TARGET AUDIENCE

For our media production we are going to aim our music video at the audience of 16 – 24 year olds who

are interested in indie culture and indie rock, specifically.

WHAT IS CLASSED AS INDIE?Indie over the years has become much more than just a genre of music. ‘Indie’ has become a style of film, fashion, music, art, literature and game, creating alternative versions of what is considered mainstream, catering for those who like something different. Indie products often reach out to the niche audiences.

According to the music industry, “Indie” music is any music produced by an artist(s) not signed to one of the major three labels- Sony, Warner Brothers or Universal. This also applies in several different areas, as indie film is usually a low budget film by a small studio, with no links to the major companies; this also applies to games. Art and literature are classed as indie when they are a product that does not appeal to everyone, and re published outside of the main art establishments or publishing agencies.

Indie fashion is unique to the individual. People who make there own clothes or try different things instead of buying what there friends are wearing and following the crowd. Indie clothes are trendy and make you stand out. Rarely are Indie clothes brand names, most of the time its vintage, retro or home-made.

The thing that we shall be focusing in on for our media production of a music video is indie rock.

“Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.”

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ‘INDIE CULTURE’.

When speaking generally, as a whole people who are ‘Indie’ don’t really like social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as they see these as too mainstream and very limited on what can be done on them.

YouTube is quite an important part of indie culture, as this is where new music can be found as it is uploaded daily.

Also another site that is classed as ‘Indie’ is Tumblr. Tumblr is a social network meets blogging type of website, where people can search for things that interest them through the ‘tags’ section, and can repost things onto their blog with a click of a button. Here is a good way to find new styles, music, films etc.

WHY 16-24 YEAR OLDS?We have chosen the ages of 16 to 24 year olds as I feel that it is the largest age bracket where people often identify themselves as indie. I also feel that this is the right age bracket as, when looking at indie rock music videos, some are inappropriate for younger age brackets, with some having visual links to drug misuse, consumption of alcohol, nudity, reckless behaviour and sex.

I think that these elements are important for an indie rock music video to have, as it is such a large part of the culture of indies. I feel that this age bracket will appreciate these aspects of the music video, whereas a younger audience would be too immature to appreciate these factors, and also the idea of portraying substance abuse, sexual acts and reckless behaviour to impressionable young teens doesn’t seem like a brilliant idea to me. I also don’t think that trying to market this kind of music video to people older audiences would not work as I feel they would probably feel strongly against these actions.