Music Video Audiences

Music videos have a wide span in terms of audiences due to the fact there is a variety of artists that make music videos for different audiences. Each artist tends to aim for particular target audiences and therefore they make both their music and music video relevant to the song and relatable. An example of this would be Britney Spears “Hit Me Baby One More Time” video has multiple shots based in a school. The reasoning for this chose is that perhaps the song target audience is girls aged 10-17 since girls at this age will be attending school. Additionally girls of this age will be drawn to the genre of music (in this case pop music) much like boys are stereotypically more drawn towards rap music or rock and therefore will be drawn to artists who make their music in this genre. The target of her music video is 10-17 aged girls because of two reasons. The main reason is that she is a female artist and therefore the music video is immediately more attractive to females (additionally she is featured in the majority of the shots used in the video). The second reason is that the themes of the video are more relatable to that age group since they will be attending school. All artists use these two aspects in their music videos to target audiences.

Another example of this is in Eminems music video for “Not Afraid”. The target audience for this music video is males aged 15-27; this is due to a few reasons. The main reason is that is has a male artist (that much like in the Britney Spears video has lots of close ups) and that is features themes that may be relatable to this age. The reason that the age group is a bit higher than is that the song features situations that require a more mature audience to become relatable.

The reasons artists aim their music videos are specific audiences is because it is easier to aim music videos at a more focused audience them trying to please a mass audience and therefore they will try and get a small focused audience to listen to their song and therefore buy one for the CDs that the song is featured on.

Genres can also affect audiences since different styles of music are sometimes aimed towards different types of audience. It is common that artist will use genre to target specific audiences or to further enforce a video that is aiming for their target audience. An example of this is Eminem since he mainly makes rap music. The rap genre is clearly targeting males but depending on what it is about effects the age of the audience but in Eminems case it is mostly 15-27.

In conclusion the target of music videos is very large, but different artists design their music videos are specific audiences.