How to analyse a music video

Music videos are used to help a musician or band promote a song or album. Think of a music video as an advertisement for the musician. Thanks to cheap digital video equipment and YouTube, there is no excuse for a musician to not have a music video out for the world to see. With so many music videos out there, it is worth exploring the idea of analysing a music video.

Something to consider, first and foremost, is that music videos are more than just music. 

The video part of a music video is what truly sets it apart from a song by itself. The video contains messages that the musician wants to convey to the audience. The music video director has chosen to show a story or lifestyle about the musician that will appeal to the audience. 

The artist is selling more than just a song... they're selling you a lifestyle, presumably the lifestyle the artist lives him or herself.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to begin understanding music videos:

• Is the music video based in real life, or does this take place in a fantasy world?
• Is the way the artist is portrayed in the video really how that person dresses and acts in real life?
• Consider how the musician is dressed - is that how regular people dress?
• Consider the actions taken by the artist in the video - would they really do these things in real life?
• What is the benefit for the musician to portray him or herself this way?
• Does the video portray people in stereotypical ways? Are these reflections of real people or are they just one-sided characters?
• Consider the editing - how does the frequency of cuts from shot to shot affect how you feel about the video?
• Consider the setting - why did the director choose this location or setting?

These are just some questions to start you thinking about how music videos are created and how they affect you. Take a look at the videos below and try analyzing them using the questions laid out above. 

In textual analysis you are looking for the meaning in the text. 
This isn't always easy.
Sometimes meaning is obvious. Sometimes it's not.

Explicit Meaning

Explicit means fully and clearly expressed, leaving nothing implied. For example; a woman is shown running down the road.

Implicit Meaning

Implicit means implied or understood though not directly expressed. This is more subtle and can have multiple meanings. For example the woman is crying and pushing people as she is running, there could be a few reasons why she's crying and our decisions are influenced by our own personal experience and context.

Subtextual Meaning

Subtexts are part of the wider discussion of the text. For example the crying woman could be seen as a symbol for woman's struggle for equality.

Implicit and subtextual meanings often rely on connotations, the associations that are made with certain images.

Audience Theories

Audience theory provides a starting point for many Media Studies tasks. Whether you are constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the destination of that text (i.e. its target audience) and how that audience (or any other) will respond to that text.

Remember that a media text in itself has no meaning until it is read or decoded by an audience.

Ways of categorising audiences/users and audience/user composition. 

Media Audiences an Introduction from alevelmedia

Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.[1] Because this area of research focuses on interests, activities, and opinions, psychographic factors are also called IAO variables. Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing.

“A media text is always created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this target audience.”
These audiences can be categorized and how the target audience is made up affects the media language employed by and the commercial viability of a text. The key thing to remember about the media industry is that it is a money making indu$try. What this means is each media text is a product that needs to be made for, and sold to, the right target audience in order to gross a profit.
In other words, everything is done with the target audience in mind.
Due to this being the case a lot of money is invested in audience research and the industry will refer to key theories when considering how to attract/represent this group.

 MASS AUDIENCE: 

Mass audiences are basically large mainstream audiences who consume mainstream or popular culture (Marxist would claim that this audience is largely made up of the ‘working class’), such as Hollywood films, Eastenders, reality TV, Premiership football, simple Hollywood, tabloids etc.
High culture, by contrast, is usually associated with broadsheets, opera, ballet and BBC Four.

 NICHE AUDIENCE: 

A niche audience is smaller than a mass audience but usually very influential. E.g. those that Marx would define as upper class/middle class, who controlled the media and may wish to see ‘high culture’ programs. Hence the launch of BBC Four for those who wish to hear/see artistic high culture programs.

Niche audiences don’t have to be this group though, they can be any small, dedicated group who advertisers feel are worth targeting or creating products for.
Examples could include, certain films (e.g. 'adult' movies - which can not really be called ‘high art’), fishing magazines, farming programs, underwater knitting!

When media text producers profile their audience they take into account AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS (class/economic status, gender, age, geographical location) along with their viewing preferences/needs: In other words, they think about the following before developing a text...

1) What social class will the primary target audience fall under?
2) What gender is the primary target audience?
3) What age will the primary target audience be?
4) What nationality will the primary target audience be?
5) What values do the primary target audience have? (Ideology).
6) Audience appeal - what will the primary target audience be looking for in a text? (UGT).

They then think about how they can best represent their primary target audience through;
genre, narrative, characters, cast, locations, cinematography, sound, editing, advertising etc.

