--Applying all Q1b essay guide

Media LanguageMedia Language GuideGuide
See http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/q1b-media-language.html for much more not included here
What the exam board say:
“Media language refers to the ways in which media producers make meaning in ways that are
specific to the medium in which they are working and how audiences come to be literate in
‘reading’ such meaning within the medium. For example, ‘the language of film’. These medium
specific languages will often be closely connected to other media concepts such as narrative and
genre and candidates are at liberty to make such connections to a greater or lesser extent in their
answers.”
IN A NUTSHELL:
 What editing/SFX/mise-en-scene/shots/framing (etc) have you used that anchors at a
glance (if you were channel surfing) that this text is a music video?
 How/to what extent have you played on audience expectations and knowledge?
 To explore this, you will be getting into some aspects of ANGeR! ‘M’ is sort of a ‘greatest hits’
of the others!
SUGGESTED THEMES/APPROACH
I suggest many more possibilities in the blog guide, and will stress the word suggestion for the
following; I also only make brief reference to ‘genre/narrative theories’, which you might want to wholly
focus on. I’ve picked out three themes which I’ve split into two, with some theory/ists attached:
1. PROBLEM OF DISCUSSING THE VIDEO OR THE MEANING
a. The meaning? Web 2.0: former audience etc
b. The video? Its part of an integrated package
2. POSTMODERN ELEMENTS
a. Intertextuality/simulacra
b. (possibly) ‘breakdown of the distinction between high art and popular culture’
3. WHICH DOMINATES: SOUND OR IMAGE?
a. Vernallis stresses the primacy of the track
b. Goodwin sees this as just 1 of 6 key features that distinguish m.vids from other media
Applying MANGeR Theories: possible themes to tackle produced by Dave Burrowes 1

You could structure an answer round all of this; use parts of it and more general semiotic-style analysis;
centre on 1 or more part and really go into detail on it – and, whatever you do, you can utilise theories
from all 4 other areas; do look back in ANGeR!.
NB: as mentioned above, there are many more suggestions in the blog guide post.
Remember too that EX needs to be not just denotation of your video but artist/track title + denotation
from existing videos too.
PROBLEM OF DISCUSSING THE VIDEO
OR THE MEANING
I think this is a potentially interesting way to start your response, showing a high
level of engagement – and offers a good chance to use web 2.0 theory which you
should find easy to recall, having presumably prepared this for any 1a or 1b
question!
A: The meaning? Web 2.0: former audience etc
There are issues with discussing the media language employed as there is a question of agency, or
authorship. The convention of the ‘auteur’ being identified as the director seems unsatisfactory here, as:
(1) I worked in a group. While I can identify decisions such as [EX] as distinctively my own, there were
others such as [EX] which came about as a joint, group process or from another group member [EX; if
you’re happy you’ve given enough EX further on, keep this basic/short].
(2) As I will discuss in more detail shortly, even applying Stuart Hall’s flexible concept of a ‘preferred
reading’ is made complicated because of our application of ‘web 2.0’ (O’Reilly) tools.
(3) Dan Gillmor used the phrase “the former audience” to denote the ending of the barrier or distinction
between audience and producer, and this has been consciously reflected in our work. Henry Jenkins
reflects this thinking by writing of “participatory culture” and “collective intelligence”, and our
‘audience’ actually played a partial role as ‘producer’ too! [EX, based on audience feedback suggestion
which led to a specific change, one which reflects common music video conventions – that could be really simple,
like ‘the lip-synching isn’t convincing enough’] Brigid Cherry’s “community of imagination” is useful too
B: The text? Its part of an integrated package
Although this essay is focussed on what language choices made our music video distinctively recognisable as
such, I should note that it is actually part of a wider package. Andrew Goodwin noted that music videos did
not start the process of adding visualisation to music: album sleeves, magazine articles, TV appearances etc
all contributed to this. In my case, the music video was referenced in a variety of further products which
extended the concept of ‘the text’. A multimedia blog exposed and demystified the production process;
Facebook and Twitter accounts provided previews and facilitated audience interaction; magazine ads and
digipak sleeves both referenced the video and extended some of the themes from it [EX]. Perhaps most
significantly, we used a QR code on these print products to point to a viral-style video on our Twitter account.
This 30-second video demonstrated the core [EX: concept or dance, whichever is applicable to yours] of our video
and explicitly invited fans to create and post their own videos applying this [concept/dance]. Psy’s “Gangnam

Style” is as well known for its fan-made versions as for the original video itself – with every video generating
YouTube royalty payments to Psy. This use of ‘UGC’ (user-generated content) or fan-made videos is seen in
other media formats (Brigid Cherry, for example, explored the online “Scream” film franchise fan forum that
shared fans’ own Scream scripts), but is clearly increasingly a part of the media language of music videos,
again reflecting what Jenkins describes as “participatory culture”.
POSTMODERN FEATURES
Postmodernism is a useful concept for most 1a and 1b areas. You could use some
or all of the following.
A: Intertextuality/Simulacra
The music video is noted for its postmodern style, especially borrowing widely not only from other videos but
also from other media. Kristeva coined the term ‘intertextuality’ to denote the practice of utilising elements of
other texts. Andrew Goodwin identifies this as one of the six core defining features of music videos. We can
see this in any number of music videos, [EX. I’ve blogged on death metal band Morbid Angel’s “Existo Vulgare”,
which is presented as a 1920s silent movie, a meme which the hit film “The Artist” helped spread. This is a great example
of what Baudrillard terms a ‘simulacra’: a signifier of an existing signifier in an endless chain of signification with no
ultimate, definable reality behind it. I’ve blogged on further examples of this: Rammstein’s “Sonne” which presents a
bizarre deconstruction of the Snow White fairytale; Rage Against The Machine’s “Mein Land” in which they appear as
Beach Boys-style surfers, etc etc. Famous directors Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze are both well known for this
postmodern approach. Jonze’s “Buddy Holly” video has the band, Weezer, appearing as characters in the 70s sitcom
Happy Days, which was a representation of the 1950s, a clear simulacra.].
Our own video contains many intertextual references: to [EX, where you give BOTH the artist/track signified AND
the precise detail from your own text. You should have several to list here. You could also add EAA with any EX of
audience feedback which perceived intertextuality you hadn’t consciously planned!] As I noted earlier, this calls into
question the concept of agency or authorship. Negus, writing about music but with a concept that we can
apply to video, argues that producers can be classified as one of genericist, pastichist or synthesist. I would
describe our approach as [EX: back this up with brief examples]. You could draw on a lot of genre theory here if
you wished.
B: ‘Breakdown of the distinction between high art and popular culture’
This is part of Dominic Strinati’s widely-used five-part definition of postmodernism (see Representation
guide). This is only relevant if you’ve used some signifiers of ‘high culture’ (eg opera, foreign cinema,
literature) within your popular culture video. See Audience guide for more on this.
if some part of any planned ANGeR answer is that there's a
theory your vid DOESN'T fit, then you should plan to use
that point for M.Lang too, as that's basically the point: the
DISTINCTIVE media language of music videos

VERNALLIS v GOODWIN
You’ll note that I’ve already cited Goodwin above; he’s incredibly useful to use for
this question. Vernallis offers up a contrasting take on what constitutes the defining
elements of video media language, and is very useful for both Narrative and
Representation. There is another opportunity here to use genre theory too.
A: Vernallis
This is taken from the Narrative guide; you can apply Vernallis to Audience, Representation … ALL!!
CAROL VERNALLIS (2004): ‘Experiencing Music Video differs from previous work on music video
because it takes the music of music video most seriously. I argue that music videos derive from the songs
they set. The music comes first – the song is produced before the video is conceived – and the director
normally designs images with the song as a guide.’ ‘Music videos often suggest a story [but] we obtain no
more visual information than we might derive from a single narrative painting.’
‘In music video, what is concealed and what is revealed serve to encourage multiple viewings by engaging
the viewer [great point for audience; Barthes link too] in a process of reconstructing, interpolating or
extrapolating a story behind the scenes that are actually visible. When the narrative mode is present even
fleetingly, it creates an aura of mystery, a sense that things need to be puzzled out’.
Videos use ellipsis in such an extreme fashion that causality is often absent.
‘Music video presents a range all the way from extremely abstract videos emphasizing colour and
movement to those that convey a story. But most videos tend to be nonnarrative. An Aristotlean
definition – characters with defined personality traits, goals, and a sense of agency encounter obstacles and
are changed by them – describes only a small fraction of videos, perhaps one in fifty. Still fewer meet the
criteria that David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson require in their Film Art: An Introduction: that all of
the events we see or hear, plus those we infer or assume to have occurred, can be arranged according to
their presumed causal relations, chronological order, duration, frequency, and spatial locations. Even if we
think we have a sense of a music video’s story, we may not feel that we can reconstruct the tale in the
manner that Bordwell and Thompson’s criteria demand.’
‘I argue that the lyrics constitute no more and no less than one of many strands a video must weave
together.’

