Key Assessment 4
Music
videos - MEDIA LANGUAGE
Explore how the combination of media
language creates meaning for the audience in the video to Riptide
[15]
·
DAC -> D – audience A – media language creates meaning for the
audience C – Riptide
Feminist theory, semiotic codes, camera angles and shots,
lighting, generic conventions, intertextual reference, post modernism,
representation.
PEA – representation of women – how the video represents a break-up.
In music
videos, the audience are important as the producers try to create and advertise
a meaning to a media text, and the media text is usually heavily influenced by
the audience. One-way producers create meaning for the audience is using media
language, in this case I will be looking at the music video, ‘Riptide’, sang by
Vance Joy and released in 2013 under the genre of indie pop.
In the music
video, ‘Riptide’, the video creates a meaning to the audience about women in
the media, we see various women in the music video being sexualised, objectified,
and made vulnerable, using various media language. In one scene, we see a woman
tied to a tree with rope in a forest, this has the generic conventions of
horror as she is made vulnerable with low-key lighting. A way in which we see
the sexualisation and objectification of women is through the scenes where we see
a woman walking but we only see her legs, this links to the Feminist theory by
Zoonen about the objectification of women in the media. We also see another
woman being both objectified and made vulnerable, in the scenes where she is
under a spotlight singing, in each scene she has make up even more smudged and
she begins to sing the words wrong creating irony in lyrics, ‘you gone and sang
the words wrong’, with text saying, ‘you gone and sank the worlds wolf’,
showing that she is fearful, in one scene she is holding her neck which has
been cut however some scenes are jumbled showing the post-modernism theme of
the music video. Overall, the music video creates the meaning to the audience
about the representation of women in the media and in general by creating a
hegemonic ideology.
Another way
in which the music video, ‘Riptide’, uses media language to create a meaning
for the audience about the artist’s break-up. We see hear this in some lyrics,
in the video there is a scene with someone pulling two ice lollies apart with
binary oppositions and a symbolic code and polysemic reading of a relationship
being broken in the lyrics we hear, ‘and they come unstuck’. Another way in
which we see this meaning being conveyed towards the audience is when we see
tarot cards which are commonly used to predict the future, we see a narrative
withing the cards, showing a joyful beginning, feeling trapped which could also
link with the woman that was tied to a tree, ‘The Moon’ card meaning of
confusion and making sacrifices and ‘The Hanged Man’ meaning the end. Overall,
the media language used conveyed the meaning to the audience about the singer’s
break-up.
In conclusion,
the music video, ‘Riptide’, has used various ways in media language to create a
meaning for the audience about women and their representation seen in the video
and about break-ups.
Video
Game industry - INDUSTRY
In what
ways has ownership shaped the media products you have studied? Make
reference to the Assassin’s Creed franchise [15]
·
DAC -> D- ownership A- profit and power C- AC Franchise
PEA – cultural industries – power and media industries
In the
videogame industry it is common for a media product to have ownership which is
a multinational conglomerate that develops the game. However, ownerships are
usually driven by profit and power and can shape many of its media products to
be not be truly diverse as they are targeting a mass audience. I will be
looking at the Assassin’s Creed Franchise, a AAA videogame game franchise with
an ownership of Ubisoft, a transnational videogame conglomerate which produces
and develops Assassin’s Creed.
In the
Assassin’s Creed Franchise, the owner, Ubisoft could be argued that their games
have diversification with a range of games of different genre, however, their
games target a wide and vastly different audience. Theorist, Hesmonghalgh, says
that cultural industries will minimise risk and maximise profit, by making the
games target a wide audience they are minimising the risks of having a niche
audience and maximising profit of targeting a mass audience. This is seen in
the Assassin’s Creed Franchise, they target a large audience of young adult men,
despite with an 18+ PEGI, teen boys also play, with it becoming easily
accessible from multimedia integration due to Ubisoft being a large
conglomerate of maximising audience and profit. Overall, Ubisoft has shaped Assassin’s
Creed Franchise to be high profit and low risk videogame by targeting a mass
audience.
