Thursday 2 July 2015

Media Analyses - Audience



Eminem's target audience for his songs and music videos mainly consist of a variety of fans that listen and watch his content. This means that every group of people within his target audience get something different from the same content. The target audience for a rap artist such as Eminem, with his comical and conflicting real life lyric would implicate that he is aiming at a mass audience of predominantly young male teens in the age range of 15 to 25. The reason I say these ages is because within this music video Eminem is referencing a fan who has listened to Eminem from this age. Most of his target audience have grown up with his music proving it a big influence and this creates the idea that Eminem is a heavy influence on people who have listened that long. 



I believe this to be the case because he seems to open his world out to the audience, aiming for them to understand and appreciate he's struggles of life, as if they may have been through similar struggles, this is his unique selling point or niche. However seeing as he has made tracks with other artist this may have extended his reach to even females, An example of a track which implicates this is 'Love the way you lie' which features Rihanna. The issue is age & context. It not only divides friends, but also divides Internet Forums. "I’m 22 now, I listen to Eminem’s earlier work and I feel nostalgia to back when I was 15, but I don’t particularly relate to the issues he was going through. I don’t hate women, I don’t plan on rebelling against my parents because I don’t even live with them and I’m not a flat broke teenager." The “older” users (18+) on this forum feel as though MMLP2 is ‘whack’, while the younger generation (13-17) think its ‘dope’. This is perfectly fine because it all refers to age context. The artist is still rapping to that demographic; 13-17 year olds like he did back in 2000, however, this is a different generation.

The reason that Eminem's audience listen to his music is because they have an effect need. This is shown in the music video below because the character 'Stan' is relating to Eminem because he feels that they are the same. Although this is an extreme example of his audience I can't just look over the fact that this fan killed himself over Eminem. By relating to Eminem it gave him hope and emotional pleasure, which kept him going but also drove him to his death, furthermore but listening to this artist it helped him talk about his troubles in life and served as a form of escape. Eminem’s radical views and rebellious nature further shows the idea that the 2 Step Flow theory could change peoples opinions on the government and their company through their idol.

The media product was very emotional for Eminem's fanbase because the song was wrote the same year Stan died. The audience rebelled against this media text, not because of the artist but more the record label. This was because most of the lyrics were censored causing a huge uproar in the Eminem community because most of his loyal fans respected his lyrics, which were all very raw and uncensored.


  • 15-25 Age and Influence
  • Struggles of life (Relate) - Niche because they share anger
  • Age Context - Family and or Rebel 
  • Effective Need - "Stan" Emotional pleasure
  • 2 Step Flow - Idol 
  • Warning 


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