Katy Perry Case Study

Katy Perry is an american singer whose target audience is generally girls between the ages of  14 and 18 and in her music videos she generally relays messages and reflects anxieties which her target audience may have in order to better appeal to them, she can appeal to the girls in a kind of older sister image and she doesn't usually appear overly sexualized whereas other female singers may attempt this to better appeal to the male audience. 

Katy Perry first rose to fame in 2008 with her release of the single "i kissed a girl" which sparked many controversies with its homosexual themes but the main thing which began to build her fan base was her second song "hot n cold" which contained many different lyrics and themes about men which women can relate to, the song and video is about a wedding gone wrong but instead of being stereotypical and the woman being the one to run away and cry it is instead the man that does so and it is the woman (Katy Perry) which shows the dominance in the relationship which helps to spread a re-enforcing message to girls that they are just as strong and important as the male in the relationship.

Perry's next notable song which helped to build her fan-base was "fireworks" where behind the song and the music video there was message that was embedded which was about being yourself and encouraging people not to shy away from who they really are, this is all displayed in the music video where towards the end of it fireworks come out of all of the different people present as they had learned to embrace themselves, this song also helped to expand her audience as the message was not just relate-able to her target audience but also to other people outside of her target audience. 

Katy Perry also has another song and music video called "wide awake" which she made after her two year marriage with Russel Brand and they had broken up, The video contains a scene from another video which she had made during the marriage which showed how happy she was and that she was on "cloud nine" and somewhat shows girls that being in love with somebody this much is a great thing. However her video wide awake mainly tells a story through the video and lyrics of how she had broken up with Russell Brand and shows Katy as being much more aware of both herself and other and also shows that being madly in love sometimes isn't the best thing in the world as she had previously stated, this video almost shows her "transformation" into her new self and she doesn't

have to pretend to be someone else for anybody anymore.