1. AUDIENCE CASE STUDY
How does the music video ‘What Do You Mean’ by Justin Bieber appeal to its target audience?
2. Background and Contextual Information
The song was released on August 28, 2015 by Canadian singer, Justin Bieber. The song comes off of his most recent album ‘Purpose’ and was frequently
performed on his worldwide tour. The song falls under the genre of tropical house/pop which deviates from his original content which solely fell under teen
pop. This change in genre appeals to a wider audience and received great feedback online. Receiving nearly 2,000,000,000 views online, more than his
first hit ‘Baby’ which was a global sensation on release. The track was nominated for a kids choice award alongside many others. The song was a great
success and didn’t fail to do well with the widespread audiences that the ‘new’ Bieber aimed to please.
3. Constructed and Actual Audience
Justin Bieber is an artist who typically aims to appeal to young girls. With music videos such as ‘Baby’ supporting this
analogy. These constructed audiences tend to aspire to find someone to follow and look up to, with Justin being this role
model. As well as how many of the teenage girls come from a ‘struggler’ culture – an analogy taken from Young and
Rubicans seven categories of audience types. The way that Justin Bieber has, throughout his career, appealed successfully
to these constructed audiences allows great success for him as an artist. The way that he has now gained new audiences
through his new music means that to maintain his old audience, he still needs to address his old self. These new audiences
are predominantly male – mainly appealed by the genre of the music which has deviated from Justin's initial ‘Pop’ cultured
pieces which have followed through to more modern and ‘club’ style anthems.
A way that this is greeted is through the voyeurism of the male body – shots of Justin topless are implemented throughout the
start of the video which would greatly find attraction from the young female aspirers/strugglers. His voyeurism is emphasised
through the lighting in the initial shots with the female. The lighting is very seductive, being a rich red which generates a sexy
setting. This use of lighting could be argued to be rather polysemous, in the sense that to a passive audience, it may come
across as sexy and complimentary to Justin's physique. However, a more engaged audience could see it as a low-key aspect
of danger and deviance, foreshadowing the events to come later in the video. Being correct in analysing this, the viewers are
soon greeted with masked men who kidnap Justin. This could be an element used to appeal to Justin's new audiences. The
enigma constructed at the beginning instantly generates a hidden narrative which deviates from the love story being focused
on in the sing. This enigma is progressed up until Justin reaches the skate party at the end of the video.
The video complies greatly to Goodwin’s theory of music videos through two main aspects. The first being close ups of the
artists face due to producer or label requirements, this ties in with he voyeurism of Justin's half naked body as well as the
overall appeal to the initial audiences of the song. With the second point being voyeurism of the female body, mainly done to
appeal to the male audience and divert their attention from Justin Bieber who has previously received a vast amount of
slander from male audiences of music. This links greatly again to the ‘Male Gaze Theory’ where a female is used in a music
video, frequently half naked, in order to divert the attention of males away from certain elements of the video or to in general
appeal to a wider audience.
The actual audience of the music video could be anyone. Although this is a vague remark, it has to be considered that in
society, many classes within Young and Rubicans seven categories and those identified my the hegemonic culture overlap
and lack specificity. Adult females could be attracted to watch the music video more so now than before considering that
Justin isn’t a child anymore.
4. Deconstructed Constructed Audience
The constructed audience would tend to fit in the E-C2 demographics, evidently exploring a wide audience in terms of
class generally due to how the song is upbeat and could be used in a way that serves a purpose. Linking to the theory
of Krats and Blumler of users and glorifications.
In terms of interests, the audience could be driven towards the idea of using media/brand names or ideology to
identify themselves in a way that makes them comfortable in society. This is involved in the aspirers category in
Young and Rubicans analogy. The way that the video appeals to this group is through the focus on the ‘Calvin Klein’
boxers worn by Bieber himself. Although this is a promotion tool for the brand as Bieber has modelled for them in the
past, it would give the male and female audience an incentive to go and purchase this brand of clothing for different
reasons. The male reason being rather aspirational and wanting to be similar to Bieber – and the female reasoning
being that they see a direct connection between him and the brand so they have to go out and buy it.
It is interesting to see how much of the video is stereotypically directed towards the male audience. Connoting the
effectiveness of Biebers previous videos to appeal to the female audience and the modern requirement and desire to
now deviate but maintain that idea as well as attract a newer and more engaged audience who aren’t only appealed
to Bieber due to his looks and essence. The end o the video demonstrated a ‘party’ so to speak which could be
another interest of the audience. As well as skateboarding and sports in general.
Regarding other artists. The male audience could find interest in rappers and the hot modern artists on the harts.
These could include Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Eminem and those who follow the trend of wearing their tattoos on show,
hooded jackets or tees and being surrounded by mise-en-scene which a parent may identify as ‘too edgy’. The mise-
en-scene of this video features vast amounts of graffiti and more mature atmospheres than in previous productions.
This generalises the aim to appeal to a more mainstream but independent audience who tend to deviate from their
parents wishes and say. Therefore placing the constructed audiences age in the bracket of 12-18 years old due to the
minor monitoring but progressing individuality.
Overall, this widespread audience conforms to the general aspects of using the media to define yourself, even if this
means finding a guilty pleasure and only being comfortable with yourself.
5. What are the Different Readings
The audience of this video is very heterogenous, due to the aim to appeal to many different audiences following the proliferating change of apea to Justin
Bieber.
An engaged audience – An engaged audience would consist mainly of the males, although the majority of the male audience would be hypnotised by
the male gaze theory’s implementations. Yet those who aren’t compliant to this will find great interest in the narrative which seems to follow Justin’s
journey towards a party, suggested through the enigma at the start and conformation at the end.
A passive audience – The teenage girls would fall in this category through how the video contains vast amounts f close ups and voyeurisms of Justin
and his body. This therefore leaves the female audience gazed by his appeal, giving them little incentive to see further into the video to understand the
enigmatic narrative presenter to the new found male audience who have taken liking to his music due to the identification with modernistic sound and the
‘club’ atmosphere.
How Can it Be Applied?
The main idea surrounding audience presented here is that you can, as a producer, target a vastly wide range of audiences using different theories and
methods to cancel each other out. In my music video, I could apply the use of a hidden narrative for the more engaged audiences and then a more visual
and obvious source of appeal to those who watch or listen passively. This will develop engagement on multiple tiered levels and therefore, like the video
analysed, will produce a very successful piece of work.
A side note is that the song obviously deviates from Biebers original content which could link to how this is the first video I have produced. I can apply
many of the theories and methods presented in this video to allow my video to establish its own audience depending on my own preference.
