will have an easier understanding of what path I was trying to take when recording this video. However in the future I think this video may be attracted by both sexes because there is a male and female divide in the video and some males may want to view it to see how they would be being portrayed as the opinions would be divided because some males may agree with the interpretation and understand the dominating actions of the female, whereas some other males may not see how that is realistic because they are usually the ones dominating the female to do whatever they say. The variety of outlooks of my video is what's most interesting from the audience and that is why I believe it could be open to a variety of people, ages and sexes because its such a general story line.
Ien Ang believes that ''audiences are imaginary and are constructed'' this means that in the planning stages of production, the creators would simply think of a 'typical audience profile' that they believe the production they are creating will attract, however this won't always be the exact same type of group when the final outcome is released. Basically Ang is trying to explain that audiences are not 'set in stone' and can be changed and altered to different tastes/expectations easily. For my music video personally I believed that the audience would be mainly females because they would be able to relate to the narrative of the story well, but also females are usually the ones who are targeted to listen to music of the pop/dance genre, especially if there is a female based story line that some of the female audience could relate to. However this was my set idea during the planning stages, when time went on I grouped my audience to females aged 17-25 because I believe going from the age of my main character to late 20's would be the type of women who could relate to her story line.
The idea of sub cultures being used in music videos came from Dick Hebdige, these are specific groups of people who are associated with in these 'sub cultures' by there backgrounds. for example goths, emo, indie, burlesque e.t.c Because my music video is of the pop/dance genre I believe the smaller sub cultures could be of a 'hipster' group and because of the up beat tempo to the song possibly seen as 'ravers' these two sub cultures could be interlinked as it's the expressions I would take for the type of music I am focusing on. I also think the females who would have interest in this video would be seen as 'tramps' because they make take influence from Kesha's style which consists of ripped clothing and largely backcombed hair, usually artist's supporters look up to them in every way and if they like their music it usually means they take inspiration from other elements. I do believe that Hebdige's ideas link to any type of music video because any type of genre can have a variety of sub cultures involved within it. These sub cultures where interesting to look into when researching my audience profiles for my production because it meant I could understand the variety of elements that comes with each sub culture and how some of my female audience could be a part of them.
Clark Et Al explains that to find the correct audience you are looking for through production stages ''regular audience research'' needs to be conducted. I believe this is to make sure that you are targeting the correct group of people for the product you are trying to sell and by doing it on a regular basis means it's easier to see the changes and trends that develop over time, this is to make sure the target audience has stayed the same and no drastic problems have occurred. When conducting my personal audience research regarding my music video I used blogs and forums to share my ideas and images to see what people thought of them and hopefully give honest feedback, I was hoping this would come from a variety of people, some including females in my target group. I also used Facebook to ask what they thought about my final product and if it fitted with the usual pop/dance genre conventions that they are used to seeing and if not how well I have challenged them, this would help me determine who exactly appreciated my video and who didn't which signifies my audience. Finally I conducted a feedback lesson with class mates to see if I had followed or challenged conventions as part of my music video and all of these research methods together helped me determine the audience I would be aiming my product at, I changed from only female to a male audience as well because through my research I found that males had some sort of link with the story line I had followed, this shows this theory can apply to any type of production.
Finally Stuart Hall talks about how audience's can read the video you have created, it could be a preferred - a reading which you as the creator want the audience to get the real meaning of the story, negotiated - audience getting some of the meanings, but also making their own choices about what they think the narrative behind it is and finally oppositional - this means the audience don't get any of your real basis of the story line and instead interpret it in a completely different way. I think the audience of my personal music video got negotiated meaning in the way that they knew my main character was the dominating female who had total control over what the male actors did and also that she was hiding behind an obvious identity that she didn't want to share with others, however other points have been altered and seen by them for example that women shouldn't be in charge of society and themselves and men should be the dominating ones and also that I was only concentrating on the females. These points are not in anyway what I wanted my video to perceive but this is where Hall's theory comes into play, because all of the viewers who look at the video won't always have the same feelings and ideas about what story I am trying to portray.
Overall the theorists ideas I have chosen to talk about have related to the stages I have gone through to ensure I know exactly who my target audience is and make sure I focus on specific elements to attract the correct type of people. Most of the theorists will link to most productions as they are generic ideas and I do believe they can back up my audience focuses well.
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