Music Consumption and Audience Research

1. Theoretical Analysis

2. “Audience readings of media texts are affected by variables such as age,
gender, social status and social context”.
In the following slides I will be analysing 3 different music videos from
the same Pop genre. I will be looking at the ways that different factors
in society are represented e.g. age and gender.

3. The Girl and the Dreamcatcher- Written in the Stars
Britney Spears- Baby One More Time
Justin Beiber- What Do You Mean?

4. Andrew Goodwin- Stereotypes the genre
Andrew Goodwin claimed that music videos followed certain elements
stereotypical to the genre. Goodwin suggested that the pop genre featured certain
elements such as a dance routines or a stage performance. The whole of the Baby
One More Time music video is a dance routine, therefore conforming to the genre
of the stereotype. This adds a light hearted and fun atmosphere to the music video
which works well in synergy with the upbeat atmosphere of the song.
Baby One More Time, What Do You Mean?, Whispers in the Dark adhere to
Goodwin’s theory. All of the music videos, feature stage performances as they all
the artists look at the camera and lip sync to the lyrics creating the effect that they
are performing live. This makes the audience feel included as they can sing along
and feel as if they are part of the music video. This is also done to add authenticity
and brand identity to the artist, if the audience sees the artist performing the song
it creates an image of the artist for the audience.

5. Andrew Goodwin- Stereotypes the genre contd
Another theory of Andrew Goodwin’s that all three of these
music videos adhere to is that close ups are used to show the
‘star persona’ of the artist. This is done to increase and
develop the image of the artist so that whenever they hear the
song they link it to that artist, therefore making that artists
more well known.

6. The Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory applies to all of these music videos
as they all allow the audience to escape from their own lives. The Justin Bieber music
video has a compelling narrative that allows the audience to distract themselves from
their own lives and any problem they have by letting them imagine they are living the
life they see in the music video rather than living their own.
The theory applies to the performance based music videos, Written in the Stars and Baby
One More Time as well because it allows the audience to distract themselves from their
own lives by showing them an engaging and interesting performance that will allow
them to escape. The dance routine shown in the Britney Spears video will allow the
audience to be distracted as they will find it enjoyable and relaxing to watch a dance
performance as they won’t have to worry about anything from their own lives.
However the audience is unlikely to be able to relate strongly with the visual narrative in
the Justin Bieber video but are likely to relate with the school theme of the Britney Spears
music video. The target audience for Britney Spears was teenagers and even though
Blumler and Katz

7. Andrew Goodwin- Links between audio and visuals
The Baby One More Time video defies this theory as the lyrics don’t have
anything to do with the visuals, as the song features many dances by
Britney but no narrative that represents the relationship theme in the
lyrics.
The What Do You Mean? Music video also did not conform to this
theory as the music video did not reflect the lyrics as the audio followed
the theme of a couple that don’t understand what each other want
whereas the visuals suggest a more criminal narrative, with the
protagonist and antagonist being hunted by kidnappers. The narrative
ends with the two main leads escaping capture and realising they knew
the kidnappers.
As the Written in the Stars is a performance-based video, very little of
the of the audio is reflected in the visuals. However the dream theme is

8. Luara Mulvey- ‘Male Gaze’
The Britney Spears, Justin Beiber and The Girl and The Dreamcatcher’s
music videos all adhere to this theory as all the female artists are dressed
provocatively in order to attract a male audience.
Justin Bieber’s target audience is young adults (approx. 16-24) primarily
males. Beiber targets this audience by representing girls as being
attractive and flirty.
Baby One More Time represents Britney Spears as being very flirty and
provocative. The target audience for Spears is girls aged 14+ however
she attracted male audiences through her revealing outfits.
The Girl and The Dreamcatcher didn’t adhere to this stereotype as
strongly however there is still a slight sense of conformity. The music
they release is primarily targeted at a female audience however to target
a secondary male audience the female artist shows more skin.