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Genre:

Genre is a means of categorising different texts and being able to place them in a particular group based on codes and conventions as well as producer/audience relationships.

ANDREW GOODWIN:

Music genres have their own music video style and iconography. Goodwin recognised that most artists have a trend of repeating certain actions within their music videos in order to establish this as their ‘trademark’ action and therefore making their songs recognizable due to it reoccurring often.

He explains how music videos will general stick to typical conventions within the genre of the song. More often than not, videos will display stereotypical characteristics that would be associated with the style. For example, heavy rock will include some sort of stage performance which could then intertextuality represent a type of film genre. So heavy rock may have horror film references or style. These intertextual references to film is quite common. However it is not just films, video can reference other music video, games, artists etc.

Goodwin also identified that the female body is often made to appeal as sexual especially in the very generic pop style. It could also be male, as it is the general gestures made by the people such as props or looking in the camera etc. This voyeurism is also seen as a selling point within media.

There is a clear relationship between music and visuals. e.g. either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting. The images within the video will reflect the lyrics of the song.

The artist’s record label will also play a big part in the music video and style. It is very common to see lots of close ups of the artist who will have an occurring motif that runs throughout their work, such as lady gaga who have many adventurous videos and looks.

Andrew Goodwin identified 5 key aspects of music videos that we (the audience) should look out for which are:

Thought beats – seeing the sound.

Narrative and performance.

The star image.

Relation of visuals to a song.

Technical aspects of music videos.

THOMAS SCHATZ:

He suggested that genres will have a certain cycle, in the sense that there are a number of stages that are more than likely predictable.

STAGE 1 – INNOVATIVE – This is when genres will experiment with the typical conventions within that style. There may be merging of two existing genres which challenges the audience and put forward some originality.

STAGE 2 – CLASSICAL – The conventions within the genre are well established and the genre tends to be more specific and stable. At this point, genre texts are likely to generate pleasure through the reinforcement of predictable elements and the repetition of popular structures

STAGE 3 – PARODY – A genre will play on the familiar conventions by drawing attention to specific features and the things the audience will recognise as familiar across that style. They are generally comedic and poke fun at certain aspects of which is fun for the audience as they can acknowledge what is being made fun of.

STAGE 4 – DECONSTRUCTION - Genre texts begin to challenge their generic elements by reformulating the conventions – breaking, ignoring or altering the shared understanding of genre. The audience gains pleasure through the genre text’s ability to recognise and to subvert its forms and meanings. This process may redirect the genre back to the beginning of the cycle again.

Audience:

An audience is something we tend to analyse at a distance, make generalisations about, talk about in the abstract – and don’t usually think of ourselves as a part of. However, it is also, of course, something we are a part of, whether we like it or not, and, once we start analysing the concept, we see that ‘it’ is in fact not an ‘it’ but a collection of different things, depending on where you’re standing, and why you’re looking. In this article we’ll look at some of the ways in which audiences are studied by media theorists, and how audiences are talked about in the media.

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY:

Suggested in this theory is the idea that we have moved beyond passive reception of media and instead use the media for our own purposes.

These 4 uses and gratifications they provide us are:

INFORMATION– This is learning about events and conditions that are relevant in sudden surroundings, the world and society. As well as, looking for advice or opinion and decision choices, satisfying curiosity and general interest, learning; self-education and gaining a sense of security through knowledge

PERSONAL IDENTITY – This is when we find reinforcement for values that are personal as well as models of behaviours and generally gaining insight into oneself.

INTEGRATION AND SOICAL INTERACTION – This is more to do with gaining insight into other people and their circumstances. Moreover, people will identify with others creating a feeling of belonging and connecting with family and friends in society.

ENTERTAINMENT – This can be a person’s escape or a way of hiding from a situation, it can be emotional, relaxing or just something that they enjoy and find interesting.

RECEPTION THEORY:

Stuart Hall developed this theory as he implied the idea that the producer will encode meaning with the media text, and then the audience will understand or decode them. Due to an audience being so diverse, everyone may decode the subtextual message differently depending on a person’s culture, viewpoint etc.

He suggested that there are 3 ways in which a text can be read or decoded by the audience. These are:

DOMINANT (OR ‘HEGEMONIC’) READING – The preferred reading within the text is completely accepted by the reader. So, its meaning, attitudes beliefs etc.

NEGOTIATED READING – The audience will general accept the preferred reading, however, they will alter it in a way that reflects their own thoughts and personal interests.

OPPOSITIONAL (‘COUNTERHEGEMONIC’) READING – The reader will fully reject the preferred reading.

An essay written by the Roland Brothers called ‘The Death of the Author’ is in line with reception theory. It is highlighted that despite the intention of the author and their message, it is completely down to how the audience perceive and interpret the meaning. The reader’simpression of the text is what is essential, rather than the passions of tastes of the writer.

Narrative:

Narrative theorists are typically not interested simply in what happens in a story but more importantly how the story is told. Moving Image (like the written form) is able to utilises many interesting methods in presenting the narrative to the audience. As music videos are by their nature creative, they are able to explore both classic and experimental methods in the way they present a narrative.