This is taken from the Representation guide:
‘Videomakers have developed a set of practices of practices for putting image to music in
which the image must give up its autonomy and abandon some of its representational
modes. In exchange, the image gains in flexibility and play, as well as in polyvalence of
meaning.’ (Vernallis, 2004) TRANSLATION: Vernallis argues that music video can’t be
analysed in the same way we would other audio-visual forms; the representations we might
perceive are actually more polysemic than they might be if used within TV or film, as the
music is the key consideration, not the image. This is a useful point for a conclusion or
intro. This links in with her analysis of narrative as also being difficult to apply to videos:
‘Music videos suppress narrative direction for various reasons.’ The ‘figures cannot
speak’, tracks are typically short, and the record labels do not want attention to be wholly
on the visuals when it’s the audio they’re actually selling!
IN A NUTSHELL: the music is the key consideration, not the image
If we agree with Vernallis, then it is difficult to pin down the language of the video form as it is the audio
track that dictates this. You, again, could draw on genre theory here to widen this point out. Indeed, you could
easily base an essay on Vernallis/genre theory v Goodwin.
B: Goodwin
This is from the Narrative guide:
ANDREW GOODWIN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS, VISUALS, MUSIC: asked what is the
relationship between lyrics, visuals and music: (1) illustrative – images provide a literal representation (2)
amplifying – repetition of key meanings and effects to manipulate the audience (3) contradicting – images
contrast with the music (4) disjuncture – when the meaning of the song is completely ignored. A video may
combine some of these. He argues that the most common function of a video, looking at Madonna
examples (as did Carol Vernallis; Madonna’s output has been a major influence on theories applied to
music videos!), is to frame the “star-in-text” (cf. Richard Dyer’s star system); creating a role that
boosts their star appeal and branding.
He argues that there are six defining, common characteristics of music videos which mark them out as
a distinct format:
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
(e.g. stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band, aspiration in Hip
Hop).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images.
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visual
reflects that of the music. [This is essentially Vernallis’ point. Anton Corbijn’s Joy Division
videos are a good example; moody black and white to reflect the gothic music; so too the 2011
student Joy Division video [blogs]]
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the
artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style). [Richard Dyer again!]

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc)
and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. [Can link to male gaze etc]
6. There are often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).
[Kristeva, other postmodern theory]
You can quite simply note which of these do apply to your video, then give EX for some of these.

AUDIENCEAUDIENCE ESSAY THEORY/THEMESESSAY THEORY/THEMES
the table above summarizes some examples of how audience theory has gone from assuming a very passive
audience to assuming an active audience; from assuming texts influence audiences to assuming that audience
views impact on how they perceive, ‘read’ or respond to texts. You already have the interactive PowerPoint
this is from via email, plus a 4-page guide to aud theory, but I’ll re-send upon request.
SOME USEFUL TERMS TO USE/ADDRESS:
WEB 2.0 (participatory culture; former audience)
Niche v mainstream/mass audience
High culture v popular culture
Primary v secondary audiences
Passive (older theories) v active (newer) audience models
Demographic (ABC1C2DE, gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality etc)

Shift from consumer to prosumer (Gauntlett)
Screenagers, tweenagers/tweens
STRONGSTRONG LINKS WITH ‘THEMES’ FOR OTHER MANGeRLINKS WITH ‘THEMES’ FOR OTHER MANGeR
I’ve tried here to really highlight how you can cut down your workload but still produce
truly impressive, potentially A-grade essays, by noting clear links with material you might
have used for other 1b essay plans. The themes/headings noted are from the essay guides on
genre, narrative and representation. There are also some links with media regulation.
From GENRE:
AUDIENCE v PRODUCER? WEB 2.0 + PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
I’ve included a lengthy section on this here, but for most of the rest of these you’ll need to refer to the earlier
handouts.
SUB-GENRE AND AUDIENCE PLEASURES
You could also link in intertextuality to Altman’s ‘audience pleasures’ (intellectual puzzle) or Hebdige’s
subcultures or Bourdieu’s cultural capital. See (and possibly link to) the suggested theme ‘Simple Polysemy’
below
From NARRATIVE:
NARRATIVE DEVICES FOR ATTRACTING AUDIENCE/S: eg ENIGMA CODES
From REPRESENTATION:
GENDER
The section in the Rep’n guide is longer than from other guides.
IDEOLOGY + COUNTER-HEGEMONY
I’ve included a section on this below, highlighting age/classification + passive audience theory (‘MEDIA
EFFECTS; AGE CLASSIFICATION’), which also links to the brief AGE theme suggested in Rep’n (Simon
Reynolds’ Retromania etc)
DERIVING IDENTITY FROM MEDIA TEXTS
I’ve included a section labelled ‘SIMPLE POLYSEMY! U+G, HALL etc’ below; ‘identity’ is one of the U+G
features, so this directly links in. The Rep’n section has info on Hebdige, Bourdieu etc – both very useful and
very well known (and really rather interesting too!).

SOME USEFUL INTRO QUOTES
Although I’ve suggested ‘intro’, these are great quotes/ideas that you could use for a full paragraph, or
apply with other points/themes (or even the conclusion). All of these have also been suggested for other
MANGeR topics.
Dennis McQuail (1972) An audience can be described as a “temporary collective”
Ien Ang (1991) states that 'audiencehood is becoming an ever more multifaceted, fragmented
and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences'.
John Hartley (1987) “institutions are obliged not only to speak about an audience, but –
crucially, for them – to talk to one as well; they need not only to represent audiences but to
enter into relation with them”. Hartley also suggests that institutions must produce
“invisible fictions of the audience which allow the institutions to get a sense of who they must
enter into relations with”.
Julian McDougall (2009) suggests that in the online age it is getting harder to conceive a
media audience as a stable, identifiable group. [also quoted in web 2.0 section; sim point to Ang,
but Ang was writing long before we had a mass web, let alone web 2.0!!!]
SIMPLE POLYSEMY! U+G, HALL etc
You can utilize ‘active’ audience theories such as U+G to demonstrate/analyse how different
audiences might respond differently to (read) your text. This could lead on quite naturally from, or
include, any analysis of how your mag ads targeted different audiences. Audience pleasures
(that’s what gratification means!) is a part of this, so look too at ‘SUB-GENRE AND AUDIENCE
PLEASURES’ from the genre guide.
Dennis McQuail’s Uses And Gratifications Theory (1972)
This active audience theory argues that the audience control textual meanings; they select texts for certain
psychological needs:
 Diversion/Escapism
 Personal Relationship: A talking point
 Personal Identity: identifying with the representations on display
 Surveillance: Information

Katz & Blumler’s variation (development) of U+G
You have this in the genre guide. They tweaked McQuail’s formulation. ‘Uses and gratifications’ (Katz &
Blumler) research has identified many potential pleasures of genre, including the following:
One pleasure may simply be the recognition of the features of a particular genre because of our familiarity
with it. Recognition of what is likely to be important (and what is not), derived from our knowledge of the
genre, is necessary in order to follow a plot.
Genres may offer various emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism - a feature which some
theoretical commentaries seem to lose sight of. Aristotle, of course, acknowledged the special emotional
responses which were linked to different genres. Deborah Knight notes that 'satisfaction is guaranteed with
genre; the deferral of the inevitable provides the additional pleasure of prolonged anticipation' (Knight 1994).
(Summary from the Wiki:)
Goals for media use can be grouped into five uses. The audience wants to:
1. be informed or educated
2. identify with characters of the situation in the media environment
3. simple entertainment
4. enhance social interaction
5. escape from the stresses of daily life
Parkin’s/Hall’s Audience Readings Theory
Your EX here would most usefully centre on examples from audience feedback of
contrasting, conflicting readings – especially if you can tie this into the age, gender or
other demographic of each specific respondent/audience. Most of you that provided cuts
for feedback from classes found that younger audiences tended to vary sharply from post-
16 audiences, and genre awareness/fandom was also a big issue.
Frank Parkin (1972) and later Stuart Hall (1980) analysed the readings within audiences as either:
1.Dominant or Preferred Reading: The meaning they want you to have is usually accepted.
2.Negotiated Reading: The dominant reading is only partially recognised or accepted and audiences might
disagree with some of it or find their own meanings.
3.Oppositional Reading: The dominant reading is refused, rejected because the reader disagrees with it or is
offended by it, especially for political, religious, feminist, reasons etc.
MEDIA EFFECTS; AGE CLASSIFICATION
See the REPRESENTATION guide for more on Gramsci/hegemony; Chomsky/propaganda model; cultural
imperialism, which all link here. You can also tie in points on normative (or counter-hegemonic)
representation, such as heteronormative. Simon Reynolds’ Retromania, also recommended for
REPRESENTATION, could be used here too.

Nice link to your media reg essay here: when writing on target aud age, you can develop the point by
discussing age classifications: the BBFC are already rating videos from many major labels at their
request, and OfCom is exploring whether this should become compulsory, under severe pressure from
the government. PM Cameron is one of many high profile politicians to go along with the regular moral
panics whipped up by the Daily Mail in particular, which routinely manages to get shocked, outraged and
appalled over a Miley Cyrus video or X Factor performance from the likes of Lady Gaga, Xtina Aguilera or
Rhianna, whilst remaining blind to page 3 … and providing endless pictures of just what was shocking!
Furthermore, you were all constrained in the realism or verisimilitude you could achieve, and thus
arguably the appeal to an older/mature audience, because of restrictions on sexual/swearing lyrics and
sexual imagery (in the context of producing your work within a school framework).
This also a good ‘hook’ for getting across points on the outmoded nature of ‘passive audience’ theories
that underpin pro-censorship arguments: these assume audiences are weak and vulnerable to the
messages or values within texts.
Theory wise, the likes of Chomsky (see Rep’n guide) and Stanley Cohen are particularly useful here.
STANLEY COHEN: MORAL PANICS + FOLK DEVILS: Moral Panics And Folk Devils
Stanley Cohen in his book Folk Devils And Moral Panics (1972) defines a ‘Moral Panic’ as:
“…a mass response to a group, a person or an attitude that becomes defined as a threat to society.”
Cohen argues that the media, especially news media, often create and/or reinforce moral panics in the public.
The term ‘Folk Devil’ is the name given to the object of the moral panic, i.e. it is another name for a
scapegoat.
Frankfurt School’s Theodore Adorno 1930s Hypodermic Syringe Model: When censorial (ie, pro-
censorship) media report in this sensationalist way, they are implicitly applying such old-fashioned audience
models as the hypodermic syringe model. Many early media theories, such as this, emerged from German
Jewish intellectuals (such as the Frankfurt School) who experienced and fled Nazi rule, and ended up in
academic centres such as The Chicago School. They’d seen how effective Nazi propaganda was at convincing
a nation to demonise Jews, and so their theories assumed media texts would have strong influences and
needed regulating and control. The hypocrisy of newspapers such as the Mail is quite shocking – at the same
time as they argue any form of press regulation is a danger to democracy they endlessly campaign for
restrictions on film, TV, music video etc.
WEB 2.0
Utterly familiar by now?!
Julian McDougall (2009) suggests that in the online age it is getting harder to conceive a media audience as a
stable, identifiable group. [as pointed out above, Ang’s point was similar, but Ang was writing long before we had a
mass web, let alone web 2.0!!!]
IN BRIEF:
Julian McDougall (2009) audiences fragmenting
Brigid Cherry (Horror Zone, 2010) fan-made fiction as eg of UGC

