Beyonce Knowles' Irreplaceable Hit Song and Video

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Assignment 3
Audience Perception and Meaning
Beyoncé Knowles’ 2006 hit song - Irreplaceable [from the album -B’Day]
Popular R&B artiste Beyoncé Knowles songs and videos have a great influence on young women, in particular teenagers, who tends to incorporate the lyrical meaning in their personal lives. Although internationally, this diva, as she often refers herself to, has many critics, millions of fans adore her for her energetic and raunchy videos, and live performances, her sense of style and most of all, the empowerment women feel from her songs.
In this essay, we will explain how people (audience) interpret the official video, lyrics and performance of the hit song – Irreplaceable. Our group, having analysed in-depth interviews with three people (two women and one man), about the video, will incorporate some of the media reception studies as discussed in class to explain how they give different meanings to the same song.
Two of the three respondents referred to themselves as fans of the Grammy-winning singer saying that they loved her voice. Henry Jenkins described a fan as a person, not being a regular viewer of a particular program, but by translating that viewing into some type of cultural activity, by sharing feelings and thoughts about the program’s content with friends, by joining a community of other fans who share common interests. The three respondents admitted that they were not part of any community with other fans of Beyoncé. Instead two of them said they simply liked the music, but were not “die-hard” fans while the third respondent said he was ‘not really’ a fan, although he like another one of her songs very much.
Of the six types of fan behaviours identified by Jenkins, the respondents best fall into the ...

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...n differently than women. While Beyoncé may be a sexually appealing woman, which may account for her male viewership, the lyrical content of Irreplaceable empowers women. As such, women can be appeased by the lyrical contents while men can be enthused by the visuals of the video. The male interviewee reveals his approval of the Pink Panther music video and in this video, Beyoncé puts on raunchy performance with skimpy clothing. Our finding also confirmed that audience reception grows beyond any article, music or video and that the presenter also becomes to the object of their entertainment need.

Bibliography
Hudson, L. (2014, January 17). Stuart Hall Reception Theory (1980). prezi.com. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://prezi.com/y8btjn21oiho/stuart-hall-reception-theory-1980/
Staiger, J. (2005). Media reception studies. New York: New York University Press.

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