TVETVAN TODOROV:

Todorov developed a theory involving five stages that he stated all music videos will include. He also explains how all music videos have a circular narrative as they are all about a story trying to reach the beginning. Todorov’s theory can be seen in many music videos as it is a very common structure.

The 5 stages that Todorov explains are:

The equilibrium – This is usually the state were the audience understand and know the character and the situation that they are in within the music video. It is normally (if the narrative is linear) the beginning of the video or it is the point before things start to take a turn.

The disruption – This stage it the moment when the climatic point of the video will just start to surface. The story begins to move forward and oppositional characters or events are introduced in the narrative.

The recognition (of the disruption) – The story continues to develop and moment within the narrative will become more involved, this could be an event or character, basically anything which will con tribute to the story and characters recognising the unveiling of the drama ready to occur.

The attempts to repair the disruption – The big dramatic moment of the story. It could be a twist or a big/significant part that all of these events have been leading up to.

The new equilibrium – The narrative is concluded (or it could end on an enigma). The problem could be resolved despite the fact many things within the story could have changed and altered due to the events that took place.

VLADAMIR PROPP:

Propp devised an almost universal rule that all videos, films, narratives etc will have the same characters in. they will be portrayed in different ways to fit the style of the music video, but all stories will pretty much have the same general characters and these will all have the same general actions.

He studied hundreds of fairy tales before deciding that all narratives have the same structure.

He believes that there are eight roles in every narrative structure. These are:

The Hero

The False Hero

The Princes

The Father (Ofthe Princess)

The Helper

The Villain

The Donor

The Dispatcher

Within the narrative each of these characters will obtain a slightly different yet very specific role. The hero will be sent on their quest by the dispatcher, the princess (though not necessarily a woman or even human) is then the reward for the hero. Obviously this will vary as some characters may play the role of the hero and the princess. The helper and donor will assist the hero on their journey in some way, stories like Percy Jackson have very clear character roles.

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUS:

He came up with the idea that all video narratives are based on the concept of the binary opposites or any generally direct juxtapositions eg good vs evil, young vs old etc. Claude Levi-Staus’ theory will cover virtually all narratives as there will nearly always been some sort of binary opposite that the video revolves around. Levi Strauss theory is that the conflict is based around the binary opposites and that the binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure.

Representation:

The concept of representation embodies the theme that the media construct meanings about the world they represent it, and in doing so, help audiences to make sense of it in particular ways. For representation to be meaningful to audiences, there needs to be a shared recognition of people, situations, ideas and values. What require closer examination are the ideas and meanings produced by those representations. There may be shared recognition through the world as represented through familiar or dominant images and ideas, but there is sometimes little social consensus about how to interpret those representations, and always the possibility of alternative representations.

HEGEMONY:

The hegemonic model was developed by Marxists; it says that the ruling classes maintain their power through control of ideas and culture rather than force. They control the way the media represents the world therefore influencing the way people think about the world, and the ruling classes. It is suggested that representations are encoded into media texts in order to reinforce dominant ideologies in society. Antonio Gramsci, was an Italian Marxist who developed the idea of Hegemony, he explained that the power that lies at its heart is constantly being negotiated, rather than enforced. Another Marxist named Louis Althusser looked at the way audiences were hailed in a process known as interpellation. This concept is the ideological/social practice of misrecognising yourself based on a false consciousness mediated by media representations. Another approach to hegemony states that the mass media adopt an idea of what is normal; this then becomes common sense so that the audience does not question it.

PLURALISTIC:

This theory opposes Marxism as is states that the media is actually very diverse and there is a wide range of available choices for consumers. Rather than the media influencing consensus, consensus values influence media representations. The more dominant representations is argued to be that way because they popular with the audience instead of the idea that media institutions are forcing a particular ideology.

The main function of the media is to be entertaining for an audience and meet their expectations of representations hence why there are many stereotypes within the media as they meet the views of the audience, thus allowing the institution to make more money.

FEMINIST:

Women are represented in a hegemonic way and feminists like Laura Mulvey would argue that there is this ‘male gaze’ and that the camera is always male, establishing woman as the subordinate sex. The audience is always treated from a masculine point of view and there is voyeurism that is displayed with the female body. Whilst the pluralist model insists on diversity in the media, feminists would oppose that as women tend to just be given the terms as ‘the Madonna’ or ‘sexy’. Mulvey was referring to the ways in which women are represented either as saintly angelic housewives – Madonnas, or as sexually available pinups. Women are still being portrayed as what is effectively a Barbie within advertising. Yet with men there seems to be more diversity and leniency within advertising.

Media language and theory:

Media Language refers to the methods of communication that exist within all media products. All media texts are rich with meaning whether it be structural, symbolic or ideological. Producers rely on a generally agreed set of interpretations of the language by the audience in order to communicate their message.

FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE:

Regarded as the founder of semiotics. A sign = signifier / signified. A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. you cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified. you should consider your use of signs iwn your video, what are the signifiers signified.