Audience Theory

For our project we looked at audience theory to understand the relationship between the audience and the work and how the audience receives, reads and responds to a text.

The Hypodermic Syringe Model
This theory suggests that that audience just accepts media messages which are being given to them. In relation to my coursework the meanings of the images associated with my chosen song will be mediated by the audience, whereas the song itself as music will be received more passively. There is a process of mediation between the song and the image, the choice of the image impacts upon audiences in different ways.







Uses and Gratification Model
For this theory I noticed that audiences consume texts for different reasons as in 1948 Laswell said that media texts have different functions for individuals and society. These being surveillance, correlation, entertainment and cultural transmission, however for music videos I shall be concentrating on entertainment as this is the main factor why audiences consume them. In 1974 Blulmer and Katz researched and developed the theory deciding that people choose media texts and consume them for certain reasons the two which are appropriate for music videos are diversion and personal identity. Diversion clearly is the escape from everyday life while perhaps more interestingly personal identity is relating yourself to media texts and creating learning and behaviour factors from the text. This is particularly useful for my coursework as there is a strong relationship between young people and music as it helps them associate themselves within certain social groups, for example indie and r'n'b music are followed by distinctly different audiences and social sub groups. Beyonce's music is classed as mainstream pop, therefore we were easily able to target our audience and know what they like as we did research into many similar pop videos, which have been designed to appeal to that specific audience. We were then able to design our work to appeal to that specific audience more easily.

Finding dancers

Last week we had an issue with finding dancers, as we had Sybil and Sadie, however Sybil snapped the ligaments in her ankle. Therefore we had the issue of finding a new dancer. We have asked Renie who is a boarder at our school thus meaning she is readily available, we are hoping to film on Thursday 1st October in the dance studio if all goes to plan.

Magazine adverts research

Using Mojo magazine I started to research music adverts for singles and albums, noticing that many did not use images of the star, like the album covers usually do. I noticed that most adverts included an image of some sort, the star's name, the album's name, a website address, date of release, where it can be purchased. There sometimes is a review and a picture of the album cover.

This advert for Pearl Jam's album Backspacer uses large bold writing to emphasise the band name and the album title, the same lettering is used for the release date, the website, the name of one of the singles and what it is released on, CD, LP and download. This technique means that you are drawn to read all of the writing as it is all so similar. The pictures are cartoon which adds an element of humour to the advert and the bright colours grab your attention, however the gory images show a serious side to the advert. The images are very supernatural which could provide an element of the music being 'out of this world'. Overall this advert is very appealing as it is eye catching and provides all the information needed for purchase. The HMV logo shows that the music is recognised in one of the top music stores and provides knowledge of where to purchase,


This advert is very unusual as there are no images present, except for a shadow reflection which just adds confusion. There are three colours used, pastel blue, white and purple, this sets a calm tone to the advert signifying the music is very gentle. The text is thin but large, all in capitals to grab the attention of the viewer. The unusual aspect of this advert is that it is crammed full of reviews of the music which provide information about how good it is which encourages people to buy it.





This advert is very conventional with the band shot but also is strange because the artist is not written on in bold as usual. Instead the title is Beatles for sale, implying that everyone will already know the band. The advert is in black and white with then all the album covers in colour and where you can buy in from HMV is colours too. This draws the viewers attention to the albums being sold and information is provided about the price and what date they are released.


This advert is very clever as it uses the same coloured writing as on the album covered which is also shown on the advert, this helps the audience associate the album with the advert therefore remembering it when they see it in the shops. This advert is very simple and straight to the point, informing the viewer of the band name, album title, picture of the cover, a website, the release date and what the music is released onto. Bold colours are used to grab attention such as red, white and black.



This advert uses the same colour patterns as above with the black background and the bold white and red writing. This is the most simplified advert I have so far seen with just the artists name, the album name and the release date. However two websites are given for extra information and it is said to be available to buy at amazon, therefore letting the audience know where to purchase.




