Audience Research: Genre

Who listens to dance music (and the surrounding genres)?

My target audience is 16-30 year olds who regularly listen to, download and share music, specifically from the genre dance. They are more likely to have a disposable income, also, as they are young but will be students or starting out in their careers. As my video would broadcast on music channels and YouTube, I need to think about the differences in grabbing the audience through these different mediums. The majority of my audience will watch over YouTube as they spend more time on the internet than watching television. This means they have chosen to click on the video so will need less hooking in than on television, which can be easily flicked over to another channel. The beginning will be slower paced than the rest of the video but is still engaging as it introduces the artist and will be shot artistically. Then, once the beat kicks in the pace will build so by then the audience should want to continue watching.
According to this useful website on the media use of US teenagers, about 44% of what young people watch online are music videos. And the internet is incredibly important to young people in the UK as well, as this recent Guardian article states, just 23% of 16-24 year olds say they would struggle without tv.

Source

So the audience I'm targeting an audience that is very internet literate and is used to spending hours online a day, so in order for my video to stand out from the rest and to be successful I need to make sure it engages with the viewer and looks professional, fitting with the conventions the audience is used to (see below).


How are they traditionally targeted through the media?
Looking at some of the statistics for social networks, Facebook has a huge influence over my target audience's age group...

Source

So marketing is now primarily done through social networking sites as that is where most young people spend there time. There is a lot of business to be made advertising through these sites, so in order for music artists to be known to their audience they need to have a marketing campaign on these sites, with their own pages and interact with the audience, to get them sharing to their friends and talking about the music.


Music video conventions
- Lip-syncing 

- Dancing

- The artist featured and engaging with the audience

- Editing to the music

- Different locations/costumes to keep it interesting

- Visual signifiers

- Reoccurring motifs

- Some sort of narrative

- About 3-5 minutes long


Combining my research into what the audience for dance music videos want to see and the established conventions for music videos as a whole here is what the audience will expect to see in my dance music video...

- The artist featured and engaging with the audience
- Great cinematography
- Sharp editing to the music
- Lip-syncing 
- Dancing
- Changing locations
- Colouring/Lighting carefully considered
- Repetition techniques - manipulation of the film
- Emphasis on the beat through cuts and pacing
- Close ups of the artist, which provides empathy for the audience which they can identify with


Further detail in specific shots:
Many videos I have looked at have visual signifiers/reoccurring motifs, which anchors meaning for audience. Here are a few that I will include...
- extreme CU of lips to main line of the song
- crash of the waves