Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin constructed a theory in 1992, which he revealed in his book called 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' after researching about music videos. In this theory Goodwin stated that a music video will contain a least one of the six features that he has described. I have gone into more detail about these features in the presentation I have created below. In this presentation, I have also provided some examples to help you in understanding what each of these features are and how they are presented in music videos.

Here is my presentation: 

Audience Theory

When it comes to Media, the audience are the most important part because Media texts wouldn't accomplish anything if there was no audience to look at the texts. There are a range of different theories that have been created in relation to Media which helps the audience understand what certain Media texts can do to us as an audience and how it has an effect on us and our daily lives. Underneath I have created a presentation to deomstrate all of the different theories in relation to Media texts.

Here is my presentation: 

Media Language

When talking about anything Media related, the term LIIAR is often used. This term stands for Media Language (L), Institution (I), Ideology (I), Audience (A) and Representation (R). All five of these concepts will work together to create a Media based piece of work and the Media Language will also often include different concepts like genre and narrative, which is why I am going to talk about Media Language in more detail.

Media Language is defined as the way in which a text is constructed to create meaning for a reader or viewer of the text and this is because every medium is known to have its own 'Language' or combination of languages which is used to communicate meaning. For example, television uses verbal and written language, as well as the languages of moving images and sound. These are called 'languages' because they use familiar codes and conventions that are generally understood. There are a wide range of different media texts available which means there will be an array of different media messages - these messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules and each different form of communication has its own creative language whether it is TV, game shows, newspapers, movies, magazines or books. A good example to explain this point is how scary music in a horror film will heighten fear or how a camera close up will convey intimacy. 

By understanding the grammar, syntax and metaphor system of media language (especially the language of sounds and visuals) we can look away from realism and look into our deepest emotional core which increases our appreciation and enjoyment of media experiences as well as helping us to be less susceptible to manipulation. In the image below you can see that I have annotated the 'Men's Health' magazine - by doing this you will be able to see how people are often manipulated when reading different types of media because they don't always think about what they are looking at logically and will usually just take in what they read, as they read it. Here is the image I have annotated:

On this magazine cover you can see that the majority of the feature stories will trick the reader, because obviously it is not possible to just 'grow' muscles, you will have to work out for them and also it is unlikely that you will be able to 'retire rich and die having sex'. Moreover, a lot of red has been used on the magazine cover which may have been used to present passion as quite a few of the feature stories are about sex and on the skyline there is an image of a women next to text which talks about women and sex. In addition, the main image will most likely have been used to show customers what they could look like if they bought the magazine, but that would unbelievingly not happen as all of the feature stories are using words like 'grow' and 'hard abs' which is something you can't have when it comes to your body. After analyzing this magazine you will be able to see that most of the text that has been written has been used to manipulate people, but also to engage them with the magazine, because if you really could 'grow muscle fast' then anyone would buy this magazine just to get the muscle the magazine says they can get, but they don't always think about it and will believe what the media says - leading them on to purchasing the magazine which is where it is an advantage for the magazine company. 

Below, I have created a quick slideshow to present the different theorists and their theories when it comes to language in the Media. Here is my slideshow:

Theorists - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Feminist and Sterotype Theory

Feminist Theory

In 1975, Laura Mulvey argued that the dominant point of view is masculine and the female body is displayed for the 'Male Gaze' in order to provide erotic pleasure for the male - which is known as 'Voyeurism'. The 'Male Gaze' is defined as - the objectification of women's bodies in the media, which has now become a constant theme. On top of that, in 1972, John Berger made a variety of comments on the 'Ways Of Seeing'. He stated that "Men act and women appear", "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at" and "Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator". This presents that women know they are being objectified, but there was nothing they were able to do about it at the time.

Women are continuously being objectified in different ways these days and are doing it just to please men or in some cases, to get attention. This links in with Commercial Exhibitionist because women are using their appearance to get the attention of men. The majority of music videos these days will express this view and you will see many men objectifying women and watching them do things for their pleasure. In different types of media you will be able to see that women are often objectified by the camera lens and whatever gender the audience is positioned to accept the masculine point of view. Although most music videos these days will present the 'Male Gaze' you may sometimes see the 'Female Gaze' which is where you will see men dressing down to get the attention of women. Below I have generated some ideas and found some music videos which present the 'Male and Female Gaze' and how certain artists use this theory to appeal to their audience or to attract people to like their products.

