Analysing Avril Lavignes Im With You

music video in relation to the concept

of audience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGR65RWwzg8

Billy Clayton

Background of Artist
Avril Lavigne, born in Napanee,
Canada, is a singer-songwriter
who achieved world-wide success
when she released her debut
album Let Go at the age of 17 in
2002. Her music is primarily poprock with elements of pop-punk,
alternative and acoustic. The track
Im With You was taken from her
debut release and reached the top
10 in multiple countries including
the United States, New Zealand
and the United Kingdom. Much
Music named the video one of the
Top 100 Best Videos Of All Time.

Audience of Im With You

The music video for Im With You was shot in Los Angeles and directed by photographer
David Lachapelle. The video displays 2 primary locations; the busy nightclub filled with
people dancing together whilst Lavigne walks through looking lost and excluded, and the
outdoor scenes which display Lavigne standing in a dark alleyway, in front of a snow bank
and pacing down a rainy street. The whole video was shot in slow-motion but the singing
remains synchronised due to the original playback being doubled in speed during the
filming process.
Because of Lavignes exclusion from the preppy-dressed clubbers, as well as her cut-off
black jeans, doc martins and dark eye-makeup, the primary audience demographic for the
music video and track are likely to consist of white 15-23 year olds from America, Canada
and the United Kingdom with interests in Pop-Rock music and hobbies such as
skateboarding. I feel that the gender demographic would be closely split for this track and
music video as no representation is heavily gender specific in this production as the artist
has a slightly androgynous clothing style, opting for loose fitted trousers and hoodies as
supposed to the more popular archetype of a young woman in the industry whos image is
voyeuristically sculpted. This links to the gratification theory as this form of media is essentially
providing people with the company that they did not have, or the lifestyle that they do not
possess, but fulfil via popular culture consumption such as music videos.

Audience Appeal

Due to the 15 23 age demographic of this track, the audience may find the club location either
appealing or relatable; they have reached an age where going out seems like an exciting new
experience, or, because Lavignes music is considered Pop-Rock with alternative elements, the
audience may feel a sense of relation to Lavignes isolated situation in the music video as she
walks through the club whilst the lyrics state: Im looking for a place, Im searching for a face, is
anybody here I know? a sense of social difficulty and oppression from the dominant society is
presented.
This idea links to the concept of collective identity and subcultures; theorist Karl Marx contributed
his statement to collective identity theory, stating; all members of society must follow a governed
view point, and if you dont do this, then you are rejected. This links to the Im With You music
video as Lavigne is an outsider to the contemporary dressed, dancing couples as a then 18-yearold who plays guitar and enjoys skateboarding.
Another obvious factor to audience appeal includes clothing. In this video, Lavigne wears a white
tank top, a black parka coat, black cut-off jeans, black doc martin boots with skull jewellery,
straightened hair and dark eyeliner. This style is heavily associated with and classified with skaterpunk, a 90s movement that adapted British punk rock elements with American teen pop-punk, a
style suited to younger generations. The audience may relate to the dress sense in the video as
like the artist, they identify as outsiders to the dominant, contemporary society.

Analysing the Warriors Music Video

focusing on the concept of audience
Billy Clayton

Target Audience
Our music video tells the tale of a teenage
girl named Danielle who drinks tea from a
mysterious looking tea cup in her own
garden before being thrown into a world of
fairy tale, magic and confusion. The video
involves clear representations of the popular
fairy tales; Alice In Wonderland, Hansel and
Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and
Goldilocks, all achieved through mostly
outdoor locations decorated with colour and
primarily through the characters costume.
Our music video primarily targets whiteBritish females between the ages of 15-23
who enjoy Indie/Folk music. This is because
of the bands genre; CoCo and the
Butterfields are a British Fip-Fok (Folk and
Hip-Hop combined) band from Kent, UK.
Because our music video offers the
representation of a teenage white girl living
in modern day Britain with a fairy tale twist
and the faint implication of drugs via the
teacup, we are aiming to attract others of
the same age and background to view our
production.

Audience Appeal
Our music video attempts to not only attract
a teenage female audience from the UK, but
it provokes them to be nostalgic. Our
production takes the everyday character of
Danielle and puts her in a not so typical
situation where she becomes the characters
we were all familiar with as children. The
production documents Danielles confusion
and lack of consent with the occurrences
taking place and thus provides a humourous
approach for the audience as they are to
some extent put in Danielles position as
they share her confusion at parts, effectively
creating a sense of inclusion and appeal for
the audience.
Our music video also creates appeal via its
primarily outdoor locations; we have created
a white-British teenage girl via her
contemporary fashion sense and put her
outdoors and away from the house,
surrounded by artificial flowers, tree-framed
pathways and bridges to which she is left to
wonder and explore, thus, creating appeal to
our audience via implied escapism.

Further Audience Appeal

Our music video also offers a male character Hansel who accompanies Gretel during
the scene that Danielle embodies Gretel. The male character can act as a reflector or
relater to some of the male viewers who also happen to be teenage white-British males,
and thus, see themselves fitted into the production to some extent. The male character
also creates the implication that some teenage females may dream of males, like
Danielle is in our production and thus, create a humorous and relatable sense of appeal.
Danielles frequent costume changes also play a significant role in attracting our
demographic as her clothes appear somewhat contemporary; highstreet/topshop style
jumpers and dresses that have been put together effectively and highlighted with
accessories to create the fairy tale archetypes not only help to establish the
representations we chose to display but to create a sense of familiarity and appeal to our
audience, once again linking to the gratification theory which states that the use of media
allows individuals to consume that which they aspire to be a reflection of.

Audience Feedback
After handing out questionnaires to friends and classmates, we received some
feedback that helped us to understand who our primary demographic would be. The
questionnaires asked the participants to state out of 5, 1 being the least interested and
5 being the most, exactly how much they enjoyed our music video, focusing on
various factors such as how clear the representations where and how gripping the
narrative was. From this, we were given overall ratings of 8.5 out of 10. As a group, we
concluded that white-British teenage females provided the most positive feedback,
stating that the representations of certain characters, chosen locations, relation to the
track and overall flow was an overall success and provides very little challenge to
grasp whilst holding consistent attention.
On the other hand, despite still receiving positive reviews, our male participants rated
the production slightly lower, stating that certain transitions from one character to the
next were slightly complicated but mostly understandable. In relation to the use and
gratification theory, this shows that females tend to rate media texts that display a nonhypersexualised, non-objectified female character as significantly higher as they feel a
sense of familiarity and relation.