In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1. Evaluation 1
In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
Dawid Jurkowski

2. My music video production, was based on the Hip-Hop genre. I have analysed variety of real media
products before reaching my final outcome. As stated in Steve Neale’s theory of ‘repetition and difference’,
it’s essential for genres to have differences for the economical growth of the genre. Hence our decision to
use a white Hip-Hop artist in a black culture dominated genre. We have decided to use a white artist to
abandon the idea of ‘Black genre’ and to show that genres are not based on the ‘ethnicity’ but simply on
musical preference. The idea was inspired by Eminem’s song ‘When I’m Gone’. At the start of ‘When I’m
Gone’ Eminem is dressed very similar to our artist ‘Run Down’. Both of them are wearing white shirt and
baggy tracksuit to convey the idea of a typical ‘Hip-Hop’ artist fashion sense. Therefore the clothing
choices and hand gestures that are implemented within the music video, conform to generic hip hop artists;
suggestive of the music video being of Hip-Hop origins. However, the clothing choice was also based on
our target audience of young adults and teenagers, as they would wear this type of clothing therefore our
audience can relate to ‘Run Down’.

3. Furthermore, we challenged the Hip-Hop genre by declining the expectations of a Hip-Hop music video,
therefore our artist is not shown to be ‘flashy’ or ‘rich’ but is mostly shown to be lonely through the lack of
friends furthermore the money burning concept is used to convey the idea that the Hip-Hop lifestyle of drugs is
not positive or effective therefore the loss of friends and money. This declines Dyers ‘Pop Star’ theory as our
artist is not presented as a ‘Pop Star’ therefore he is not presented in a ‘flashy’ manner, done so in Hip-Hop
video such as ‘Started from the Bottom’ by Drake. This idea challenges Hip-Hop conventions as Hip-Hop artists
are always shown to be ‘flashy’ with a lot of friends and showing off drugs rather than discrediting them. I believe
that challenging Hip-Hop conventions within my music video was successful because I managed to create a
conventional Hip-Hop music video through the personality of the artist and his actions. However still challenging
the Hip-Hop genre by using a white artist from small city which is visible within Neale’s theory of ‘repetition and
difference’. However, the use of white artist from small city of Bedford is essential for my audience as they can
relate more to someone like ‘Run Down’ than ‘Jay Z’ a black mainstream artist from New York. ‘Run Down’
therefore fits to the target audience of young adults and teenagers, which makes him more relatable to the
audience. Therefore on whole, it was essential to present ‘Run Down’ in this manner as audience from UK can
relate more to ‘Run Down’ than ‘Jay Z’ from a big city like New York.

4. Our music video uses conventions of real media products visible by the clothing and behaviour of our artist. ‘Run
Down’ is dressed in a conventional Hip-Hop manner; Baggy clothing, Tracksuit, as well as doing drugs and
negative lifestyle which is constantly visible in Hip-Hop videos. In songs such as, ‘Where the Hood at’ we see
gang life, drugs, criminal activities visible throughout the video to convey the idea of a conventional Hip-Hop
lifestyle. The same concept is visible within our music video therefore our artist is constantly smoking, and doing
rebellious activities. Even though we used Hip-Hop conventions visible through drugs and rebellious activities, we
had challenged the idea by making drug life seem negative rather than positive as presented within the Hip-Hop
music videos.

5. Lastly, my music video conforms to the conventions of Hip-Hop genre as my lyrics are the creation for
my visuals. Which conforms to Goodwin's music video theory ‘Links between music and visuals’. Visible
through the use of eggs within my music video even though they are not essential, but I have decided to
implement eggs in my music video due to the lyrics ‘Scrambled eggs’. Furthermore, my music video has a
lot of drugs this is due to a fact that the lyrics of my song contain ‘get high’ therefore the use of drugs to
match the lyrics. The use of Goodwin’s theory is used in Eminem’s song ‘headlights’ were the entire video
is based on the lyrics, therefore the same idea is visible within my production. As the whole song is based
around the lyrics therefore the lyrics produced the visuals. On whole, even though there are some
challenges to forms and conventions within my music video, the audience can clearly understand that my
music video belongs to the Hip-Hop genre through the use of simple conventions such as clothing or
actions and small symbols such as drugs etc.

6. My ancillary task of digipak and magazine poster are based on the same concept visually and conventionally. I
have re-created the same visuals on the digipak and the magazine poster to follow the same theme, therefore
making my production more easier to recognise by the audience. Stuart Hall’s ‘reception theory’ states that there
are four different types of media text decoded by audience, Dominant, Negotiated, Oppositional and Aberrant. The
Dominant reading of my ancillary task is that drug life is negative and should be abandoned, this is produced
through the use of conventions and symbols both on the digipak and the magazine poster. This is shown through
the use of cannabis symbol as well as ‘stone riders’ hat, which gives the audience a brief detail about our artist.
The digipak and magazine poster challenge the conventions of real media products as my digipak is using bright
colours such as Red and Green combined together into one which is not a typical conventions for the Hip-Hop
genre, as most Hip-Hop digipak and magazine posters tend to use dark colours and simplicity. For example 50
Cent’s album ‘Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ also uses the colour red throughout the digipak however it is presented in a
more Hip-Hop conventional manner because of the bullet on the digipak as well as ‘flashy’ jewellery which
straight away tells us that this is a Hip-Hop digipak.

7. On the other hand my digipak and magazine poster only shows ‘Run Down’ facing backwards with green
nature in background which challenges Hip-Hop digipak and magazine poster ideals. As they tend to have the
artist facing toward us with the typical Hip-Hop conventions done so in ‘Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ visible through
the bullet shot as well as jewellery and gang like clothing. I have decided to use the back shot of ‘Run Down’ to
convey the idea that he's not proud of his drug life and negative lifestyle therefore he is hiding from the
audience by not revealing the face. My digipak and magazine poster however do use conventions of real
media products by the fact that I have placed a ‘marijuana’ plant as a convention on the front of the poster as
well as the digipak to convey the idea that our artist lifestyle is based around drugs. This is visible throughout
Hip-Hop genre as artists tend to use conventions on their digipak and magazine posters for the audience to
decode the song/artist etc. In Wiz Khalifa’s album ‘Rollin Papers’ we see a male figure made out of smoke
shown on the front of the digipak to convey the idea of Wiz Khalifa’s lifestyle and love to drugs. Therefore I
produced a similar concept by placing the ‘marijuana’ plant on my digipak for the audience to decode the
lifestyle of our artist by using Hip-Hop conventions of drugs.

8. The media platform I have used to present my music video was Youtube. This is because Youtube is a very
popular platform amongst my target audience (audience research) of young adults and teenagers as well as
being easily accessible and free. This ensured that my video gained larger popularity, as more people were
able to access the video. Furthermore, artists such as Eminem, Drake and 50 Cent use Youtube as their
main platform for presenting their music videos because it’s the most popular platform to view and listen
music on due to the simple access by the audience. The digipak and magazine poster on the other hand
were published on blogger, this is because its free and again easily accessible by my audience. I believe
that my digipak and magazine poster could have been presented in a more effective way for example using
social media platforms such as Facebook as it would create larger hype therefore increasing the fan base.