Male Gaze  

As previously said, the 'Male Gaze' is when women are generally objectified in different forms of media - usually to appeal to men and for their pleasure. In the 1970s, women often hated being objectified and would want to show that they could be less feminine and are able to (eg. cutting their hair short, wearing no make up or wearing baggy clothes) and would like to express that they should be equal to men. However, nowadays most women like to wear make up, have long hair and show off their feminine side which can be presented in some of these music videos. In parts of these videos, the women where not wanting to do the things they were made to do, which still shows they are being objectified, but some where willing to do it to show off their appearance and to attract men. Here are some of those music videos;

Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

Katy Perry - California Gurls

Nicki Minaj - Anaconda 

Here is a short presentation to show how each of these music videos relate to the 'Male Gaze';

Music Video Explanations - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Female Gaze

The 'Female Gaze' is very similar to the 'Male Gaze', but it is just objectifying men rather than women. The 'Female Gaze' isn't as popular as the 'Male Gaze' as men were always seen as superior to women, so would not be objectified as much. Nonetheless, you will occasionally see a music video where the male has been made to take their clothes off or have to do something so women will enjoy it and will want to see more. Here are some music videos to help represent the 'Female Gaze';

Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe

Jennifer Lopez - I Luh Ya Papi

Marina And The Diamonds - How To Be A Heartbreaker 

Here is a quick presentation to demonstrate how each of these music videos relate to the 'Female Gaze';

Stereotype Theory

In 1998, O'Sullivan et al stated that a stereotype is a label that involves a process of categorisation and evaluation. We will often call stereotypes 'shorthand to narratives' because such simplistic representations define our understanding of media texts. For example, if someone was watching a video with a protagonist and antagonist, then you would know who the good guy and the bad guy is. Below are some examples of music videos that are stereotypical of a certain genre;

G-Easy

This song was released in 2015 and in the music video you can see a variety of stereotypical features that often appear in a rap music video. In this video, you can see the singer with a large group of people and the main artist is regularly doing hand gestures, which is stereotypical of rap singers as the lyrics go along with a fast beat and the rappers often need to keep with the beat, so they will do these gestures. On top of that, the clothes all the people are wearing and all the cars that appear in the video reinforce the fact that this is a rap music video because they are mainly the types of props that appear in most videos of this genre.

Blink-182

This song was released in 2011 and we are able to see that it is stereotypical of a Punk/Rock music video because of the dark lighting that has been used and the type of camera angles. Throughout this video you can see that the camera is generally quite shaky which reinforces the fact that this is Punk/Rock because the shaky cameras will highlight that a lot is going on at once and that there is rebellion occurring. Also, another thing that is stereotypical for this genre of music is the fact that the band are featuring in the video and are playing their own instruments - they are also surrounded by fire to present the darkness and danger of the genre of this band. In addition, you are able to see the amount of rebellion in this music video which is again very stereotypical of this genre of music.

Representation Theory

Sven Carlsson is a Media Theorist that created a theory in 1999 stating that binary oppositions (a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning) drive the narrative of a music video forward - for example, a music video which is in Black and White. There are two categories which a music video can fall into and they are Performance and Conceptual. However, I am only going to talk about the Performance category in more detail as it is of more importance than Conceptual because it represents the ares in more detail.

Performance 

The performance category can be split into three different types which are; Commercial Exhibitionist, Television Bard and Electronic Shaman. I will explain what each of these different types are in more detail and will also give some examples of videos which represent each area.

Commercial Exhibitionist

Commercial Exhibitionist is when an artist is presenting themselves as a brand where they are selling their appearance, face, clothes style and lifestyle as well as their musical talent. The artist is essentially made into a selling item and is used to engage fans as they will often aspire to be like the certain artist. Here is a presentation to explain in more detail what commercial exhibitionist with some examples;

Televised Bard

Televised Bard is when an artist will represent themselves as part of a story or as a story teller. They will often create a narrative in their music video and will use on screen images instead of personal images. Here is a presentation to explain in more detail what televised bard is and also some music videos as examples;

Electronic Shaman

Electronic Shaman is the name for productions which are generally big budget where the artist has immortal powers or adopts the alter ego of another iconic character, personality or superhero. These music video will often involve a lot of editing or will include many different effects. Here is a presentation to explain in more detail what Electronic Shaman is and I will also include some music video examples to help explain what it is;

Intertextual Referencing

Intertextuality is text that alludes to or references to another text. In 1969, Julia Kristeva, who is a literary critic and sociologist stated that an intertextual reference is: "the shaping of a texts meaning by another text". By another text, Kristeva means a variety of different media ranging from Film to TV and even a Photograph. Kristeva also said: "the use of an intertextual reference in any text is the absorption and transformation of another".

Some referencing is iconic (very famous or popular) and the audience can easily recognise and remember the style. Referencing can also reinforce nostalgia (bringing things from the past into the present) and familiarity.