Ubisoft, the
owner of Assassin’s Creed Franchise has shaped the game to be mass profit and
minimising risks, this reflects the issues of ownership and aggressive
conglomeration. Theorists, Curran and Seaton, says that media is controlled and
driven by profit and power, this is seen in the Assassin’s Creed Franchise as
in the past 13 years, Ubisoft has released 12 games in the Assassin’s Creed
series. This will create issues of limiting the creativity and the games could
be seen too repetitive, it also limits competition with only a few massive
conglomerates which also limits the diversity of AAA videogames, with not much
competition, Ubisoft may not strive to make higher quality games. Overall, the
Assassin’s Creed Franchise has been shaped by its ownership, Ubisoft, to be
standardised and generic with no risks and mass profit, saturating the market.
In conclusion,
Ubisoft, the owner of the Assassin’s Creed Franchise, has shaped its product
for the purpose of maximum profit and power, with minimum risks by targeting a
mass audience, creating the problems of repetition.
Advertising
- AUDIENCE
Explore
how the WaterAid advert you have studied appeals to its target
audience(s) [15]
·
DAC -> D- target audience A- adverts appeal to their target audience
using … C- WaterAid
PEA – binary oppositions, showing the opposite of what the audience is
used to seeing – direct address
In audio-visual
adverts, the advert will usually appeal to its target audience, this is
important because using a target audience will mean that the advert will respond
positively towards that audience as producers of the advert will understand how
to get attention from them. The advert I will be mentioning is the audio-visual
charity advert for ‘WaterAid’ called, ‘Claudia Sings Sunshine on a Rainy Day’ in
2016 which uses different ways such as binary oppositions and direct address to
appeal to its target audience.
In the ‘WaterAid’
audio-visual advert, it uses a scene in the beginning of something the audience
will relate to and that is a stereotypical rainy day in Britain with modern
technology of the radio, it then switches and there is an immediate contrast with
dry grass and sunny weather with no modern technology laying music we hear
humming instead. The advert has used binary oppositions by theorist,
Levi-Strauss, by showing how different Claudia is living compared with the
audience. This is further seen in the clothing and living conditions with no technology
or modern buildings, Stuart Hall’s reception theory is used as the advert
represents Claudia to live in poverty and lacking resources which Britain has,
this may even make the audience feel guilty for taking what they have for
granted. Overall, through using binary oppositions and representation it has
appealed towards its target audience by perhaps guilt and comparison.
In the ‘WaterAid’
advert, the target audience are appealed using direct address, this makes the audience
feel like they are being directly talked to. Near the end we see a scene where
everyone is happy to be drinking clean water, Gauntlett’s identity theory is
seen as the audience will see what difference they can make when they donate to
‘WaterAid’, anchored text, ‘650 million people don’t have access to clean
drinking water’ telling the audience that their hep is still needed. The
audience will also see, ‘Text Sunny to 70555’, the lexis is not vague and is not
giving an option to the audience, if they want to text the number or not.
In conclusion,
the audio-visual advert for ‘WaterAid’ uses various ways to appeal to their
target audience by using binary oppositions and direct address to them how
different their lives are with Claudia and are directly being talked to.
Magazines
- REPRESENTATION
Liesbet
van Zoonen
argues that representations of gender are encoded through media
language to position audiences and to reinforce dominant ideological
perspectives. In what ways do the producers of Woman use
representations to position their audiences? [15]
·
DAC -> D- representation A- media language C- Woman
PEA
Feminist theory
Front cover, adverts, article
In
magazines, they use representation, which are constructed by the producers to
reinforce dominant ideological perspectives and positions the audience to
believe in these ideologies of the group being represented. However, the
producers of a magazine will use a range of media language to reinforce these
ideologies to the reader. I will be looking at the magazine, ‘Woman’, a
magazine for women from the 1960s, I will be particularly looking at the 1964 23rd
to 29th August edition, I will be looking at how they represent the
gender group of women to conform to their stereotypes and their hegemonic
ideologies.
