Gender Audience ResearchChloe Allenby

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to find differences between male and female consumption habits with regards to music videos.

This will help me develop a media product which will be attractive to my target gender (females) and allow me to make informed decisions to make my product appealing to them.

Although my main audience will be females, I will aim to make my product attractive to men also, as they can also form a large part of my consumers, despite not being a prioritised target group.

Respondents

There were twenty-one respondents in total, ten male and eleven female. Both genders answered the same questions with regards to music video preference. All respondents were in the target age group (15-21 years old) All respondents lived in an urban location (Hull or the surrounding urban areas of

Cottingham, Hessle and Wawne).

Conclusions

Females prefer to consume media products by artists of the same gender as them; therefore my artist will be a female and extras in my music video will be largely female.

Females dislike the representation that women are sexualised for male gratification (Mulvey’s male gaze theory). They prefer women to be sexualised for their own liberation of not sexualised at all. Therefor any sexualisation of my artist will be implicit and not explicit. E.g. makeup to enhance facial features, mild sexual movements. Any sexualisation will clearly be for the artist’s own liberation e.g. no men visable on the video touching/watching the artist, the artist clearly enjoys being provocative due to facial features and a fierce/sassy attitude.

Females like a wide range of dance styles, with the most popular being street dance. I will use a variety of dance styles in my music video to represent different points in the artists career. I will include street dance to reflect genre and the artist’s initial success.

Females typically like narrative music videos. The story behind my artist will be that she is struggling to cope with the temptations that fame brings, and goes from being successful to off the rails, however, through hard work becomes successful again.

Women like to be able to relate emotionally to music videos. In my music video I will include times of distress e.g. when the press turn on the artist and when the artist struggles with alcohol and drug abuse.