Tim O’Reilly (coined term, 2004)
Dan Gillmor (“the former audience” v “Big Media dinosaurs”, “we media” 2004; 2011’s Mediactive:
dystopian pessimism?)
Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture, 2006)
John McMuria (global village meme is a myth: US corporate dominance: YouTube (2006))
Chris Anderson (The Long Tail theory, 2004/6, widely accepted by economists now)
David Gauntlett (media 2.0 (2007) + “the end of audience studies” in The Make & Connect Agenda
(2011)) [also his def of web 1.0]
Cherry (2010) UGC to Extend Commercial Releases
Its useful to consider this for every topic
The research outlined by Brigid Cherry in “Horror Zone” (2010) is useful here. She examined the
FanFiction.net site, noting the 69 fan fictions for Scream. She doesn’t make the point, but what this UGC or
fan-made content actually reflects is the trend of ‘reimagining’ franchises, as seen with Halloween and
Nightmare on Elm Street… In the music video context, the point really is that fans are no longer content with
just the official, commercial releases; they also extend these through their own creations (viral media, UGC):
‘… the concerns and interests of this group of horror fans centre around the desire for narrative continuation
and more detailed narrative in some cases. As Will Brooker has stated of science-fiction cinema, cult texts
generate fan material which suggests new narrative directions, develops characters or builds on the
frameworks of the films. It is clear from the above survey that this fan culture is a “community of
imagination” surrounding a heterogenous genre. Unlike fans of an ongoing television text, horror film fans
have no continuous weekly fix of new stories. Accordingly, they are constantly seeking new films, and the
various segments within horror fandom (be they oriented around identity or taste) are looking for information
which will then inform them as to whether a production is likely to be of interest.’ [p.77]
O’REILLY’S DEFINITION: “Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0
applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a
continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from
multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows
remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the
page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.” (O’Reilly, 2005)
DAN GILLMORE: WE MEDIA/THE FORMER AUDIENCE: If O’Reilly flagged up the interactivity of
the new web, Gillmor asserted the transformative impact of citizen journalists, bloggers etc – all undermining
the traditional near-monopoly of power, production and audience reach enjoyed by the traditional
conglomerates (‘Big Media’), eg BSkyB, BBC, Google.
Conglomerate owners clearly don’t reflect the diversity of society; the new army of bloggers et al do?
The audience is now the producer.
Indeed, Gillmor famously wrote of “the former audience”, to reinforce his argument that the notion of a
passive audience is gone. ‘They are no longer the passive masses, they have the tools to challenge traditional
media and create media for themselves.’ (Gdn review)
If we apply a bit of Chomskian terminology, perhaps we could say Gillmor is arguing that web 2.0 robbed the
mass media of their gatekeeper power? That web 2.0 opens up opportunities for counter-hegemonic media
(not least Chomsky himself!) to get round the flak and other filters they receive from the mainstream mass
media?

DAVID GAUNTLETT: THE END OF AUDIENCE STUDIES
Web 2.0 allows faster, more collaborative creativity
Creativity linked with desire to be connected
Is New Media transforming culture?
Shift from consumer to prosumer
Audience shift from passive to active
Digital Immigrants, Google Generation, Screenagers
End of the artefact as a finished construct?
Mash-ups, etc
He goes a step further with 2011’s The Make & Connect Agenda, effectively his personal manifesto for a
more activist citizenry, employing web 2.0 tools
THE END OF AUDIENCE STUDIES: Media audience studies had value in the twentieth century, primarily
as a riposte to 'high culture' critics who suggested that people were passive consumers of meaningless media.
Having shown that this is not the case, the work of old-style 'audience studies' is largely done; and meanwhile,
the notion of 'audience' is collapsing as people become producers as well as consumers of media. Precisely
what 'audience studies' is replaced with remains an open question – the answer is perhaps simply a return to a
broad sociology which considers people's lives and the place of media – giving and receiving – within that.
Doesn't traditional media still matter? Traditional media still exists, and may be popular; and audiences may
still use it in traditional ways. But audience studies does not generally have anything new and interesting to
say about this, and is perhaps retreating into a rather servile and hopeless defence of the traditional media
industries.
Counter – arguments
• Some critics – e.g. (David Buckingham) think Gauntlett goes too far.
• Celebrates the “power of active users”, ignoring the commercial structures that help to shape
those powers
• Gauntlett is wrongly accused of claiming power has shifted entirely to the prosumer – he
acknowledges the hybridity between old and new, just like Henry Jenkins does.
• Ignores real material and cultural constraints?
– Gender inequality?
– Poverty?
– Who’s online?
Gauntlett himself eventually moved away from his earlier dystopian views, with 2011’s Mediactive:
Sample quotes from interview on Mediactive:
The bottom line is, above all, persuading passive consumers to be active users of media, both in the reading
(used in the broadest sense of the word) and in the creation process. …
[We the Media was a] pretty optimistic book. … I started realizing that we have a number of issues to work on
to make the possibilities for democratized media into realities that would, first of all, encourage creation of
media by everyone; and, second, find ways to make what we all create trustworthy and reliable. …
In a world with almost infinite choices, we all have amazing opportunities but also some responsibilities. We
have to understand ourselves as participants in media, not just distant observers — and our participation at
various levels, if we do it right, will help create an ecosystem of information we can trust.

JOHN McMURIA – PARTICIPATION A MYTH/MAJOR CONGLOMS DOMINATE: McMuria, like
Jenkins (and Gillmor’s later [Mediactive, 2011] writing), critiques conglomerate control. You’ll note that his
point is useful for representation too.
McMuria (2006): a young academic whose writings popularized by Henry Jenkins including them in his 2007
Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube.
McMuria’s content analysis of YouTube content reveals that what Gillmor calls “Big Media” remain
dominant, with the further issues of lack of diverse representation this implies (sample quote in next slide)
A participatory culture is not necessarily a diverse culture.
Minorities are grossly under-represented - the most heavily viewed videos on YouTube tend to come from
white middle class males.
If we want to see a more "democratic" culture, we need to explore what mechanisms might encourage greater
diversity in who participates, whose work gets seen, and what gets valued within the new participatory
culture.
Is he (still) right? Here’s the top 10 most-viewed on UK YouTube, 2013 (BBC on YT in 2013, most-
subbed channels). Globally ‘the top 25 YouTube channels earned 144B views, 520M comments, and 1B
likes’ … of the top 25, ‘almost none of them are big brand names or major media corporations’ [Venturebeat]
Henry Jenkins & Convergence/Participatory Culture + Collective Intelligence
Convergence - the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media
industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in search of the
kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted. Convergence is a word that manages to describe
technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes
Participatory culture - circulation of media content depends heavily on the active participation of the
consumer.
Collective intelligence – combining skills and resources (just like We-Think), which is enabled by
convergence.
By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between
multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in
search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted. Convergence is a word that manages to describe
technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes, depending on who’s speaking and what they think they
are talking about. …
This circulation of media content – across different media systems, competing media economies, and national
borders – depends heavily on the active participation of the consumer. I will argue here against the idea that
convergence can be understood primarily as a technological process – the bringing together of multiple media
functions within the same gadgets and devices. Instead, I want to argue that convergence represents a shift in
cultural logic, whereby consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections
between dispersed media content. The term, participatory culture, is intended to contrast with older notions of
media spectatorship. In this emerging media system, what might traditionally be understood as media
producers and consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other
according to a new set of rules which none of us fully understands.
Chris Anderson &‘The Long Tail’: The main usefulness of this might be to help explain or contextualize
why you might have chosen an older track, if you did; Simon Reynolds’ Retromania is also useful here.
A 2004 Wired feature that became a hit, highly influential 2006 book (updated 2009) & made Anderson a
much sought-after commentator

This is very relevant for grasping how digitisation is changing Cinema, but likewise the music industry: the
A2 music brief, typically centred on an older, back-catalogue track, is perfectly realistic for a music industry
that relies ever more on repackaged re-releases and the zero-cost distribution of iTunes etc producing
payments most often without the need for marketing
The internet has transformed economics, commerce and consumption.
As broadband internet allows more people to look for and share or buy a wider variety of material and
products, what happens is that people buy less of more. Niche is no longer an expensive luxury. (see graph on
next slide)
“The theory of the Long Tail can be boiled down to this: Our culture and economy are increasingly shifting
away from a focus on a relatively small number of hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the
demand curve, and moving toward a huge number of niches in the tail. In an era without the constraints of
physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as
economically attractive as mainstream fare.”
TACKLING & APPLYINGTACKLING & APPLYING narrativenarrative THEORIESTHEORIES
The above are just some of the theories/ists covered below. Will you cover even the selection
above in a 30-min essay?
NO!
Aim to ensure you include 2 or more relevant/linked theories/ists in any paragraph – and don’t be
afraid to make only brief mention of some while you home in on detailed EAA of one.
The ins and outs of their ideas are relevant only if anchored in a clear discussion of the place of
narrative, and how your text (and the wider format, music video, it falls within), well illustrated from
your production and existing videos/texts.
THEMES YOU MIGHT CONSIDER