In, ‘Woman’,
you can see that the dominant ideological perspective of women is following the
stereotype and gender role, which positions the audience to believe that they
should do what the magazine is reinforcing. You can see this on the front cover
of the magazine using a pink background, and calligraphy font masthead
suggesting its feminine and for women. The masthead, ‘Woman’, it does not put
women into a collective group, this suggests the magazine only shows what every
woman should look like and do, with a dominant ideology, showing how
patriarchal society was at the time. On the front cover, the model is the main
image with direct eye contact and smile, making her look friendly and inviting,
directly to the audience; she looks young and put together, reinforcing the
hegemonic ideology of an ideal woman and what beauty is. We further see this
hegemonic ideology of women further in the coverlines, ‘Alfred Hitchcock
British women have a special magic’, the lexis used is a hermeneutic code for
the pull-quote, which creates anchorage with the main image. The magazine
reflects the insecurity of women which it has created, making women wanting to
improve their lives to fit the ideology of women, ‘Seven star improvements for
your kitchen’, ‘lingerie goes lively’, ‘Are you an A-level beauty?’, the use of
lexis and rhetorical question uses superficiality of the representation of
women, John Berger’s theory seen in ‘Ways of seeing’ of men acting and women
appearing. Using various media language, the representation of women reinforces
hegemonic ideological perspectives of how they should appear, positioning the
audience of primarily women to believe this.
In the
magazine, ‘Woman’, you can see the dominant ideological perspectives of gender in
the advertising in media language, positioning the audience to believe in them
and feel aspirational towards them. We see in the ‘Max Factor’ advertising to
follow a woman putting on a makeup product and a man walking towards her. We
see both hegemonic ideologies of men and women, the man is seen to be wearing a
suit and looks like his wife is waiting for him after work as men were seen to
be the breadwinner and the woman is wearing and putting on makeup to impress her
husband and maintain her beauty and mostly femininity; this all reflects the
patriarchal hegemonic representations especially seen in the 60s. Another advert
seen is a ‘Breeze’ advert for soap, in which the woman is sexualised with only
bubbles covering her, the lexis used is also suggestive with the ideology that
women should be sensitive and gentle as well as being ‘all over feminine’. We
also see patriarchal terms of lexis, ‘darling’, a colloquial term of endearment
which sounds like a husband addressing his wife. Throughout the magazine, Feminist
theory by Zoonen is seen from the objectification of women and being weak, the
lexis in ‘Max Factor’, ‘softly and in ‘Breeze’, ‘kindly’. Using various media
language, the representation of gender is seen through stereotypes and
hegemonic ideological perspective positioning the audience to believe in these
ideologies.
The article
featured in ‘Woman’, uses dominant ideological perspectives to reinforce the representation
of women and perhaps how women should appear. The article talks about the ‘mystery
of British women’ and believes the ideology of women to look or act a certain way,
‘prowess as a cook never wavered and I’m convinced that one of the first signs
of indifference in a wife is when her cooking suffers’, representing the housewife
ideology of the 60s. Women are also seen as objects, ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m
such a happily married man that I can look at women quite objectively, without
emotion clutter up the view’. This links to Zoonen’s Feminist theory. Using
primarily lexis in media language, the presentation of women is seen through
the dominant ideological perspective of how women are seen and ow the audience
should see women.
However, you
could argue that in one of the articles about the kitchen, there is imagery of
a mother teaching a boy to cook, which would go against the hegemonic ideological
perspective of the wife and women cooking for the household.
In conclusion,
the magazine, ‘Woman’, uses media language to encode the representation of
gender, mostly women, in which the producers reinforce dominant ideological perspectives
that position the audience of primarily of women to believe they should look
and act a certain way, using Zoonen’s Feminist theory.
