Assignment -theoretical concepts

Look closely at your products, video and print artefacts, deconstruct them utilising theoretical concepts.

                                                   

 

 During the 1960’s it became increasing apparent to media theorists that audience made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Individuals consumed texts in an active manner for different reasons and in different ways.

   Looking closely at my products for my video and print artefacts, I can deconstruct them and by understanding theoretical concepts, I can see where I have applied different theories through different functions and purpose. 

   

   For my music video, deconstructing it, I found as a group we applied a lot of theoretical concepts.  An Example of a theoretic concept we applied to our music video was ‘Uses and Gratification’. We found that individuals from our target audience would actively gain a personal relationship with the artiste ‘Sublime’. Analyzing the product, I found a lot of medium close ups of the female artiste ‘Sublime’ face whilst singing. As a product, this gives a direct mode of address and makes the audience gain a connection towards the artiste and by applying emotion from the artiste; it helps to gain importance towards the artiste identity. The artiste in the video is going through a traumatic break up which individuals can relate to. The artiste identity is important, therefore whilst creating the video; we felt that individuals could relate to the artiste through her break up, which helps to achieve our purpose of creating personal relationship. We can also apply this theory through the ‘setting’, which creates the artiste ‘personal identity’. The setting is somewhat realistic, therefore links to individuals. Having the artiste in a setting such as ‘bedroom’, helps individual consume there selves by relating their emotions and situation to that familiar surrounding of which the artiste in located in. They reflect in that particular surrounding and learn the artiste behavior, which helps gain connection to the artiste identity.

 

 

   Another theoretic concept I deconstructed from our music video was representation. The form of representation was through gender. In the music video we tried to reinforce stereotypes of woman gender by creating a strong image of identity through ‘Sublime’. We wanted to create a strong independent woman by making her over come the situation of the break up by not depending on her ‘male boyfriend’. The video overthrows the idea that a woman doesn’t need a man and is capable of standing up for her self. This breaks the chain of stereotype of man being the main dominate gender and woman only primary purpose is to cook, clean and stay at home. We wanted to represent the artiste as this strong powerful woman, which helps engage is audience aswell as attracting individuals to reflect into her behavior. This representation was applied through camera shots. Having the artiste dominating the frame created an ‘independent’ image. By having a lot of high/ low camera shots, created a contrast of statues between both genders and helping to represent the female gender as over powering the ‘male’ by having him appeal small and powerless.

  This targets at a young audience because it empowers woman and takes them from a domestic sphere.

  When creating the music video, as a group we was aware of the dominate ideology influence in the hardcore industry and how it’s powered by the male gender. Whilst researching, I found that there is a big issue around ‘gender’ in the ‘Hardcore/Dance’ industry. Still female artistes don’t seem to be getting enough popularity and status as they should be, compared to the male vocalist. For female vocalist to be successful, their identity has to be seen as ‘an object’. Not only must they have a great voice but they must have ‘a hot body’, very sexual and beautiful. When looking at videos that had female artiste featured in the video, they didn’t appear to have a high and respectable identity. In Breeze vs. Lost Witness ft. Naz - Rise Again, there was a lot of medium close ups of her body. There weren’t many frames of her face but primarily her ‘body’. This connotes that not a lot of female artistes gets a chance to have their own ‘identity’ in the genre of hardcore. Compared to other well know hardcore artiste, the most popular ones are male such as ‘Darren styles’. There are not a lot of independent female artist who are popular in the hardcore music industry. Therefore for the artiste ‘sublime’, the audience will be more engaged by the challenge of gender by having more frames of the artiste face. This helps to represent the female gender as ‘strong’ and not seen has a ‘sex symbol’.

 Deconstructing our music video, it challenges dominant ideology, because it overthrows the dominant class of male gender in the ‘hardcore/dance’ music industry by having an independent, popular female artiste who isn’t categorized in the industry as an ‘object’.

 

   For the print artefacts, such as the advert for the artiste ‘Sublime’, deconstructing it, people could argue that it still encourages individuals to be attracted and to consume the artiste identity as ‘sexy’ through her costume and gesture. The advert for the single applies to a post-feminine age. We are in the 21^st century and even though women have their own rights and should reinforce the stereotype image of woman slaving away in the kitchen. The advert it designed to target a modern young audience, however not in a sexual way. The advert embraces her attracted side and even though it may seem sexual through her costume and body language, she’s doing it for herself. This attracts more of a mass youth because individuals can relate to the artiste if she’s represented as fun and exciting and by having her dominate the frame, which also creates the independent image of the artiste.