Audience Case Study

Audience Case StudyAlunaGeorge Attracting Flies

About AlunaGeorge: AlunaGeorge are an electronic music duo from London, consisting of Aluna Francis and George Reid. In February 2013, AlunaGeorge had their first top 40 hit, a collaboration with Disclosure on "White Noise and the single reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart. Huw Stephens also premiered a new track from the group on his BBC Radio 1 show called, "Attracting Flies which features on their debut album Body Music. The track was released in the United Kingdom on 8 March 2013 and reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart. Attracting Flies takes a modern twist on classic fairy tales with explicit references to drugs, targeting a contemporary youth audience.

Attracting Flies The Video:http://youtu.be/7d_HD89ZlJEAttracting Flies & Ill Manors:

The band originated in London, immediately appealing to a British Audience. The music video modernises classic fairy tales by using stereotypical associations of the youth culture, creating a reliable situation that targets them. Therefore the age range of the target audience would vary from 17-25 years old. Artists that can be likened to this are Plan B, particularly his music video of Ill Manors which similarly presents locations of council estates like in the Attracting Flies Video. Despite this, they show different interpretations. For example, Attracting Flies is an open text using Barthes Codes where the meaning is ambiguous thus attracting different audiences. For example Jay.G Blumler and Elihu Katz highlighted five areas of gratification for media texts one being escape. This is the idea that some texts allow the user to escape from reality. Much like my production with the use of fairy tales, this music video creates a binary opposition between illusion and reality. It can be interpreted as people being confined to where they live and their stereotypes, prohibiting them from escaping. Alternatively, it can be interpreted as everything you hear is false and what you see is not the same as what you read or hear in the media. This links to Goodwins theory of linking lyrics to visuals where they state everything you exhale is attracting flies basically meaning that what you (or the media) says is lies. This then targets the youth audience by creating a relatable situation that they can associate themselves with linking to another area of gratification - identification where the audience can identify themselves with the character and/or location.

Furthermore, Ill Manors by Plan B is an example of a closed text (Barthes Code) where the music video is explicitly attacking the Government and the media, and their representation of the youth culture. The satirical video can be likened to Attracting Flies by AlunaGeorge where the implication of false information within the media misinterprets the youth culture of today, causing them to feel suffocated by the stereotype and need some form of escape as represented by the fairy tales in the music video.

Attracting Flies Target Audience:

Attracting Flies explicitly references drug use and depression with fairy tales such as Princess and the Pea and Sleeping Beauty to provide a morbid and twisted turn on these classic children stories. This immediately identifies the minimum age of their target audience as 16/17 year olds since it is the beginning of having to become an adult and grow up. By making the children stories more adult themed, it immediately distinguishes children from teenagers/young adults, isolating the younger audience from being targeted.

Additionally, this can be metaphorical of the Hypodermic Model where the audience are essentially drugged and influenced by what they see. The adult themes stemmed from children stories brings reality to the audience where things are not as innocent as they appear. The youth culture are having to grow up with restraints through stereotypes and misjudgement. Therefore by representing Sleeping Beauty as having a drug overdose causing her to go to sleep - and Little Red Riding Hood who is carrying a basket of necessities that people take for granted, demonstrates the pressures of life particularly for people growing up. It takes the innocence out of the well-known tales to present the struggles of youth much like Plan B had done in Ill Manors thus directly targeting the youth culture for this music video.