Audience answer

For my A2 year I produced an R'n'B music video that appealed to a wide audience because it is such a popular and easily interpreted genre.

Before I produced my music video I looked at a range of R'n'B music videos for inspiration  such as Cheryl Cole's "Call My Name", Professor Green's "Be Good To Me" and Kanye West and Jay-Z's "No Church in the Wild"; I found that they attracted a range of demographics, such as C1, C2, D, and E more than A or B - especially No Church in the Wild as it was about overthrowing the system and rebelling, which probably wouldn't suit A or B's interests as they tend to be higher and middle management - thus the people that would be overthrown. In terms of psychographics, I felt that the videos targeted mainstreamers, as most of the videos conformed to society's values - except from No Church in the Wild; aspirers, who seek status and wealth, which was displayed through the use of props and location, such as a castle and champagne classes, connoting wealth and explorers, who seek excitement, which I think No Church in the Wild offers.

For my own video I used a similar demographics and psychographics to the ones I found through the videos that I researched. For example, in terms of psychographics I mainly targeted mainstreamers and explorers, which is evident through 

Audience answer

PLAN

Paragraph 1 Intro: Which of your projects are you going to write about? Briefly describe it

• A2 - R'n'B music video 

Paragraph 2: What are some of the key features of the concept you are being asked to apply? Maybe outline two of the theories/ideas of particular writers briefly

Researched R'n'B music videos - Cheryl Cole, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Professor Green - found that it targeted a wide audience - 17+ - D+E 

Demographics 

Defines adult population

Groups them into categories defined by their jobs

• A - Higher management, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals
• B - Middle management, teachers, creative media (graphic designers)
• C1 - Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff (white collar)
• C2 - Skilled manual workers, plumbers, bricklayers (blue collar)
• D - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
• E - Unemployed, students, and casual worker

Psychographics

Mainstreamers 

• seek security - tend to be domestic, conformist, conventional and sentimental. Favour value for money, family brands. Majority group

Aspirers

• Seek status - materialistic, orientated image, appearance and fashion. Attractive packaging more important than contents. TYpically younger people. Clerical or sales jobs

Succeeders

• Seek control - stong goals, confident, strong work ethic, supports stabilty. Brand choice is made of self reward and quality. Typically higher management and professionals

Explorers

• Seek discovery - Energetic, individual. Values difference and adventure. First to try new brands. Younger demographic - students

Reformers

• Seek enlightenment - Freedom from restrictions. Personal growth.Social awareness and independent judgement. Anti-materialistic but aware of good taste. Attended higher education and buy products for quality

Stuart Hall

• All texts are polysemic (can have multiple meanings)
• Texts can be "read" in different ways depending on the audience's identity, cultural knowledge and opinions
• He states that texts can be "read" in 3 different ways
• Preferred reading
• The audience responds to the product the way the media producers expect them and want them to
• Negotiated reading
• The audience partly agrees with the message or product but may disagree with other parts
• Oppositional reading
• The audience is in complete disagreement with the product or the message 

Paragraph 3: Start to apply the concept, making close reference to your production to show how the concept is evident in it

A2
Demographics

• C1 - Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff (white collar)
• C2 - Skilled manual workers, plumbers, bricklayers (blue collar)
•  Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
• E - Unemployed, students, and casual worker

17 +
Psychographics 

• Mainstreamers 
• seek security - tend to be domestic, conformist, conventional and sentimental. Favour value for money, family brands. Majority group
• Explorers
• Seek discovery - Energetic, individual. Values difference and adventure. First to try new brands. Younger demographic - students

Show this through the use of clothes - tight and fashionable - with fashionable brands - Hollister, Nike etc 

Energetic - young couple having fun - running through woods - sense of adventure

Song itself is mainstream

Ending would fulfill mainstreamers needs - ends with a utopia feeling of the couple being in love

Attracted this audience through media language 

Look at coursework micro elements

Hall's

• Preferred reading
• That she's a powerful woman
• She's attractive
• She's talented
• The couple are in love
• Empowered - purposefully putting her self on display 
• Trend setter/ style icon - mise-en-scene
• Negotiated reading
• This is what makes music videos popular
• This is what other music videos are like
• Oppositional reading
• Mulvey's Male Gaze
• Objectifying her - close ups and tight clothes 

