Analyse of my misic video product in relation to the concept of audience

My target audience is teens and young adults aged roughly 15-24. They are typical of modern youth, media savvy, they are active consumers of media, computer games and fashion (on average they buy 31 albums a year!). Judging by Kerrang’s statistics there is a slightly bigger male market for rock/metal media/ merch (60% of consumers are males and 40% are female). However I didn’t consider the percentage difference to be big enough to specifically aim my product at a specific gender and instead I’ve aimed to make my product reach their expectations and appeal to today’s youth.. Rock is a relatively niche market but that has a passionate fan base.  Rock fans tend to keep informed of the latest news concerning their favourite artist many will use sites such as twitter to keep informed of what is going on in the rock music scene.

In order for me to create a successful product I had to follow Pluralists theory of supply and demand and find out what the needs and wants of my audience. From focus groups I found out that fans of ‘Mallory Knox’ wanted a video with a storyline and meaning compared to the more normal rock conventions of live performance based videos. This is due to the fact that although ‘Mallory Knox ‘is a rock band have adapted their musical style and have some aspects that you would more commonly see in an ‘indie’ band. This adaptation of having more serious and meaningful lyrics mixed with the traditional rock band sound has created an audience with different expectations and wants for the music videos that accompany the songs.

Therefore I would argue that my music video was made by and for an active target audience, which has been directly involved in the selection and consumption of media output. One theory that supports this view is Denis McQuail’s Uses and Gratifications Model. This model states that audiences actively seek media that caters for that person’s specific needs and wants. McQuail suggests that the reasons why people use media are: information; personal identity; integration and social interaction and entertainment. Most of these categories could be related to my music video in some way, however a more dominate gratification was providing audiences with a media product that helped in creating personal identity and integration & social interaction. This is entirely due to the narrative of the video and its depiction of emotions and actions of the ‘boy’ during the ending of a relationship. This enables the audience to gain insight into the circumstances of others and could reinforce personal values.

Andrew Goodwin’s theory of voyeur is evident in my music video and the audience is frequently put in the position of watching the couple during their emotional relationship. Especially during the beginning and end of the video where the bulk of the narrative is. I also used Goodwin’s theory of close ups to create a star persona.

Another theory that could be applied to my music video is Richard Dyer’s theory of utopian solutions. Although this theory only applies depending on how the viewer perceives the end of the video. The end of the video shows the boy and girl back together without anger looking at the stars showing compassion for each other. However this theory would not work if the viewer does not believe that the boy and girl are back together and that the situation is still not solved and that the video instead portrays the complex emotions of people in relationships.