Key Theories 

The following theories are all taken into account when profiling, representing and pitching to audiences:
Class: One of the most common ways of identifying a target audience is the social-economic model. Even though this model, used by the NRS (National Readership Survey Ltd), has been used for a long time, it is still useful way of identifying an audience and deconstructing a text.
The basis for the system is money – A/B audiences for example are assumed to have more spending power than CDE audiences. However, it is also presumed AB audiences prefer high culture (e.g. art-cinema, broadsheets and late night art programs on TV). While C/D/E, who stereotypically like Hollywood commercial films and consume more texts, make up a lager proportion of society making this the 'mass audience.'

 EFFECTS THEORY: 

The ‘Frankfurt School’ is the term given to a group of social scientists who were originally based at the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt. They conducted research into the potential power the mass media had over audiences.
They were concerned that the media could be used as a tool of fascist propaganda. The founders were left-wing (Marxist) and criticised the capitalist system controlling the mass media for creating a mass culture that eliminated any opposition or alternatives.
This group was responsible for the ‘HYPODEMIC NEEDLE MODEL’ believing that the mass audience were passive and could simply be ‘injected’ with messages created by media producers.
Even though some critics still believe that there is some truth to this model (hence why age restrictions exist and some products are banned completely) others felt that this model over simplifies the situation.

For example, the theorist Stuart Hall deals with ‘Reception Theory’ study which determines how different audiences view the same text.
He found that the way audiences interpreted a text generally fell under one of the following:

• A preferred reading; of the text most likely to be received by the intended target audience who share the same ideologies (people read it as the creators intended – this is the closest to the hypodermic needle).

• An oppositional reading; generally by people who are not in the intended target audience (they reject the meaning intended and receive an alternative meaning).

• A negotiated reading; basically accept the meaning but interpret it to suit their own position/ideologies.

In short, what this shows is that the majority of consumers are not passive and their reading of a text is influenced by their own ideologies – a product simply cannot ‘brainwash everyone’ like an injected drug. However, some are more susceptible and easily influenced (especially children who have yet to complete the early years of the socialization process), hence age ratings etc.

Two-Step Flow

The Hypodermic model quickly proved too clumsy for media researchers seeking to more precisely explain the relationship between audience and text. As the mass media became an essential part of life in societies around the world and did NOT reduce populations to a mass of unthinking drones, a more sophisticated explanation was sought.

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. 

Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. 

The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm.

Nationality/values: IDEOLOGY: 

Ideology is an important factor to consider when creating a product because you have to represent the ideology your target audience wish to see. Ideology refers to the system of beliefs that is constructed and presented by a media product. As Marx claims, the dominant ideologies are those that already underpin society.
This can differ country to country, for example a soap made for a UK audience will differ to one made for a US audience, Spain or Iran (the same can be said for social realist programs like Shameless, music and comedy). This should in theory mean that British audiences should prefer British texts, however this is not the case because America has dominated the market for so long that American ideologies have been adopted in these countries (a form of cultural imperialism). As Kissinger (2011) stated; "globalisation is really another name for the dominant role of the United states" because they consider national and international cinemas as vehicles to represent and protect USA values. In short, Hollywood caters first and foremost for American audiences, but because Hollywood films have dominated the market place for so long many other countries, the UK included, see themselves represented by the values portrayed.

Uses and Gratification Theory: 

 This theory is the opposite of effects theory because it relies on the premise that audiences have free will and choose to consume certain things for different reasons. The theory was developed in the 1960s and was in expanded in 1974 by Blumer and Katz who suggested a series of possible reasons why audience members might consume a media text:
• Diversion (escape from everyday problems - emotional release, relaxing, filling time etc.)
• Personal relationships (using the media for emotional and other interactions e.g. substitution soap opera for family life OR using the cinema as a social event).
• Personal identity (constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behavior and values – useful if trying to fit into a new country/culture)
• Surveillance (information gathering e.g. news, educational programming, weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains etc).

THE FOUR C’S (cross-cultural consumer characteristics): 

This is one of the earliest, but still most popular, ways of profiling audiences. It profiles the audience in terms of wants and needs, not simply demographic. The categories are as follows:

 • Mainstreamers (this is the largest group. They are concerned with stability, mainly buying well-known brands and consuming mainstream texts).

• Aspirers (they are seeking to improve themselves. They tend to define themselves by high status brands, absorbing the ideologies associated with the products and believing their status alters as a result).

 • Succeeders (people who feel secure and in control – generally they are in positions of power. They buy brands which reinforce their feelings of control and power).

• Reformers (idealists who actively consume eco-friendly products and buy brands which are environmentally supportive and healthy. They also buy products which establish this ‘caring and responsible’ ideology). Individuals (highly media literate, expects high-production advertising and buys product image not product, requires high-profiling sophisticated advertising campaigns).

How media producers and texts construct audiences and users.