Because it follows a similar demographic and psycographic to the videos i researched, my audience will be able to recognise genre conventions

McQuail

• Expectations - use genre to tap into a readily available audience, use codes and conventions to appeal to them
• For our music video - how did we promote our artist and how was it instantly recognisable to our audience
• Video 
• used conventions of locations - woods, club/limo, dance studio, brick wall
• Bright colours
• Tight, fashionable clothes - leggings, crop tops
• Camera angles - close-ups of the artist and two-shots of the couple

Paragraph 4: Try to show ways in which ideas work in relation to your production and also ways in which those ideas might not apply/could be challenged

Mainly conform - Pye - don't to Neal - Genre's are instances of repetition and difference"

"Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre" so people don't get bored. As we're aiming to a wide range of audience - such as mainstream - what people are used to.

Barthes 5 Codes

Decided against an enigma ending as unanswered enigmas can frustrate an audience and as the video is upbeat it wouldn't make sense for it to not end happily

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

Representation plan

Paragraph 1 Intro: Which of your projects are you going to write about? Briefly describe it

Paragraph 2: What are some of the key features of the concept you are being asked to apply? Maybe outline two of the theories/ideas of particular writers briefly

Research
Laura Mulvey's male gaze

Assumes the audience view women and events through the perspective of a heterosexual male
The camera (displaying the perspective of the male) objectifies women by reducing them to fetishised parts
Females viewers must experience the narrative secondly, by identifying with the male

Geri Halliwell - Camera constantly pans and tilts over her body - reducing her to fetished parts

Wears tight clothes - crop tops, leggings, shorts - Cheryl Cole - bright crop top - steam - sexualises her 

Close ups of her face - Ciara goodies and call my name - cc

Emphasise her lips in all of them - close ups

Marjorie Ferguson - Facial Expressions

Romantic or sexual - Cheryl Cole, Rihanna Hate That I Love You

Trevor Millum

Seductive

Steve Neal

Classic Stage 

Paragraph 3: Start to apply the concept, making close reference to your production to show how the concept is evident in it
Mulvey

Camera constantly pans and tilts over her body

Wears tight clothes - crop tops, leggings, shorts 

Close ups of her face 

Emphasise her lips - red lipstick

Marjorie Ferguson - Facial Expressions

Romantic or sexual

Chocolate box

Trevor Millum

Seductive

Carefree

Barthes 5 codes

Symbolic Code

Fireworks - symbol of explosion of love

Red lips - love/lust - song we found love

Referential Code

Clothes are similar to other R'n'B videos 

Binary opposition

Examples

Applying it to my coursework

Night and day/ inside, outside locations

Boy and girl

Stillness and movement - dancing and brick wall shot

Contrast between digipak and video 

Paragraph 4: Try to show ways in which ideas work in relation to your production and also ways in which those ideas might not apply/could be challenged

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

Representation plan

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze

Camera constantly pans and tilts over her body

Wears tight clothes - crop tops, leggings, shorts 

Close ups of her face 

Emphasise her lips - red lipstick

Marjorie Ferguson - Facial Expressions

Romantic or sexual

Male or female 'two-somes'

Dreamy

Heavy lidded

Overtly sexual/sensual

Had our couple constantly touching each other, hugging, kissing etc 

Chocolate box

Half/full smile

Lips together/ slightly parted

Teeth barely visible

Full/ three quarters of face to camera

Blandly pleasing

Uniformity of beauty

Devoid of uniqueness

Soft and sweet

Like smooth perfection -  is more important than her qurtks or her personality

For our digipak

Trevor Millum

Seductive

Similar to invitational

Less focus on the positioning of face and angles

Eyes less wide

Less reserved but still self confident

Carefree

Nymph like

Active

Healthy

Vibrant

Outdoor girl

Often smiling/ grinning

Barthes: 5 Codes

Semantic Codes

Refers to a part of the text that suggests or refers to additional meanings

Have a connotative function

Add an extra layer of meaning to the text, beyond its literal meaning

Symbolic Code

This code is about symbolism within the text

It uses opposites to show contrast and create greater meaning

These codes create tension, drama and create drama

Symbolic Code

Fireworks - symbol of explosion of love

Red lips - love/lust - song we found love

Referential Code

Clothes are similar to other R'n'B videos 

Levi Strauss: Binary Opposition

Meaning is enhanced by our knowledge of differences 
Our understanding of the word "good" is enhanced by our knowledge of the world "evil"

