Justin Bieber

Background & Context

Born and raised: Bieber was born on March 1, 1994, in London, Ontario, at St Joseph's Hospital, and was raised in Stratford, Ontario.

Family: He is the only child of Jeremy Jack Bieber and Patricia "Pattie" Mallette. Bieber's parents were never married. Pattie raised her son with the help of her mother, Diane, and stepfather, Bruce. His mother is of French-Canadian descent; his paternal great-grandfather was of German ancestry, and his other roots are English, Scottish and Irish. He has also claimed that he has some undetermined Aboriginal Canadian ancestry. Through Jeremy, Bieber has two younger half-siblings, Jazmyn(born 2009) and Jaxon (born 2010). Pattie worked a series of low-paying office jobs, raising Bieber as a single mother in low-income housing. Bieber has maintained contact with his father.

Childhood: Bieber attended a French-language immersion elementary school in Stratford, the Jeanne Sauvé Catholic School. Growing up, he learned to play the piano, drums, guitar, and trumpet. In early 2007, aged 12, Bieber sang Ne-Yo's "So Sick" for a local singing competition in Stratford and was placed second. Mallette posted a video of the performance on YouTube for their family and friends to see. She continued to upload videos of Bieber singing covers of various R&B songs, and Bieber'spopularity on the site grew.

Context: Justin Bieber became a first famous teenager pop-singer. His main inspirations are The Beatles, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and Usher. One of the most recognisable things about Bieber is that he started with his adolescence voice, which was first presented to the world in his Baby song.

Genre

The main genres he uses in his songs are Pop and R&B. He can play guitar, however we can also see him playing drums, like he did in his last tour. His live guitarist is Dan Kanter who also co-wrote some of Bieber’s songs.

Narrative

On the Purpose album, Justin sings a lot about faith, love and heartbreak, but most notably, he is owning up to his mistakes, reminding us, time and time again, that he is not perfect.

Most of his previous songs are, also about love, which could be taken as his main style of songs.

His first album with a cover song “Baby”, shows that he started with this kind of music from his early career when he was just 14 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEuk8j8imI

Justin Bieber- Love Yourself

Justin Bieber- Baby

RepresentationHe is very often presented as reckless teenager who always does stupid things. He is getting arrested, he don’t treat his fans well, which we can read about in different articles However, there are many articles highlighting his good actions such as when he donated $545,000 to a charity which researches HIV/AIDS. Very often we can see people picking up bad things from media about Bieber, but that donation could make people think he is doing good things and he don’t get on the bad side of the law.

Whilst his last tour in Manchester’s concert, he walked off the stage because fans were screaming not letting him to talk. He got back on stage, however he said he is not going to talk for the rest of night. This kind of actions make him look like a spoiled singer, which is very often picked up by media.

Industry- ProductionDiscography:My World 2.0 (2010) Under the Mistletoe (2011)Believe (2012)Purpose (2015)

Filmography:Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011)Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)Zendaya: Behind the Scenes (2012)Justin Bieber's Believe (2013)Behaving Badly (2014)Zoolander 2 (2016)

Tours:Urban Behavior Tour (2009)My World Tour (2010–11)Believe Tour (2012–13)Purpose World Tour (2016-17)

MarketingIn 2015, Bieber revealed his upcoming album’s track list by sharing song titles through wall graffiti around the world on Twitter and Instagram. It doesn’t take much for Bieber to get mentioned in the media; however, this music-marketing stunt draws fans and media attention in the best way possible. The Canadian singer has done well to create global engagement and excitement for his album, which is something that is becoming harder to accomplish in the online world of constant noise.

A big part in Bieber getting big is Usher by singing him to his label. He also been an inspiration for Justin Bieber.

However, the other big influence on his career had Disney who put a strategy to help make Justin Bieber famous. Their Radio Disney decided to play his songs and the original aim were family friendly content songs. This start let Bieber develop and gain popularity.

As every celebrity he is in many social media including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. He also has his website and online shop where fans can get tickets for his concert, as well as clothing promoting his merchandise.

Target Audiences

When he started his career in 2008/09 his target audience became children and teenagers with a big influence of Disney Radio. Along his career he became a celebrity loved by girls due to his looks and his romantic, full of love songs, therefore girls became next big target audience for his music. Due to his problems with law his latest ‘Purpose’ album recorded in 2015 had to play a role of making him regretting all the past problems he had. Also, his music became more dance music, which expanded his audience a lot to fans of dance and pop music.

Audience InteractionHe is trying to interact with his fans and audience by creating various contests, such as dancing contest, where people can show themselves and win to dance on the stage with him. He also, interact with his fans on social media doing live videos as his audience is too big to let him speak to every individual.

Audience Positioning

His audience are mainly girls, therefore he is often a celebrity they love due to his looks and voice. His first audience his songs were aimed at were children, as he was promoted by Disney Radio.

However, in May 2016 he informed his Instagram followers that he is done with taking pictures with fans as he don’t want to be treated like a ‘zoo animal’, so be crowded with people taking pictures with him, which might be a big disappointment for many of his fans .

“Look at your respect level. Look at your respect level. Look at you… You make me sick.”

This is what he said to one of his female fans when she tried to take a selfie with him in the background, which shows that girls love him, however he don’t always treat them well. Also, there were few incidents in the past where Bieber hit their fans when they tried to overcrowd him.

Audience Responses

Total Albums Sold: 15,250,000

Total Concert Tickets Sold: 3,978,000

Media DebatesHe is often shown as a ‘bad boy’ therefore many people pick up from that and they don’t like him. It’s due to his troubles with police or because how he treat his fans sometimes.