From these adverts I have decided that in our advert we shall include the artists name, the single name, a website, where to purchase, a picture of the artist and possibly a review. The advert will be A4 size, which is the usual magazine size, the dimensions are 210 × 297mm.

Digi Pack

We have started to research existing digi packs with the dimensions the size of a DVD case, with Beyonce her single covers usually feature a strong image of herself, with powerful bold writing. Such as the examples shown below.

All of these covers strongly feature the stars face/body signifying strong attitude along with the bold title of the song with the artists name. Single covers usually portray what the song will be like, such as covers that are full of attitude the song will reflect this. In our digi pack cover we want to feature the star with the writing in the bottom right corner, therefore emphasising the stars persona without the writing overpowering this aspect. The stars name is usually twice the size of the song name to dramatise who produced it. All of the stars are dressed up with heavy make up and costume to reflect their beauty and how powerful they are in the industry, except for Beyonce's single Halo where she looks to have no make up just natural beauty to reflect the angelic aspect of the song name.






The case dimensions are as shown below, we then copied this image onto Photoshop and started to make our cover.














This is the start of our Digipack cover, we coloured it black, then used bold white and silver writing for emphasis. This makes the lettering stand out in impact but it is also in a feminine style of writing to show Beyonce is feminine but as well as a diva.This is why we wrote Diva in capital letters so that her attitude and personality stood out in comparison to the sweet style of her name. I have included also some pictures of possible design ideas we are considering.










This is the back of the digi pack design where Beyonce is ahead f her backing dancers showing she is presented in the limelight. The image of her walking away indicates her power and authority. We used flowing writing for her feminine name but diva is written in bold capitals to portray attitude.




We used the same lettering as before but the front of the digipack is Beyonce's face standing out from the background, showing off her beauty and attitude to the audience.






This is the single for Beyonce's song Diva, which is the song we are using for our music video. The background colour is very light, however it is a harsh light therefore portraying the image of power and authority. The lettering used is very bold and masculine, signifying strength of her Diva persona. Beyonce is dressed fully in leather with full dramatic make up and high hair. This gives her the look of sophistication but also a harsh image to prove she is a successful woman that has done well for herself. I think this is a very good single cover because it is very eye catching and also shows that the song will have a strong attitude due to how she is looking, not just the average girly song from Beyonce. From this image I have noticed a link to Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. In the image Beyonce is wearing feminine heels which push her body forward in a sexual manner as her body has to curve in order for her to walk in the heels. I found this quote "She declares that in patriarchal society ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’ (Mulvey 1992)" http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze09.htmlMen receive pleasure from looking at this image due to Beyonce having such a feminine body. "Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze" Beyonce is looking very beautiful in this shot and the male gaze will automatically be drawn to her body being pushed forward and the attractiveness she is giving off.



This single cover is Kelly Clarkson's song Already Gone. It is a very clever use of the star's face instead of having her with a background because we get a close up of her natural beauty with emphasised eye make up. The red lips show a sign of femininity and the crystal teardrop show that she is unhappy and the single will reflect this, possible due to the song title of a lover leaving her. The lettering used is thin and curved, showing femininity and the contrast between the lightness of her name in white, with the sadness of someone already being gone in black.



This single cover is of Ashley Tisdale's song, Masquerade. The lettering used is very bold for her name, which is unusually slanted, making a stand. The song title, is in fancy lettering which could relate to her fact that masquerade is fancy dress. Ashley has very dark eye make up but the rest of her outfit and hair is very casual this could be to signify her hiding her identity behind ht mask. The background colour has patterns on it that take your focus so that she starts to blend in which the rest of the lettering and not become so obvious because her image is behind it.

Pop Video Construction

We used Adobe Premiere Pro to construct the video and to start with we created the opening title sequence of a black screen with DIVA being typed onto the bottom right hand corner, this was made by adding the letters, followed by a line that we made to look like a cursor, because we cut gaps out of it as shown below.

We used www.flashkit.com to find a sound effect that matched the typing of Diva. The clip we found was very long, so we cut one touch type and pasted it four times into our sequence, which gave the impression of each letter being typed slowly.