Constructing Audience

When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important question the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" If the answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further. If no one is going to watch/read/play/buy the text, the producers aren't going to make any money or get their message across. Audience research is a major part of any media company's work. They use questionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing media texts, and spend a great deal of time and money finding out if there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea.

It's a serious business; media producers basically want to know the

• income bracket/status
• age
• gender
• race
• location

of their potential audience, a method of categorising known as demographics.

Once they know this they can begin to shape their text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening habits.

Creating Audience

Once a media text has been made, its producers need to ensure that it reaches the audience it is intended for. All media texts will have some sort of marketing campaign attached to them. Elements of this might include

• posters
• print, radio, TV and internet advertisements
• trailers
• promotional interviews (eg stars appearing on chat shows, information leaked to Internet bloggers)
• tie-in campaigns (eg a blockbuster movie using McDonalds meals)
• merchandising (t-shirts, baseball caps, key rings)

Marketing campaigns are intended to create awareness of a media text. Once that awareness has been created, hopefully audiences will come flocking in their hundreds of millions.

How audiences and users are positioned 

(including preferred, negotiated and oppositional responses to that positioning).

Stuart Hall - Audience Positioning from reigatemedia

Modes of Address

Modes of address can be defined as the ways in which relations between addresser and addressee are constructed in a text. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the text (advertisements offer particularly clear examples of this).

Once audiences have been constructed, media producers will assess the correct mode of address to use.

Direct - Identifies with the audience directly - 'Get out of the rain'.
Referential
Expresssive - 'It's pissing down with rain'
Poetic - 

War Themed Music Videos

Here are some examples to study in advance of approaching the RESEARCH INVESTIGATION:


World War Z, Music Video (Muse) 2013.



Letters From War (Mark Schultz) 2009.



Army Dreamers, (Kate Bush) 1980.

Welcome to MS4

MS 4: MEDIA – TEXT, INDUSTRY AND AUDIENCE

This unit focuses on developing both the knowledge students have gained in other areas of the course and their understanding of the links between texts, the industries that have produced them and the different audiences that respond to them.

Key Features:

Centres select three industries to study. Centres then select three main texts from each industry to focus on. 

Two of the three selected texts per industry must be contemporary (made within the previous five years)

One text per industry must be British

We have chosen to focus on:

Music Industry:

Nirvana, Olly Murs, Britney Spears

Television:

The Big Bang Theory, Walking Dead, Life on Mars

Advertising Industry:

Halo, Gola, Dove

For each text selected, students will need to consider the following and the links between them, as relevant to the texts selected.

Selected Text

Industry Issues

Production

Background/ Context 

Marketing/ Promotion

Regulation

Global Implications

Distribution/ Exhibition

Genre

Signifiers, Conventions, Iconography

Narrative

Structure, Conventions, Key codes

Representation

 People, Places, Events/issues

Audience/ Users

Targeting

Positioning

Debates

Responses

What will students be required to do in the examination?

Students will be required to answer three questions: one question (from a choice of two) from Section A and two questions (from a choice of four) from Section B. They will be required to select a different industry for each answer and to make reference in their answer to their three key texts.

Section A will be based on the texts themselves and questions will be based on the areas of genre, narrative and representation. Section B will be based on industry and audience.

Sample approach:

MAGAZINES:

Big Issue: Skeleton outline

TEXT

Genre

How is Big Issue different to other magazines? Compare and contrast with other magazines studied and its front cover and contents page with a range of other front covers and contents pages

Narrative

Analyse at least 3 editions to ascertain typical structure, special and regular features, with a particular focus on contents pages.Representations

To what extent are representations of social issues, especially homelessness and poverty, realistic? How might this compare to representations in newspapers and other media forms?

Investigate positive representations of homeless people: students may wish to focus on the Street Talk feature, usually on the last page, or on Streetlights and Mr Big Issue Man, usually found on p.6.

INDUSTRY Production

Who owns The Big Issue? Introduction: a rare example of a successful independent magazine. Read the about us and how we work sections on the website.

Context

Research background and history: http://www.bigissue.com/magazinesite/introduction.html

Marketing

Discuss the magazine’s house style with particular reference to the Badger feature on the contents page and the editorial overview on the website.

Read http://www.bigissueonline.com/cgi-bin/foundation/info.html?domain=info&name=mission

How are the advertisements carried in Big Issue different to those in other magazines you have studied? How does Big Issue advertise itself?

Find and print off the magazine’s rate card and compare it to the rate card for another magazine you have studied. How can you explain these differences?

Regulation

Search the Press Complaints Commission website for any adjudications against The Big Issue. (there aren’t any. Why?)

Global Implications

Research the International Network of Street Papers:

Distribution

How does Big Issue distribution differ from that of any other magazine? Students may wish to use the website or to chat to a vendor.