There are an array of different music videos that have been created which have many different intertexual references that may have either been used to entice the audience or to make the video seem more interesting. An example of a music video that uses a variety of intertexual references is 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce. Here is the music video for 'Telephone':

The music video for 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga which also featured Beyonce was created in 2010. The genre of this music video is Pop and has a range of intertexual references which can be seen throughout the music video, some of them are;

• Bettie Page,1950s - Glamour Model and Pin-up

• Divine - US actor and Drag Queen 

• Pierre and Gilles - French fashion and art photographers

• Typography from the Blacksploitation film 'Jackie Brown'

• Russ Meyer films - where there was sexploitation in films which featured camp humour 

• Roy Lichtenstein art - US pop artist in the 1960s 

• Thelma and Louise - a 1991 feminist road movie

• Batman - includes up beat theme music and is relatively simplistic 

• Iconic US super heroes including Marvel and DC comic characters

Below are just a few images to show how some of the intertexual factors have been used throughout this music video:  

  

After looking at these pictures you can distinctly see that there are a wide range of different intertextual references that have been used. These different intertextual references would have been used to again reinforce nostalgia and bring back things from the past to make them more interesting again by putting them in to modern Media. Even though some people nowadays may not understand these references, it still makes the music video more fascinating for them as it is something different to them and will be eye catching because they are not used to the type of things they are seeing.

I decided to create a presentation to show different genre music videos and how intertextual references have been used. Here is my presentation:

3 Music Video Ideas

When trying to generate ideas for my music video I did come up with at least three different ones - however, while writing these I did feel like I knew which idea I wanted to do anyway. The first thing I did was make a quick plan of the ideas that I was able to think of and then I would carry on from there, the plan I have created is really brief and only I may be able to understand it - however, it is a starting point for my ideas and I will soon know more about them when I think about them in more detail. Underneath you will be able to see the plan I created, but I am going to go into more detail about these ideas and explain what type of things I can imagine happening and also where I have got the inspiration for these ideas from. Also, I have included a title before each idea as this in a way represents the narrative of the story, because it will be the main part of the music video. 

Here is the brief plan I have created:

Once I knew briefly what different ideas I had, I then began to think more about them and what type of things could occur in the music video if I used any of these ideas. I have created a presentation to demonstrate my different ideas in as much detail as possible at this moment in time as I have not planned them out in a large amount of detail because I will only be doing one of them and do not want to plan for something I will not be creating. Here is my presentation:

Here is another presentation I have created, but in this one I have stated which idea I am going to use for my final music video; I have also said why I have chosen this idea, why the other ones were not as good and didn't stand out as much for me. Here is my presentation:

Influences 

When generating ideas for this music video, I knew that some of my ideas are probably not my own and I have probably seen something similar like it somewhere and just not remembered what it was. So I have just made a general list of influences that I can think of to present where I have got some inspiration from for my first idea because that is the idea I have decided to use. 

One of the first things I noticed which is similar to my idea is the music video for Taylor Swifts 'Out Of The Woods'. This has a similar style to what I would like my music video to be like and to be represented because the majority of it is filmed in the woods and the Taylor Swift can be seen running away. The part of the video that is similar to my idea is when Taylor Swift is seen being tangled up in the branches of the trees which is one of the concepts that I would like to happen in my idea - in my music video I would like this to represent that the boyfriend is the woods and that he is not letting the actor go and is trapping her where he won't let her escape from the relationship, or the actor could be too afraid to end the relationship because she knows she may regret it and cannot leave the woods which represent the boyfriend. I feel like both my idea for my music video, and Taylor Swift's music video are quite similar as they both are about relationships that have failed because they no longer are the name to each other anymore. On top of that, I also said that the way the trees would wrap around the actor personifies the woods as if it is the boyfriend and I feel that I may have been inspired by this because of a film called 'Bridge To Terabithia' - this is because in this film you are able to see the woods come to life and it is sort of like a new world with different creatures and I feel like this represents my idea for my music video because it shows that the singer has been trapped in a new world and knows nothing about it, so she doesn't know how to escape, like she doesn't know how to escape her relationship. My idea for the reflection in the water came from the film 'High School Musical 2' in this film you can see the main male actor looking at his reflection in the water when he contemplating his life and the things he has done in the past which could relate to my idea in the way that the singer doesn't know what to do because of her failed relationship and is looking at her reflection as if she is thinking about what to do because of what the relationship has done to her. When thinking about location ideas I thought of the music video for 'Decode' by 'Paramore' as this music video is located in the woods where it is quite dark, which will set the scene for the music video. 

Here are the music video's for both Taylor Swift's 'Out Of The Woods' and Paramore's 'Decode' to help you understand what type of theme I would like my music video to be like and also what I mean when I say I may have my actor tangled in branches from the trees;

Taylor Swift - Out Of The Woods

Paramore - Decode