Our Audience

By Amirul Islam

Artist and Audience Relationships‘Pop stars are, to some extent, symbolic vehicles with which

young woman understand themselves more fully, even if by doing so they partly shape their personalities to fit the stars'

alleged preferences’ –Paul Willis 1990

From this quote, I can gather that Paul Willis believes that artist is somewhat a catalyst for the audience to become more knowledgeable

about themselves in an attempt to find their identity. The artist is seen as an influence who has some power over their audience in controlling and

understanding themselves.I agree with this quote as I feel in today's society, a lot of people, especially young girls have become influenced in both their actions and identity as a result of their “symbolic” role models. However, from observations, I have

these actions and identities can either be good or bad.

BeliebersBeliebers are a fan base of Justin Bieber, one of the biggest pop stars of today. Having

amassed almost 46 million follower's on twitter, his fans are the epitome of crazy. They mainly consist of a demographic of 11 – 15 yr old girls who are undoubtedly

obsessed with Bieber as evidenced by some twitter observations. Just under a year ago, his fans got trending #CutForBieber which meant they cut themselves because

Bieber supposedly dabbled in some drugs. Although Bieber didn’t ask his audience to cut themselves, this is a prime example of how audiences value and respond to the

actions of their idol.

Our Artist as a Role ModelWe feel our artist would be a great role model as she wouldn’t be

setting a bad example for her audience to be influenced by, but would essentially be creating and sending good messages for

her audience to be inspired by. We also feel her image is a great way for her to connect with her audience as it would typically

represent the core audience we aim to target. We also feel the wider audience we hope to target will see our

audience as a good role model which will convince them to listen to her music and get others to listen along.

We feel our audience are a mix of both mainstreamers as they have goals and ambitions whilst they are reformers as they

don’t generally have an obsession with labels and would consider a less quality of living in terms of clothing, food etc..

Our Core Audience Our core audience consists of 16-18 yr olds girls who are mainly in the working

or middle class as our artists image is similar to theirs therefore it helps create a rapport. These girls could be students who are in the process of

deciding on what to with their life and future, we feel our artist can help as she is all about chasing dreams and spreading your wings. Our audience

could potentially live in an urban city like London which is where we could base our music video to create that urban city feel for all our audiences.

Our Wider Audience We also aim to target our wider audience which are 11-15 yr old girls

and slightly older than our core audience so a range from 18-28 yr old who are either mothers, aunts, older sisters etc..). Although we

haven’t got a specific ethnic group we want to target, I can see some attention gained from Asian groups (Indian, Bengalis etc..) as

our artist is an Asian artist trying to chase her dreams.

Example of Our Core Audience

I use my bike to travel a lot and I tend to use my iPhone

for when I listen to some pop music and I use my laptop for

my writing. I’m not fussed about labels but I do like the

clothes at River Island which is where I normally buy my

clothes. I tend to drink a lot of coffee and when I’m older I hope to go to Germany as I

love the atmosphere.

I am student studying for my A Levels and I

don’t do much for the household as I don't

work so my parents do all the grocery

shopping and stuff like that.

In my free time, I generally go out with friends or do some creative writing as I

want to be an author when I grow up so I do read a bit of the local newspaper but don't really read magazines as they’re filled with trash.

My name is Chantelle Smith and

I am 18 years old white girl living in London with my

parents and 2 sisters.

I listen to a lot Pop music as I feel they

are more fun to listen to and they

make me feel good about myself.

Example of Our Wider Audience

My name is Sarah Jackson and I am 15

years old, studying for my GCSE’s as I live

with my mum and 1 brother.

My mum generally does the grocery

shopping but when I do tag along and not

playing with my DS and reading books we go to

Sainsburys by my mums car.

I tend to spend a lot of my time playing videogames on my DS or my brothers PS3, but I do listen to music on

my mp3 player. I like to listen to a bit of pop and

some RnB music as it makes me feel alive and motivated.

I tend to shop at Primark and

H&M when I go shopping with my mum as I

normally have a drink of Coke or

Sprite with her in the local

McDonalds.