Meaning is created by these differences and the narrative is enhanced by it

Examples

Applying it to my coursework

Night and day/ inside, outside locations

Boy and girl

Stillness and movement - dancing and brick wall shot

Contrast between digipak and video 

Steve Neal

Classic Stage - the conventions of the media text are clearly defined and the audience are clear of genre. Music video example - 80's - Micheal jackson - dance routine, light up tiles, signature dance moves, camera trickery 

Pye

"Films have to conform to audience expectations about narrative"

Our own - couple in love - typical - we found love + a dance scene with people getting ready to party 

Follows conventional narrative

General

Who is being represented?

Our artist

Make sure that we're following conventions by representing her in a sexualised way 

How is the representation being created?

Camera angles

Close use of her face and body - sexulise her - body  shots show that she doesn't have any personality

Close ups/ two shots of the couple - holding each other - clearly in love - his property when he's holding her 

limo scene - people shouting out of the window - looks like a mobile phone camera - media savvy

Sound 

song is R'n'B - typical sexual songs 

Artist represented as fun - upbeat song

Camera Movement

Pans over her body - emphasises her movement

Mise-en-Scene

Tight clothes - crop tops, leggings, high heels - show off her figure

Black and red - sexual colours

Media Language Theories

Saussure

There are 2 levels of meaning to an object within a media text

• Signifier 
• What we can see
• The form the sign takes
• Signified
• What idea we associate with the signifier
• The concept it represents

The sign or symbol we see does not make sense without the meaning it creates

It's up to the audience to decide on which meaning the word 'bank' takes until it is defined by the text

Can your audience make sense of the signs you use?

• AS
•  
• A2
• 
  

Is there any ambiguity to your coursework piece?

Barthes

Looks at how meaning is created by media texts

This meaning is influenced by society and the audiences experiences

• Denotation
• What we see
• Connotations
• Any specific meaning attached
• These meanings are normally culturally significant

How have you used connotations in your coursework piece?

• A2
• Red lips - connotations of love and lust - links back to the digipak "Outspoken"
• 
  

How might different audiences respond to this?

• A2
• Males - sexulise her because of this 
• Women - see it as a fashion statement - want to copy her

Hall

Continues to look at meanings within media texts

Looks at preferred reading of a text

• Encoding
• What is written within the media text is placed there by the producer of the text
• Will either challenge or promote the dominant ideologies
• Decoding
• Audience will then decode this message and make their own interpretation of what the image means

Believes the media circulate the 'dominant ideas'

Producers encode these ideas into media products with the intention that the audience interpret the preferred or intended meaning

Other readings that Hall makes

• Oppositional 
•  feminist - woman is on display - man lifts her up - stronger in society
• being sxulised and seen as an object rather than a person
• Negoatiated
• Typical of a pop video + society
• Preferred
• Empowered - purposefully putting her self on display 
• Trend setter/ style icon - mise-en-scene

What messages have you encoded in your coursework?

• A2
• Couple in love - cuddling, holding hands, kissing etc
• Promote dominant ideologies - heterosexual couple
• Challenge - mixed ethnic couple - not white - conforms to the song genre though
• Idea of love and lust - couple, protagonist wearing red lipstick - red - leggings as well. Bright colours - locations - sequined clothes - fireworks
• 
  

What readings can audiences decode from these images?

