A2 G324: AUDIENCE RESEARCH

R&B TARGET AUDIENCE:

R&B audiences are usually teenagers and young adults around 12 - 30 years old as this genre was created in that generation. Rhythm and Blues songs tend to include explicit lyrics, content and outfits therefore, people over 30 years of age may feel uncomfortable with the conventions of this genre. 

GENDER DIFFERENCES:

FEMALES

Females are usually interested in R&B videos due to the colour, makeup, hair, costume and settings. Women of the R&B genre present themselves like goddesses with bold eye makeup and big hair. Therefore, females use this as inspiration for their own physical appearance. 

Female artists tend to sing and write about love, heartbreak and being in love because this will appeal to teenage girls and maybe even help them get through hard times. Fast R&B songs usually will attract women as they involve fashion and synergy within the narrative or theme. Female artists music videos are also very colourful and fun therefore, this is a key feature for the audience. 

MALES

Male R&B artists usually target a female audience as the male artist is seen in a sexual way through their lyrics. The female audience find this attractive because they will feel a connection between them and the artist. This is a good way for a male artist to gain a larger female audience. Males in the R&B genre tend to love jewellery, cars, money, fashion and women in minimal clothing. 

BEYONCE TARGET AUDIENCE - 

I made slideshow using emaze.com to present Beyonce's target audience. I looked particularly into her individually because she is one of the most popular female R&B artists with a huge fanbase.

PODCAST/INTERVIEW

I constructed a podcast with a lady I know over the age of 40. I wanted to get an idea of what the older generation thought about today's R&B music videos. I thought it would be helpful to gain further knowledge into the audience that would prefer to watch this genre.

GENRE

I used the website https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/04/07/most-popular-music-genres-america/ to find out what the most popular genre was. I wanted to understand what genre carries the largest audience, as this will help me further on in my project. This websites statistics are American however, both countries listen to similar music.

MOST POPULAR MUSIC GENRE

It is clear that Rock is the most popular music genre in America with 30%. Rock genre can be listened by many ages ranging from 13 - 65 as it has been around since 1995 therefore, there is a large audience. R&B/Hip Hop is second from top with 22% which is a high percentage considering there are various genres out there.

ALBUMS : CD'S & VINYL

Rock seems to dominate vinyl sales, where formats like R&B/Hip Hop don't so so well. As for CD's sales, shiny discs are still sold in large amounts today, though the people that buy them are in the older generation. This is because the majority of older people do not use Spotify or iTunes to listen to music.

FOCUS GROUP:

To ensure I meet my target audience expectations, I need to put together a focus group which allow me to gather valid and constructive feedback to improve my work further. I will be asking people in my school to be part of my focus group, as well as a young female adult.

I made a table on Powerpoint to show the advantages and disadvantages of Focus Groups.

The following post shows the Focus Group I chose to help contract a great and successful music video.

FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONS:

I asked on of my focus group members to answer a few questions about the R&B genre so I can understand what her views on it were.

(Her favourite music genre is R&B and Soca)

These are the questions I asked 'Rav Saundh', a media student.

Q2 answer.

Q3 answer.

Q4 answer.

Q5 answer.

AUDIENCE THEORY:

THE EFFECTS MODEL:

The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience. This effect is normally considered as negative. Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence.

This model is also called The Hypodermic Model where the media texts are injected into the audience.

Key evidence for the Effects Model:

The Bobo Doll Experiment

HOW WILL THIS INFLUENCE MY MEDIA PRODUCTION:

Understanding that my audience will be influenced by the content I create, I will ensure that no negative actions or material is shown. Most female R&B artists wear minimal clothing in their music videos which can have an impact on the younger generation, thinking this is ok. Therefore, the actress will clothed appropriately.