Target Audience Research- The NSSEC Model

When analysing target audiences for music videos, artists, and genres, I will be using the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification model to identify who the exactly the target audience is. This will help me to pin-point what social class a person belongs within or what social class is being targeted by using their occupation as a reference. The standard three stage social class model (Upper, Middle and Lower class) is basic and does not necessarily take into account their occupation as it relies on wealth to determine the difference between each stage. For example, a person may be socially considered as an upper class citizen but economically considered a middle class citizen. 

*THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN REFERENCED FROM THIS PAGE:*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Statistics_Socio-economic_Classification

"The full version of NSSEC model has 17 main categories and is collapsible down to three categories. Only the three-category version is intended to represent any form of hierarchy. The version intended for most users (the analytic version) has eight categories:

1.         Higher managerial and professional occupations

2.         Lower managerial and professional occupations

3.         Intermediate occupations (clerical, sales, service)

4.         Small employers and own account workers

5.         Lower supervisory and technical occupations

6.         Semi-routine occupations

7.         Routine occupations

8.         Never worked and long-term unemployed

The three-category version is reduced to following categories:

1.         Higher occupations

2.         Intermediate occupations

3.         Low occupations"