You can decide which topics, themes or issues you’ll grapple with; the following are simply
examples or suggestions of the sort of things you might address within one or more paragraph. You
should be working towards a plan, and then fully realised essay, that flows from one paragraph to
the next.
 INTRO? OUTLINE YOUR VID + DEFINE NARRATIVE
 NARRATIVE DEVICES FOR ATTRACTING AUDIENCE/S: eg ENIGMA CODES
 NARRATIVE STRUCTURE; CHARACTER ARCHETYPES
 ***DO EXISTING NARRATIVE THEORIES WORK FOR M.VID FORMAT?***
 REDUNDANCY + INTERTEXTUALITY
 GENDER
 DISCOURSE + ‘TEXT’; META-NARRATIVE
Below I’ve brought together several theorists under each example of a theme or issue you might
explore in one or more paragraphs – if you really get your teeth into any of these you could easily
produce 2 paragraphs for any of these.
As you consider which to attempt, ask yourself which you might use for other MANGeR topics
(helping to cut down overall exam prep), and if there are other MANGeR theories not mentioned
here which you could use.
The best essays will have a clear sense of developing or arguing (EAA) a point. Music videos don’t
fit neatly with every narrative theory; that’s a useful point to consider as you go along – don’t twist
the facts of your video to try and fit a theory. It’s good to argue that you disagree with some
theory! (Or it may be more simply that a narrative theory developed for film doesn’t fit with m.vids)
A tricky, but very useful, point you could address is the issue of the arguably declining relevance of
such theories when the notion of the ‘text’ and thus the limits or boundaries of ‘narrative’ are
becoming increasingly unclear. Are viral/UGC/fan-made texts part of ‘your’ text? (Think postmodern
and web 2.0 theory).
For exam purposes, but not so much coursework Eval, referencing past
coursework is valid, and actually helps to get into relevant web 2.0 aspects.
CAROL VERNALLIS + ‘NONNARRATIVE’
I’ll place this here as you could use parts of this in any of the sections below; intro, conclusion etc
Vernallis (and Goodwin) are crucial for Media Language, and useful for Audience too…
CAROL VERNALLIS (2004): ‘Experiencing Music Video differs from previous work on music video
because it takes the music of music video most seriously. I argue that music videos derive from the songs
they set. The music comes first – the song is produced before the video is conceived – and the director
normally designs images with the song as a guide.’ ‘Music videos often suggest a story [but] we obtain no
more visual information than we might derive from a single narrative painting.’
‘In music video, what is concealed and what is revealed serve to encourage multiple viewings by engaging
the viewer [great point for audience; Barthes link too] in a process of reconstructing, interpolating or
extrapolating a story behind the scenes that are actually visible. When the narrative mode is present even
fleetingly, it creates an aura of mystery, a sense that things need to be puzzled out’.
Videos use ellipsis in such an extreme fashion that causality is often absent.

‘Music video presents a range all the way from extremely abstract videos emphasizing colour and
movement to those that convey a story. But most videos tend to be nonnarrative. An Aristotlean
definition – characters with defined personality traits, goals, and a sense of agency encounter obstacles and
are changed by them – describes only a small fraction of videos, perhaps one in fifty. Still fewer meet the
criteria that David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson require in their Film Art: An Introduction: that all of
the events we see or hear, plus those we infer or assume to have occurred, can be arranged according to
their presumed causal relations, chronological order, duration, frequency, and spatial locations. Even if we
think we have a sense of a music video’s story, we may not feel that we can reconstruct the tale in the
manner that Bordwell and Thompson’s criteria demand.’
INTRO: OUTLINE YOUR VID + DEFINE NARRATIVE
ISSUES:
 Describe the nature of your production, in such a way that your marker can picture/get a
feel for it
 You can straight away incorporate theory as you go, from defining narrative to using the
likes of Firth, Archer, Goodwin etc
 Vernallis could be useful here; you could use her ideas in several sections/paragraphs
(her work is detailed later)
 If you have a clear set of points, or overall argument, briefly state what this will essay will
explore…
Even here, you could quite easily produce more than one paragraph if you wanted to get
into some theorists in more detail.
TIM O’SULLIVAN (1998) NARR UNIVERSAL: argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story.
Media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves – not usually our own personal stories, but the
story of us as a culture or set of cultures.
HAYDEN WHITE (1980) NARRATIVITY = MORALIZING: ‘Where, in any account of reality,
narrativity is present, we can be sure that morality or a moralizing impulse is present too.’
FITH (1988) 3 TYPES: 3 types of music video: performance, narrative, conceptual [BUT doesn’t even a
pure perf vid actually have a narrative?]
STEVE ARCHER (2004): ‘videos tend to only suggest storylines and focus on fragments of the lyrics’
ANDREW GOODWIN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS, VISUALS, MUSIC: asked what is the
relationship between lyrics, visuals and music: (1) illustrative – images provide a literal representation (2)
amplifying – repetition of key meanings and effects to manipulate the audience (3) contradicting – images
contrast with the music (4) disjuncture – when the meaning of the song is completely ignored. A video may
combine some of these. He argues that the most common function of a video, looking at Madonna
examples (as did Carol Vernallis; Madonna’s output has been a major influence on theories applied to
music videos!), is to frame the “star-in-text”; creating a role that boosts their star appeal and branding.
JOHN BERGER ACT IN VIDEO: Whilst there are some wholly abstract examples of dance videos, they
typically ‘feature members of the band either performing or acting, placing a visual dominance on the
band involved in the telling of a story in some way.’
See Vernallis, above, for longer def . of narrative from Bordwell and Thompson.

NARRATIVE DEVICES FOR ATTRACTING
AUDIENCE/S: eg ENIGMA CODES
ISSUES:
 Basically, how narratives are structured to appeal to audiences
 A blend of Barthes and ‘audience’ theories for this
ROLAND BARTHES SYSTEM OF 5 CODES: Barthes was a French semiologist who identified 5
different codes by which a narrative engages the attention of the audience.
In order of importance these are:
 The enigma code- the audience is intrigued by the need to solve a problem
 The action code – the audience is excited by the need to resolve a problem
 The semantic code – the audience is directed towards an additional meaning by way of
connotation
 The symbolic code – the audience assumes that a character dressed in black is evil or
menacing and forms expectations of his/ her behaviour on this basis
 The cultural code – the audience derives meaning in a text from shared cultural
knowledge about the way the world works.
You can draw upon MANY audience theories here, eg McQuail’s U+G (diversion/escapism;
personal relationship/talking point; personal identity: identifying with characters; surveillance:
information [eg on fashion, zeitgeist]) and/or Altman’s audience pleasures (emotional, visceral,
intellectual puzzles); also Pam Cook’s points on structure. Genre also has links, but better kept for
later.
More audience egs: Ien Ang (1991) detailed that media producers have an imaginary entity in mind before
the construction of a media product. // An audience can be described as a “temporary collective” (McQuail,
1972). // John Hartley (1987) “institutions are obliged not only to speak about an audience, but –crucially,
for them – to talk to one as well; they need not only to represent audiences but to enter into relation with
them”

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE; CHARACTER ARCHETYPES
ISSUES:
 If you’re not so confident on tackling later points, you could focus on these points/ideas
for the bulk of your essay, applying familiar AS names like Propp, Todorov, Barthes and
Levi-Strauss to your work, with a smattering of other, new theorists thrown in
 There are many models of narrative structure; consider which best fits yours, and strongly
emphasize if any don’t fit
 Consider if this is because the music video is fundamentally different to TV, film etc where
many of these theories come from
 You can also separate out points on character archetypes and structure into separate
paragraphs or sections
TODOROV 5-PART NARR: The original equilibrium encounters a disruption, then comes
recognition of this by protagonist/s, action in attempt to
restore equilibrium, and finally restoration (new
equilibrium).
JAY McROY (2010) CONSERVATIVE FUNCTION OF
CLOSED NARRATIVES: Think about the ‘restoration’/new
equilibrium stage. Jay McRoy (writing in “Horror Zone” (2010)),
argues that horror films, despite their subversive reputation,
fulfil a conservative function (think hegemony: maintaining
the social order); ultimately the antagonist, who deviates in
some key ways (often sexual) from the social norms, is
vanquished and the good, heterosexual (often virginal)
protagonist triumphs. Was this your intention for your full
90min feature?
You might not have such stark and blatant ideology reflected
in your music video’s narrative, BUT can you apply such
analysis to your creation? Perhaps you’d argue that YOUR
narrative actually fulfils a liberal, counter-hegemonic – so, not
normative – function?
PAM COOK (1985) 3-PART NARR STRUCTURE [FILM]:
The standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:

1. Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution. [NOTE
the link here to Barthes]
2. A high degree of narrative closure.
3. A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and
temporal coherence. [use this whenever using term ver’ude!]
CAMPBELL (1949) MONOMYTH/HERO’S JOURNEY: This theory has been, and remains, very
influential, especially in film. He argued that narratives across time and cultures were all basically
variations on the same theme: a hero’s journey; this sameness he labelled monomyth. He identified 17 stages
of the hero’s journey. You can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth.
Chris Vogler would go on to simplify this to 12 stages, in a book that became very influential in
Hollywood.
However, the monomyth concept has been criticised as being patriarchal, and for reflecting/projecting the
bias or subjectivity of a white, Western male point of view.
KATE DOMAILLE (2001) 8 NARR TYPES: every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative
types. Each of these narrative types has a source, an original story upon which the others are based. These
stories are as follows:
1. Achilles: The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless, or
almost flawless, person, e.g. Superman, Fatal Attraction.
2. Candide: The indomitable hero who cannot be put down, e.g. Indiana Jones, James
Bond, Rocky etc.
3. Cinderella: The dream comes true, e.g. Pretty Woman.
4. Circe: The Chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent and the victim e.g. The Terminator.
5. Faust: Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your soul belongs
to him, e.g. Devil’s Advocate, Wall Street.
6. Orpheus: The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of
loss or the journey which follows the loss, e.g. The Sixth Sense, Born On the Fourth Of July.
7. Romeo And Juliet: The love story, e.g. Titanic.
8. Tristan and Iseult: The love triangle. Man loves woman…unfortunately one or both of
them are already spoken for, or a third party intervenes, e.g. Casablanca.
PROPP (1928) 8 CHARACTER ARCHETYPES; 31 PLOT POINTS: Propp argued that the 8 archetypes (an
early or original idea that becomes commonly used) he perceived in fairy tales are universal for fiction (he
also argued that narrative structures could be reduced to 31 common plot points.
 Hero – Person on the quest
 Princess – Prize for the hero
 Helper – Helps the hero on his quest
 False hero – Somebody who believes they are the hero
 Dispatcher – Sends the hero on their quest
 Father – Rewards the hero
 Villain – Attempts to stop the hero on his quest
 Donor – Provides objects to help the hero on his quest

Claude Lèvi-StraussClaude Lèvi-Strauss (1958):(1958): his ideas about narrative amount to the fact that he believed all stories
operated to certain clear Binary OppositesBinary Opposites e.g. good vs. evil, black vs. white, rich vs. poor etc.
The importance of these ideas is that essentially a complicated world is reduced to a simple either/or
structure. Things are either right or wrong, good or bad. There is no in between.
This structure has ideological implications, if, for example, you want to show that the hero was not
wholly correct in what they did, and the villains weren’t always bad. From James Cagney’s 1930s characters
to Clint Eastwood’s amoral spaghetti western character, the anti-hero has been a common feature of
cinema. Consider too homo-/heterosexual: what about bisexual? Queer theorist Judith Butler
(performativity of gender) also argues the binary opposite of gender is problematic
REDUNDANCY + INTERTEXTUALITY
BASICALLY… Given the multitude of videos, and the apparent structure/archetypes they share, we
can expect a lot of repetition and common features amongst them – although the narrative of one
video is often bound up with that of another. You can also draw on Stuart Hall here if you haven’t
already. You’ll recognise ‘genre’ theories here
RAYMOND BELLOUR & REDUNDANCY: Redundancy occurs where you get repetitious signifiers (this
can be within one video, or across many (a genre, act’s vids, era’s vids etc)). This quite naturally leads
on from points such as Cook’s on a universal structure, but also leads onto Intertextuality. ‘His
… concept is that narrative consists of a play of difference and sameness. Although it might seem that
difference is dominant, with continual changes of content through new events, characters, words spoken,
and of form through framing, lighting, camera angle and most obviously the succession of shots, the lasting
impression given by all successful narratives is one of cohesion and coherence.’
Steve Neale
It is easy to underplay the differences within a genre. Steve Neale declares that 'genres are instances of
repetition and difference' (Neale 1980, 48). He adds that 'difference is absolutely essential to the economy of
genre': mere repetition would not attract an audience.
He argues that much of the pleasure of popular cinema lies in the process of “difference in repetition” – i.e.
recognition of familiar elements and in the way those elements might be orchestrated in an unfamiliar fashion
or in the way that unfamiliar elements might be introduced
Goodwin (Dancing in the Distraction Factory, 1992)
His starting point is that there are distinct video conventions for each musical genre (e.g. stage performance in
metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band) [NB: you may have noted Goodwin in top paragraph]
Katie Wales: Intertextuality
Goodwin also contends that Intertextuality is a common music video feature, not distinctive to any single
genre; Wales specifically argues that 'genre is... an intertextual concept'. Therefore, genre exists in the
relationship between texts rather than in the actual text itself.
Kristeva (1966): Intertextuality
It was Kristeva who introduced the term, arguing that semiotic theory that privileged a single standalone text
was ignoring how audiences read texts. (For more detail, read Daniel Chandler’s guide … or the Wiki!)

GENDER
SCHWICHTENBERG (1992): ‘Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who
passively react or wait for something to happen.’
LAURA MULVEY (1975) MALE GAZE: argues that the dominant point of view is masculine. The female
body is displayed for the male gaze in order to provide erotic pleasure for the male (vouyerism). Women
are therefore objectified by the camera lens and whatever gender the spectator/audience is positioned to
accept the masculine POV.
JOHN BERGER ‘Ways Of Seeing’ (1972): “Men act and women appear”. “Men look at women.
Women watch themselves being looked at”.
“Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator”
JIB FOWLES (1996): “in advertising, males gaze and females are gazed at”.
PAUL MESSARIS (1997) “female models addressed to women....appear to imply a male point of view”.
JANICE WINSHIP (1987): Her study of magazine covers is extremely influential. “The gaze between
cover model and women readers marks the complicity between women seeing themselves in the image
masculine culture has defined”.
CAROLE CLOVER (1992) FINAL GIRL: If looking at video rather than film, the point here is that within
narrative types that have been condemned as sexist, there may lie unappreciated counter-hegemonic
representations which challenge the normative view. Whilst the final girl is partly a conservative archetype
(her strength comes from sexual ‘purity’, ie virginity), ultimately she is the hero of the narrative and
tougher, more resourceful than any male character – including the typically physically superior killer.
ANN KAPLAN (1978) FEMME FATALE: Similarly, Kaplan used the example of the film noir genre to
argue that the largely negative (from a feminist perspective) representations of women in film noir can
actually be seen as inspirational; while the femmes fatales are essentially antagonists they display great
power over men. Richard Dyer uses Kaplan to stress that representations are polysemic; competing readings
are possible depending on the audience (Stuart Hall…). BUT, he equally stresses that we should consider the
likely preferred reading, and certainly analyse the encoded values
Queer theorist Judith Butler (performativity of gender) also argues the binary opposite of
gender is problematic

DISCOURSE + ‘TEXT’; META-NARRATIVEDISCOURSE + ‘TEXT’; META-NARRATIVE
Jonathan Culler (2001)Jonathan Culler (2001) describes narratology as comprising many strands “implicitly united in the
recognition that narrative theory requires a distinction between story, a sequence of actions or events
conceived as independent of their manifestation in discourse, and discourse, the discursive presentation or
narration of events.”
Structure is different to theme – narrative presents the form in which the theme is mediated/discussed.
For more on discourse, see the Wiki; the key thinker associated with this concept is Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault. ‘a
discourse is composed of semiotic sequences (relations among signs) between and among objects, subjects,
and statements’
Wes Craven’s NoESt, for instance, linked into wider discourses on Vietnam + Watergate in the USA;
Romero’s Dawn of the Dead into consumerism; Eden Lake (+ most slashers really!) into discourses on youth
deviancy + criminality, the decline of moral standards [just wait, most of you will eventually say ‘young
people weren’t like that in my day’!]. Feminist critics are concerned with the idea that slashers reinforce
the prevailing, or hegemonic, discourse (+ normative representations) of women as passive objects,
whose sexual behaviour renders them impure.
Cherry (2010) & Foucault’s discourseCherry (2010) & Foucault’s discourse
Impact of new media?
Does YOUR narrative end with your video?
Its useful to consider this for every topic
The research outlined by Brigid Cherry in “Horror Zone” (2010) is useful here. She examined the
FanFiction.net site, noting the 69 fan fictions for Scream. She doesn’t make the point, but what this
UGC or fan-made content actually reflects is the trend of ‘reimagining’ franchises, as seen with Halloween
and Nightmare on Elm Street…
‘… the concerns and interests of this group of horror fans centre around the desire for narrative continuation
and more detailed narrative in some cases. As Will Brooker has stated of science-fiction cinema, cult texts
generate fan material which suggests new narrative directions, develops characters or builds on the
frameworks of the films. It is clear from the above survey that this fan culture is a “community of
imagination” surrounding a heterogenous genre. Unlike fans of an ongoing television text, horror film fans
have no continuous weekly fix of new stories. Accordingly, they are constantly seeking new films, and the
various segments within horror fandom (be they oriented around identity or taste) are looking for
information which will then inform them as to whether a production is likely to be of interest.’ [p.77]
Web 2.0 theorists…
Hopefully you immediately made the link here to Gauntlett, Gillmor, Jenkins, O’Reilly etc …
… AND are getting the idea that you can pick out some theory/ists which you can usefully apply across
SEVERAL DCRUP or MANGeR topics!
Cherry’s argument fits well with Gillmor (“the former audience” and Gauntlett (“the end of audience
studies”)
POSTMODERN DECONSTRUCTIONISM + GRAND NARRATIVES OR META-NARRATIVES –
LYOTARD + BAUDRILLARD (SIMULACRA): Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984) and Jean Baudrillard (1980)
share the belief that the idea of ‘truth’ needs to be deconstructed so that dominant ideas (that Lyotard
argues are “grand narratives”) can be challenged. Have you sought to challenge some normative
representation through a character (or setting/theme) within your narrative? Perhaps you are challenging
the meta- or grand narrative of capitalism, patriarchy, or of narrower notions such as the invisibility of the
doddery elderly? Anything on these lines might be quite useful as part of a short conclusion. Baudrillard
discussed the concept of hyperreality – we inhabit a society that is no longer made up of any original thing
for a sign to represent – it is the sign that is now the meaning. He argued that we live in a society of
simulacra – simulations of reality that replace the real.
Richard Nowell Blood Money (2011)