AUDIENCE Target Audience Who they? Ways of classifying the Big Issue audience Discuss demographic and psychometric profiles and apply audience theories, then look at

the reader profile on the website. http://www.bigissue.com/profile.html

How does this magazine attract different groups within the target audience? (e.g. editorial content, Big Scene “what’s on” feature, film, book, music and art reviews, featured subscriber, competitions, letter, crossword..)

Investigate the magazine’s use of stars and celebrities with a particular focus on covers and the This Is Me feature usually found on p.20.

Positioning

What assumptions does this magazine make about its audience that set it apart from other magazines ?

Debates

Given stereotypes about the homeless, how do the students feel about Big Issue vendors? Look at the Big Issue code of conduct. http://www.bigissue.com/magazinesite/conduct.pdf To what extent is The Big Issue a “pro-social” text? Discussion of the idea of positive effects.

Responses

Look at the ABC data on the magazine and at the blurb which is usually found on page 4 to establish how many copies it sells. http://abcpdfcerts.abc.org.uk/pdf/certificates/13993353.pdf

Resources:

International Network of Street Papers: http://www.bigissue.com/intl.html (links to the excellent Big Issue website.) http://www.bigissue.com/magazinesite/ Vendors’ Code of Conduct: http://www.bigissue.com/magazinesite/conduct.pdf Audit Bureau of Circulations: http://www.abc.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=nav/abc&noc=y National Readership Survey: http://www.nrs.co.uk/open_access/open_topline/GeneraMagazines/index.cfm Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice: http://www.pcc.org.uk/assets/111/Code_aug_06.pdf

Getting Started

WJEC examiner Jonathan Nunns takes

you through the essential steps to

success.

Fifty percent. That’s how much this piece of

work contributes to your A Level grade. Now, I

can’t claim that this will be the funkiest, most

fun article you will ever read, but should you

happen to be an A2 Media student looking down

the business end of this particular task, then I’m

hoping that it might give you a bit of help.

To start with, here’s some context. The task has

three parts,

1. An investigative research essay – 1400-1800

words.

2. A production piece – up to four minutes of AV

or a minimum of three pages for a magazine or

website.

3. The inevitable evaluation – 500-750 words.

For you to do well, you will need to do lots

of work and preparation before you even start.

You will need to develop skills you may not

currently have and, above all, you will need to be

well-organised. It’s best not to be complacent

with this one. Near enough probably isn’t good

enough and lack of organization will show in a

ropey end product and a lousy grade.

Scheme of Work

Here is a rough timetable of what we'll be covering.

Prior to Summer break, we'll be doing an in depth revision of the key concepts of Genre, Representation and Narrative.

Read week two as your first week back after Summer.

Welcome to MS3

 Students are required to demonstrate: 

• Individual and independent research skills 
• The ability to use their research to inform a media product 
• Technical and creative skills 
• The ability to evaluate the product exploring the validity of the research undertaken 

Students will submit three pieces of linked work comprising: 

• A research investigation focused on one or more of the following concepts: genre, narrative, representation. (1400 – 1800 words) 
• A production which arises out of the research 
• An evaluation which explains how the research has informed the production (500 – 750 words) 

 The Research Investigation: 

This piece of work will be done individually. Students will formulate their own research field of study that is focused on one or more of the concepts of genre, narrative or representation. The teacher should have an instrumental role in negotiating the title for their assignments, reminding students that there must be clear potential for the development of the investigation into a production piece. 

 The Production: 

Digital media such as web sites and print based productions must be undertaken individually; audio and audio-visual productions may be undertaken either individually or in small groups of no more than 4 students. Students working in groups must all have a clearly defined production role which allows them to demonstrate a significant and definable contribution to the production. 

The production should reflect what the student has learnt through their research and should demonstrate creative and technical skills. 

 Digital media productions should be 3 – 4 pages in length, with the majority of the images being generated by the student. 

 Audio and audio-visual productions should be 3 – 4 minutes in length. (Shorter ones, in the case of animation may be agreed in consultation with the Principal Moderator. 

 In the case of campaigns, students may combine audio-visual and print. Print-based material must be produced individually. The audio-visual product only may be produced individually or by a small group. 

Please note: Students must present their productions in a different media form than to used at MS2 

Evaluation: 

The main purpose of the evaluation is to explore how the research undertaken informed the production. 
This is marked against AO 2
Apply knowledge and understanding when analysing media products and processes and evaluating their own practical work, to show how meanings and responses are created.

Evaluation
The production must be accompanied by an individual evaluation which
explores how the production has been informed by the research undertaken
into the relevant media concept.
The evaluation can be produced in any appropriate form such as:
 a discursive essay (with or without illustrations)
 a digital presentation with slide notes (such as a PowerPoint)

 a suitably edited blog.

Planning a discursive essay