Audience - Miley Cyrus

Representation of ‘audience’ through a music video

How does this music video represent ‘audience?’

Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball

All media texts are made with an audience in mind, ie a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it. And generally, but not always, the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand what happens when an audience "meets" a media text. This music video in which I have chosen represents who the director has aimed the audience at through the different use of camera angles, mise en scene, editing and the general feel which the music video suggests.

The start of the video you are introduced to an extreme close up of the star Miley, this automatically sets out who the audience is aimed at due to the emotion which is placed, it highlights the music video is telling the audience a story about upset and emotion – this stereotypically highlights the audience being teenage girls as this is generally the sort of storylines in which teenage girls listen too. The artist herself is female but due to the mise en scene of red lipstick which connotate’s love and anger and feminism it is leading you to understanding the audience of girls.

The clip then leads to Miley getting repeatedly distressed throughout the video, mid shot of her grabbing her hair and crying forms emotion and highlights the dramatic storyline. This expresses the personal relationship in which it’s trying to create. Audiences listen to music to express feelings, to share feelings and to feel involved with an artist and this is why this music video is evidently aiming their audience at being girls who are going through a tough stage in their life and want to express their emotions like Miley does.