Another example of how you can use theory/ists from one area (genre) in another (narrative). Nowell is
also useful on audience AND representation: he argues that slashers were always about attracting a female
audience into a traditionally male genre
Nowell’s book is primarily concerned with a point on audience: that slasher movies were aimed as much at
female as at male audiences. He also makes an incredibly useful analysis of what he considers the universal
components of the early slasher narratives, listed below, also noting that films were given some
differentiation + novelty alongside their redundancy by playing around with the ordering of these. Once
more, Todorov’s notions influenced him.
‘Part One: Setup
1. Trigger: Events propel a human (the killer) upon a homicidal trajectory.
2. Threat: The killer targets a group of hedonistic youths for killing.
Part Two: Disruption
3. Leisure: Youths interact recreationally in an insular quotidian location.
4. Stalking: A shadowy killer tracks youths in that location.
5. Murders: The shadowy killer kills some of the youths.
Part Three: Resolution
6. Confrontation: The remaining character(s) challenges the killer.
7. Neutralization: The immediate threat posed by the killer is eliminated.’ (p.21)
TACKLING & APPLYING GENRE THEORIESTACKLING & APPLYING GENRE THEORIES
The following is a suggestion of how to apply some of the relevant web 2.0, audience and genre
theories you’ve already encountered for a cohesive Q1b essay that blends EAA, EX and T.
Remember, for higher marks EAA needs to include development of a point, and critique, or counter-
critique of a concept you’ve cited helps with this. EX should be mainly clear and precise denotation
from you own work to illustrate your EAA points, BUT should also incorporate brief (but specific)
references to existing commercial texts too.
For exam purposes, but not so much coursework Eval, referencing past coursework is valid, and actually
helps to get into relevant web 2.0 aspects.
*****Don’t forget that you need to start by clearly stating
what text/s you’re discussing for the purposes of this
question*****
BASIC, STARTING DEFINITIONS
ISSUES TO EXPLORE:
 Do we need genre to be able to find/choose media texts?
 Is genre equally necessary for media companies (producers, distributors, exhibitors/retailers) and audiences?
 Could we effectively communicate about/discuss media texts without some sense of genre?
KEY THEORISTS: Chandler, Mittell, Goodwin, Fiske
Chandler
‘Genres, according to Daniel Chandler, create order to simplify the mass of available information.’ ‘Chandler
points out that very few works have all the characteristics of the genre in which they participate. Also, due to
the interrelatedness of genres, none of them is clearly defined at the edges, but rather fade into one another.
Genre works to promote organization, but there is no absolute way to classify works, and thus genre is still
problematic and its theory still evolving.’ [Wiki on genre theory]

Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of
content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts
which are regarded as belonging to them.
Mittell
Jason Mittell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and
operate within industry, audience, and cultural practices as well. In short, industries use genre to sell products
to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that often make cultural references to their
audience’s knowledge of society + other texts. Genre allows audiences to make choices about what products
they want to consume through acceptance in order to fulfil a particular pleasure.
metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band) [I’ve noted Goodwin again later on]
Fiske
John Fiske (1989) defines genres as ‘attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts and
meanings that circulate in our culture for the convenience of both producers and audiences.’
THEMES CROSS GENRE BOUNDARIES
ISSUES TO EXPLORE:
 Identify the narrative themes you have explored (think about representations, social issues, relationships, etc)
 Can you find examples from both in and beyond your genre of these being explored in video?
 Is there anything distinctive to your genre in how these issues were tackled/depicted?
 Was, actually, your approach, closer to that from another genre?
KEY THEORISTS: Bordwell, Abercrombie
David Bordwell
David Bordwell notes, 'any theme may appear in any genre' (Bordwell 1989) ‘One could... argue that no
set of necessary and sufficient conditions can mark off genres from other sorts of groupings in ways that all
experts or ordinary film-goers would find acceptable'
****Abercrombie**** you could use this point at any stage
Nicholas Abercrombie (1996) suggests that 'the boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more
permeable' and argues that contemporary media (he specifically examined TV) is producing 'a steady
dismantling of genre’
AUDIENCE v PRODUCER? WEB 2.0 + PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
ISSUES TO EXPLORE:
 Who creates/defines genres? Audiences, producers? Both in collaboration and interaction?
 Does the explosion of UGC, prosumer and social media content or ‘texts’, and the web 2.0 concept generally,
render existing genre theory obsolete?
 Consider to what degree web 2.0 shaped your text (principally through aud feedback accessed online)

KEY THEORISTS: Tim O’Reilly, Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, David
Gauntlett, Lipsitz (+ Marx) + Negus
Tim O’Reilly (coined term, 2004)
“an "architecture of participation," … going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user
experiences.”
Dan Gillmor (“the former audience” v “Big Media dinosaurs”, “we media” 2004; 2011’s Mediactive:
dystopian pessimism?)
Gillmor famously wrote of “the former audience”, to reinforce his argument that the notion of a passive
audience is gone. ‘They are no longer the passive masses, they have the tools to challenge traditional media
and create media for themselves.’ (Gdn review)
Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture, 2006)
Participatory culture - circulation of media content depends heavily on the active participation of the
consumer.
Collective intelligence – combining skills and resources (just like We-Think), which is enabled by
convergence.
David Gauntlett (media 2.0 (2007) + “the end of audience studies” in The Make & Connect Agenda
(2011))
the work of old-style 'audience studies' is largely done; and meanwhile, the notion of 'audience' is collapsing
as people become producers as well as consumers of media.
Lipsitz (+ Marx) + Negus: imperialistic, primary definition
(notes from Negus) ‘As George Lipsitz has put it, popular music is the ‘product of an ongoing historical
conversation in which no one has the first or last word’ (1990: 99).’ In other words, new acts and audiences
are constantly recasting the state, nature and scope of seemingly secure genres and movements, but any
understanding, production or performativity is tied into existing, historical relations and conditions. ‘As Karl
Marx observed …, people ‘make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past’
(Marx, 1954: 10). New music and new cultural dialogues are made within the context of the possibilities
provided by existing social relations (…), technological means (studio and instruments of music making,
methods of storage and distribution) and aesthetic conventions’.
Negus argues that genre definitions are often dominated by older critics ‘who were there at the moment of
birth’ and become dismissive of later developments and acts.
He also argues that genres can be imperialistic: constantly expanding to incorporate new forms into their
aegis. Furthermore, finite, fixed definitions of genres are simply and by definition untenable: ‘As active
audience theorists have argued, no one can have the last say in the history of any musical form.’
Genre ultimately receives primary definition from industry: the record labels, distributors and retailers.
INTERTEXTUALITY RATHER THAN GENRE?
ISSUES TO EXPLORE:
 Explain the term intertexuality: a common hallmark of postmodern approaches [as is deconstruction, part of
Metz’s genre cycles theory] You could also address hybridity, or Baudrillard’s ‘simulacra’ here
 Does this better explain the nature of your text and production process/influences rather than genre?

 Detail your intertextualities; are they mainly referencing other genre texts, going beyond the genre (and maybe
even the format into TV, film? Your print texts could be worth addressing here too), or a balance of both?
KEY THEORISTS: Goodwin, Wales, Kristeva [Metz?]
metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band) [NB: you may have noted Goodwin in top paragraph]
Katie Wales: Intertextuality
Goodwin also contends that Intertextuality is a common music video feature, not distinctive to any single
genre; Wales specifically argues that 'genre is... an intertextual concept'. Therefore, genre exists in the
relationship between texts rather than in the actual text itself.
Kristeva (1966): Intertextuality
It was Kristeva who introduced the term, arguing that semiotic theory that privileged a single standalone text
was ignoring how audiences read texts. (For more detail, read Daniel Chandler’s guide … or the Wiki!)
REPETITION + DIFFERENCE; CONSTANT FLUX
ISSUES TO EXPLORE:
 Essentially, explore to what extent you have used recognised genre conventions …
 … and be clear on what you’ve brought in from beyond this genre
 You have several theories/ists you can use to anchor this discussion
 This leads naturally onto (or could incorporate) issues around audience pleasures, with Neale a specific link
KEY THEORISTS: Neale, Buckingham, Derrida, Metz, Negus, Finnegan
Steve Neale
David Buckingham
Traditionally, genres (particularly literary genres) tended to be regarded as fixed forms, but contemporary
theory emphasizes that both their forms and functions are dynamic. David Buckingham argues that 'genre is
not... simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change' (Buckingham
1993).
Jacques Derrida
As postmodern theorist Derrida reminds us – the law of genre is ‘a principle of contamination, a law of
impurity, a parasitical economy’.
Metz
Metz (1974) argued that genres go through a cycle of changes during their lifetime: (1) Experimental Stage
(2) Classic Stage (3) Parody Stage (4) Deconstruction Stage
Negus: genericists, pastichists, synthesists

