Key Assessment 4

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 23^rd to 29^th 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.