145: ‘By genericists I mean those performers who accommodate their musical practice and performance to a
specific genre style at a particular time and stay within this. … [146:] They compose and perform within the
codified conventions of a generic style.’
146: ‘By the term pastichists I refer to those artists and performers who recognize that a new style has
appeared or has become popular and so include this in their set as yet another style to be performed as part of
a varied repertoire’. [Wiki: A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, or music that imitates the style or character of the
work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates.]
146: By synthesists I mean those who draw on the elements of an emerging generic style but blend them in
such a way so as to create a new distinct musical identity.’ ‘As Koestler (1964) notes, much creative activity
involves working at producing new versions by combining existing elements in various ways.’
Finnegan: musicians production is based in consumption of existing music; your vids likewise (thus
putting you back in position of aud as much as producer?)
SUB-GENRE & AUDIENCE PLEASURES
You could tackle these separately; you probably should say something about audience though –
and that should help reduce the amount you need to revise too.
ISSUES TO EXPLORE:
 Many theorists link audience pleasures to the fluid nature of genre; Neale’s ‘difference in repetition’,
Abercrombie’s pleasure in recognising codes, Altman’s emotional + visceral pleasures + (like Abercrombie)
intellectual puzzles. Reynolds links this to age & digitisation
 We can see some of each of these in Katz + Blumler’s U+G; like Chandler, they acknowledge a possible
social element to audience pleasures from genre; Bourdieu’s cultural capital also suggests how this might
function
 Hebdige’s ‘subculture’ links genre to wider social practices and identities (like everything in this sub-section,
can be linked to U+G!); Thornton argues these aren’t as subversive as he thought, but manipulated by
business
KEY THEORISTS: Neale, Abercrombie, Chandler, Katz & Blumler,
Altman, Reynolds, Hebdige, Thornton & Bourdieu
Steve Neale ----some of this already noted above
(1990) – Genre is constituted by “specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with
them to the cinema and which interact with the films themselves during the course of the viewing process.”
Abercrombie
We may derive pleasure from observing how the conventions of the genre are manipulated (Abercrombie
1996). We may also enjoy the stretching of a genre in new directions and the consequent shifting of our
expectations.
Chandler

Other pleasures can be derived from sharing our experience of a genre with others within an 'interpretive
community' which can be characterized by its familiarity with certain genres.
Katz & Blumler (U+G)
‘Uses and gratifications’ (Katz & Blumler) research has identified many potential pleasures of genre,
including the following:
One pleasure may simply be the recognition of the features of a particular genre because of our familiarity
with it. Recognition of what is likely to be important (and what is not), derived from our knowledge of the
genre, is necessary in order to follow a plot.
Genres may offer various emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism - a feature which some
theoretical commentaries seem to lose sight of. Aristotle, of course, acknowledged the special emotional
responses which were linked to different genres. Deborah Knight notes that 'satisfaction is guaranteed with
genre; the deferral of the inevitable provides the additional pleasure of prolonged anticipation' (Knight 1994).
(Summary from the Wiki:)
According to the research, goals for media use can be grouped into five uses. The audience wants to:
1. be informed or educated
2. identify with characters of the situation in the media environment
3. simple entertainment
4. enhance social interaction
5. escape from the stresses of daily life
Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers audiences ‘a set of pleasures’.
Emotional Pleasures: The emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant
when they generate a strong audience response.
Visceral Pleasures: Visceral pleasures are ‘gut’ responses and are defined by how the film’s stylistic
construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a
‘roller coaster ride’.
Intellectual Puzzles: Certain film genres such as the thriller or the ‘whodunit’ offer the pleasure in trying to
unravel a mystery or a puzzle. Pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or the
being surprised by the unexpected.
Simon Reynolds: Retromania (2011)
Argues that pop music (in the very broadest sense, so this means rock, dance, R+B, etc too) has become
increasingly backwards looking and referencing the past, with older adults no longer ceasing to listen to music
of their youth while young people mix listening to new acts with older acts, partly as a consequence as the
cheap/free availability of music through digital technologies.
Hebdige (Subculture, 1979) & subcultural theory
(notes from Negus) ‘subcultural theorists argued that subcultures developed as a means by which groups in a
subordinate class position attempted to contest the dominant system of values.’
Hebdige used the concept of style to refer to how various elements were combined to generate meaning, and
to signify and communicate a way of life to the surrounding world. He conceptualized the style of any
subcultural group as made up of an ‘ensemble’ of bodily postures, mannerisms and movements, clothes, hair
cuts, an ‘argot’ (way of speaking and choice of words), and specific activities that involved the use of music
and various commodities. In focussing on the styles of subcultures Hebdige took the previous contrast

between a majority and a minority and drew a distinction between subcultural styles and the styles of the
‘mainstream’.’
Hebdige argued that subcultural styles can be distinguished from mainstream styles by the intentional way
that they have been ‘fabricated’ by members of a subculture to actively construct a sense of difference from
the conventional outfits worn by the ‘average man or woman in the street’. The construction of a style
involves the ‘appropriation’ of existing clothes, commodities, languages, images, sounds and behavioural
codes. Through a process of repositioning and recontextualizing these they are then reused to generate the
meanings of a particular subculture. Hence, any element of a subcultural style could not be understood in
isolation. Its meaning was generated in relation to other elements.’
Thornton; & Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘cultural capital’
(notes from Negus) ‘In place of the voluntarism and spontaneity of Hebdige’s subculture, Thornton [1995]
presents a more calculated process in which the media and commercial interests have been building a
subcultural audience for their products since the beginning. Unlike Hebdige, Thornton is more critical of the
self-definitions presented by members of subcultures. Setting out to understand how audiences imagine
themselves and draw boundaries around their own social world, she argues that the activities of young
‘clubbers’ consist in acquiring various media products and accumulating cultural knowledge and employing
these as a form of ‘subcultural capital’ (a concept drawn from Pierre Bourdieu (1986) which rests on an
analogy with the use of economic capital). Subcultural capital is used by aspiring youth groups as a way of
gaining status and to differentiate their own differences and preferences from those of other social groups.
Representation Theories ListRepresentation Theories List
See http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/q1b-representation-draft.html
Think of representation as RE-presentation, or as mediated reality – what we see is worked through the
prism of media formats, genres etc and reflects the thinking process of an individual or group, who have
chosen what they want to represent (and what not – eg Richard Curtis and his all-white rom-coms), how
to do this, and who to target it at (who they imagine will be watching it).
Thinking of ‘the other’ is useful – Edward Said claimed that non-whites are represented as ‘the other’
(not ‘us’, not ‘normal’) in western media.
SOME SUGGESTED THEMES
You can tackle this in a very generalized way, with a semiotic deconstruction of your work – much as you did
for part of your AS exam.
The themes I suggest below are just that – suggestions. Use any that make sense to you and you think will
help you to incorporate some theory. You’re not trying to use all the names/ideas given under any theme, just
pick some that you can use within a clear argument. These themes overlap, so a theorist noted under one
might equally be useful for EAA on another theme.
As ever, you can use these to argue for or against; you dis/agree with the writer, either is valid if backed up
with examples (EX) from your own work and/or existing videos.
Try to look for ideas you can use with other MANGeR (and DCRUP) topics too.
 INTRO? OUTLINE YOUR VID + EXPLORE DEBATES ON REPRESENTATION
 IDEOLOGY + (COUNTER-)HEGEMONY
 DERIVING IDENTITY FROM MEDIA TEXTS

 GENDER
 DOES AUDIENCE DICTATE REPRESENTATION?
 POSTMODERNISM
 STEREOTYPES
 AGE
FIRST: A BIT MORE FROM VERNALLIS
‘Videomakers have developed a set of practices of practices for putting image to music in
which the image must give up its autonomy and abandon some of its representational
modes. In exchange, the image gains in flexibility and play, as well as in polyvalence of
meaning.’ (Vernallis, 2004) TRANSLATION: Vernallis argues that music video can’t be
analysed in the same way we would other audio-visual forms; the representations we might
perceive are actually more polysemic than they might be if used within TV or film, as the
music is the key consideration, not the image. This is a useful point for a conclusion or
intro. This links in with her analysis of narrative as also being difficult to apply to videos:
‘Music videos suppress narrative direction for various reasons.’ The ‘figures cannot
speak’, tracks are typically short, and the record labels do not want attention to be wholly
on the visuals when it’s the audio they’re actually selling!
INTRO? OUTLINE YOUR VID + EXPLORE
DEBATES ON REPRESENTATION
As with the narrative guide, see if you can incorporate one or more of the following
quite general theories into your opening paragraph; rather than simply describe your
vid add description as you quickly consider some of these points.
There is a lot here; if you feel more confident with some of this than later
themes/theorists in the guide, you can always work several of these into more than
one paragraph.
Equally, while I’m suggesting these for an intro, you could always use one or more
for your conclusion too.
James Baker (2007) Mediation works in 3 ways:
(1) Selection: Whatever ends up on the screen or in the paper, much more will have been left out.
(2) Organisation: The various elements will be organised carefully in ways that real life is not
(3) Focusing: mediation always ends up with us, the audience, being encouraged towards
concentrating on one aspect of the text and ignoring others.
Baker also claims there are 3 ways to look at representation:
(1) The Reflective view: when we represent something we are taking its true meaning and trying
to create a replica of it in the mind of our audience – like a reflection
(2) The Intentional view: the opposite of Reflective; the most important person in the process is
the author, and their intentions are key

(3) The Constructionist view: individuals make up their own mind and are influenced by their
society in how they do so [ie, v similar to Hall’s views on ‘readings’]. Any representation is a
mixture of: (1) the thing itself (2) the opinions of the people doing the representation (3) the
reaction of the individual to the representation (4) the context of the society in which the
representation is taking place
Levi-Strauss (1958) PARADIGMS, PREFERRED REPRESENTATION: All representations have
ideologies behind them. Certain paradigms are encoded into texts and others are left out in order to give a
preferred representation. The CHOICES of what to include/exclude (and WHY these choices were made) are
important when considering representation.
Richard Dyer’s 4 KEY Qs + THE DEVIANT/OTHER: Dyer is a key academic on representation. He
argues we should always ask of representations:
1. What sense of the world is it making?
2. What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
3. Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
4. What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?
The term deviant is worth noting: have you framed any characters (and therefore demographics or social
types/categories) as insider/normal/good and others as outsider/deviant/the other? In essays you could refer
to one of his questions at a time in any given paragraph, rather than necessarily tackle all 4.
He claims there are three main characteristics of contemporary media representation:
(1) Representation is selective: individuals in the media are often used to replace a group of people. One
member of this group then represents the whole social group.
(2) Representation is culture-specific: representations are presentations. The use of codes and conventions
available in a culture shapes and restricts “what can be said ... about any aspect of reality in a given place, in a
given society at a given time”.
(3) Representation is subject to interpretation: although visual codes are restricted by cultural convention,
they “do not have single determinate meanings”. To a certain degree, their meaning is a matter of
interpretation.
Rosalind Brunt (1992) IDEOLOGIES AS MYTHS WE LIVE BY: ideologies are never simply ideas in
peoples’ heads but are indeed myths that we live by and which contribute to our self worth. This might
include liberal (believe in gender equality, gay rights, don’t differentiate through gender, etc) or conservative
(eg see gay rights as harmful, think women’s lib has gone too far, would like to see sexual expression through
clothing, dance, videos etc restricted) views. Monogamy and the nuclear family are also examples of
ideological constructs, not ‘natural’ states. What ideologies are at least implied in your work? Links with…
HAYDEN WHITE (1980) NARRATIVITY = MORALIZING: ‘Where, in any account of reality,
narrativity is present, we can be sure that morality or a moralizing impulse is present too.’
David Gauntlett (2002) IDENTITIES CONSTRUCTED: “identities are not ‘given’ but are constructed and
negotiated.” Negotiated because identities partially depend on how others react to us (and how we think others
think about us). We construct identities for ourselves through choices with hair, clothing, the media (music,
TV, social media etc) we consume. “Identity is complicated. Everybody thinks they’ve got one. Artists play
with the idea of identity in modern society.”

There are links here to the ideas of Judith Butler (performativity of gender) and Dennis McQuail (uses
and gratifications [also tweaked by Blumler and Katz]). In general, ‘playfulness’ (mixing up signifiers
of contrasting genres etc) is seen as a common characteristic of postmodernism (‘bricolage’).
IDEOLOGY + (COUNTER-)HEGEMONY
Even if you don’t use this ‘theme’ for a separate paragraph, you should try to use
terms such as hegemony somewhere in this essay – and all your topics to some
degree should include some consideration of ‘ideology’.
Gramsci & Hegemony – the hidden ideology of commonsense: Gramsci was a 1930s Italian Marxist; his
analysis remains highly influential in Media academia today. Like Marxists generally he believed there is an
elite which dominates wealth and power, and exploits the ‘masses’ to create this wealth. He argued that power
is achieved and exercised not just through brute force (police, army etc) but as much through culture. He
contends that the ideas which become seen as ‘common sense’ tend to reflect the views and strategies of the
elite, although hegemony is always unstable and open to counter-hegemonic challenge. You should be able to
discuss your work as being one or the other (perhaps a bit of both).
Chomsky’s Propaganda Model/5 Filters: Gramsci links naturally with Noam Chomsky, whose
‘propaganda model’ argues that the media do not seek to accurately represent the world around us, or to fulfil
the democratic function of providing information that enables us make informed democratic choices and
scrutinising the powerful – instead they exist to encourage support for the dominant elites at any given time.
He argues that any counter-hegemonic content tends to be marginalised or excluded from most media,
particularly the mainstream, mass media, through five ‘filters’:
• Ownership
• Funding
• Sourcing

• Flak
• Anti-Communism and fear
The last one means anti-left-wing. Flak means anything counter-hegemonic will be attacked and criticised by
other media. In this case you might argue that your full vision for your video might have encountered flak
from me, shooting down wilder ideas which wouldn’t be appropriate in a school setting, but which might well
have led to more daring representations.
Stanley Cohen + Moral Panics: You could also tie this point into the current media discourse on
‘outrageous’, shocking, sexualised music videos, especially those from female performers – the ‘flak’ from
the likes of the Daily Mail and even the Prime Minister David Cameron is intended to form a moral panic.
These concepts are also key for Media regulation. The term moral panic was popularised by Stanley Cohen,
and is taken to mean an issue being grossly exaggerated through media (especially newspaper) coverage,
creating a sense of social fear and generating calls for censorship or new laws/regulations. These most often
centre on the young, but we’re also seeing moral panics around immigration too.
You can apply this idea partially through reference to your specific text but more so by widening out the
analysis to talk about the music video industry as a whole.
This should link well with discussions of gender, but also age (think Miley Cyrus video, various X Factor
performances: Rhianna, Lady Gaga etc, and the media-fuelled controversy over these).
This next point is about ideology, but you could also consider it in terms of how your
own cultural identity will impact on your representations. Your views/values are
academically termed your subjectivity; the binary opposite is neutral, factual
objectivity – not biased in any way. This is a useful binary of terms to make some
reference to. You might have considered this in discussing gender; does your own
gender shape your gender representations?
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM – Foucault, Chomsky, Said/Spivak: Cultural imperialism is a concept
identified with several theorists, such as Noam Chomsky. He argues that the global spread of US media has
led to many cultures becoming strongly influenced by US culture. Foucault would argue that through this
global influence on discourses the US exercises a degree of power. Said and Spivak argued that Western
cultural output and analysis has an implied binary with Western culture as sophisticated and eastern culture as
backwards.
See http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/cultural-imperialism.html
As British videomakers it is highly likely that you have taken on some US influence – even if you haven’t you
can still raise the point, and perhaps argue you strove to create a specifically ‘British’ representation. Were
you influenced by US vids? Fashions? Icons?
The idea boils down to this: larger cultures can exercise power over smaller cultures through cultural, not
military, dominance. The UK as a whole experiences US cultural imperialism, with the likes of MTV and
MacDonalds also reflecting this globally. Within the UK, the N. Irish, Scots and Welsh experience English
cultural imperialism, while the Northern and Midlands English also experience cultural imperialism of and
from the South! Imperialism means extending control, creating an empire.

DERIVING IDENTITY FROM MEDIA TEXTS
This ‘theme’ once more links with McQuail’s uses and gratifications ( active audience
theory) model – one of those theories you can use in most MANGeR topics. The
basic point is that we/audiences can/do build identities from exposure to media
texts, not least music videos. Butler’s queer theory of gender as performativity also
fits here; don’t we learn what to perform for fe/male identity from texts such as
music video?
Michel Maffesoli (1985) URBAN TRIBE: identified the idea of the “urban tribe” – members of these small
groups tend to have similar worldwide views, dress styles and common behaviours – leads to the decline of
individualism. Do (some of) your characters reflect common, ‘typical’ views, styles, behaviours?
Dick Hebdige & subculture: This is more general than Maffesoli’s concept. Hebdige studied how young
people related to music genres, and created the concept of subculture, arguing that fans shared some values,
fashions, language (slang) as well as knowledge.
Hebdige argued that subcultural styles can be distinguished from mainstream styles by the intentional way
that they have been ‘fabricated’ by members of a subculture to actively construct a sense of difference from
the conventional outfits worn by the ‘average man or woman in the street’. The construction of a style
involves the ‘appropriation’ of existing clothes, commodities, languages, images, sounds and behavioural
codes. Through a process of repositioning and recontextualizing these they are then reused to generate the

meanings of a particular subculture. hence, any element of a subcultural style could not be understood in
isolation. Its meaning was generated in relation to other elements. [there’s more on this in the handout sample
Audience essay]
Bourdieu: Cultural + subcultural [Thornton] capital: These are concepts which can be used for most
MANGeR topics. Pierre Bourdieu argues that knowledge and cultural habits/practices can generate a form of
wealth: if you have knowledge of opera or classical music, for example, your social status is boosted (or
lowered, depending on who you are in company with!). Sara Thornton coined the term subcultural capital to
refer to how this also works within subcultures that are dismissed as trashy and worthless by the mainstream:
a goth who dresses in a certain way and can talk in detail about the Sisters of mercy might not get cultural
capital from mainstream society, but does within the goth subculture.
Perhaps linking ideas such as intertextuality, web 2.0 and simulacra (Baudrillard), consider if your text
offers scope for cultural or subcultural capital, and whether you’ve ‘reflected’ or referred to some subcultural
identity.
DOES AUDIENCE DICTATE
REPRESENTATION?
There are various theories from above and below you can tie into this; the basic point (useful EAA
and EX opportunity) is that your text was at least partly guided by your notional target audience (a
point reflected in many narrative theories too). So, you could discuss how your target audiences
were reflected in your range of texts. Your mag ads should have been targeted at a range of mags
with differing readerships, some for your primary + some for your secondary auds, for example.
GENDER
BECHDEL TEST (1992): See http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/repn-bechdel-test.html In order to
pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria: 1 It includes at least two women, 2 who have at
least one conversation, 3 about something other than a man or men). Only 7% of films are directed by
women.
You may be able to directly apply this, through linkages with lyrics/lip-synching, but can still cite the point as
part of a general discussion about the alleged patriarchal nature of most media.
JOHN BERGER ‘Ways Of Seeing’ (1972): “Men act and women appear”. “Men look at women.
Women watch themselves being looked at”.
“Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator”
SCHWICHTENBERG (1992): ‘Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who
passively react or wait for something to happen.’
Berger and Schwichtenberg are making very similar points. Fowles, Messaris and Winship each backed Mulvey’s
analysis. They weren’t simply repeating what she said; they each did their own studies to see if the argument remained
accurate, or worked for other media/genres than horror film.

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