Bright colours on location - happy, bright, fun - image of young love
Red lipstick - love, lust
Two shots of the couple - them being in love

Look at coursework micro elements

• Camera angles 
• Two shots of the couple 
• Close ups of the artist + body
• Range of camera angles in the brick wall - variation - on level with the artist - viewers are equal 
• Editing
• Fast paced for build up to the chorus - reflect the tempo 
• Slo mo - running couple - happy + in love
• Fast forward - limo scenes - reflect increase in tempo 
• Sound 
• Song = upbeat 
• Dance song
• Song will have a light hearted meaning
• Mise-en-Scene
• Tight clothes - show off protagonists body - male gaze
• Fashionable clothes - style icon - need to be followed
• Camera Movement
• Pans over her body
• Pans and tilts to follow the couple - main focus
• Hand held element - home video - more sentimental
• Special Effects
• Slo mo - her running with a smile - dream like - finding love in a hopeless place
• Fast forward - fast paced to follow the tempo 

This is the language of your coursework - how have you used these language elements to create meaning and "speak" to your audience?

Refer to genre etc

Audience Theories

In order for a product nto be successful it must have an audience that will consume it
All types of companies study their potential audiences to create products that will appeal to their wants and needs
Audiences can be split into several categories

• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Gender
• Occupation
• Earnings
• Expendable income etc

Demographics

Defines adult population
Groups them into categories defined by their jobs

• A - Higher management, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals
• B - Middle management, teachers, creative media (graphic designers)
• C1 - Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff (white collar)
• C2 - Skilled manual workers, plumbers, bricklayers (blue collar)
• D - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
• E - Unemployed, students, and casual worker

Psychographics

Mainstreamers 

• seek security - tend to be domestic, conformist, conventional and sentimental. Favour value for money, family brands. Majority group

Aspirers

• Seek status - materialistic, orientated image, appearance and fashion. Attractive packaging more important than contents. TYpically younger people. Clerical or sales jobs

Succeeders

• Seek control - stong goals, confident, strong work ethic, supports stabilty. Brand choice is made of self reward and quality. Typically higher management and professionals

Resigned

• Seeks survival - rigid and authoritarian values. Interested in apst and tradition. Brand choice stresses safety and familiarity. Usually older people

Explorers

• Seek discovery - Energetic, individual. Values difference and adventure. First to try new brands. Younger demographic - students

Strugglers

• Seek escape - alienated and disorganised. Few resources beyond physical skills. Buys alcohol and junk food. D and E demographics

Reformers

• Seek enlightenment - Freedom from restrictions. Personal growth.Social awareness and independent judgement. Anti-materialistic but aware of good taste. Attended higher education and buy products for quality

Stuart Hall

• All texts are polysemic (can have multiple meanings)
• Texts can be "read" in different ways depending on the audience's identity, cultural knowledge and opinions
• He states that texts can be "read" in 3 different ways
• Preferred reading
• The audience responds to the product the way the media producers expect them and want them to
• Negotiated reading
• The audience partly agrees with the message or product but may disagree with other parts
• Oppositional reading
• The audience is in complete disagreement with the product or the message 

AS
17-20 year olds
D + E
Reformers, explorers and mainstreamers
Attracted their attetnion through tour dates and free bees - new and different music 
INterviews - attract mainstreamers - Tinie Tempah but then interviews with Noel Gallagher would attract reformers and explorers - edgy
Adverts for River Island in my plan - popular high street brand that they can spend disposable income on
CD ads - interest explorers - interested in new music

A2

Representation Theories

Laura Mulvey's The Male Gaze

Assumes the audience view women and events through the perspective of a heterosexual male
The camera (displaying the perspective of the male) objectifies women by reducing them to fetishised parts
Females viewers must experience the narrative secondly, by identifying with the male

• Classic examples
• Some Like it Hot - Marilyn Monroe's intro - focus on her lips, bum, pan up her body. Use of jazz and trumpets - sexual nature of the scene. "Jello on springs"
• Displayed as a sex object
• Modern day example
• Camera lingers over her body - focusing on her bare skin, breasts and stomach - fetishing her
• Sams  reaction shows the audience what they should be feeling
• Despite her knowledge about cars (place her in a dominant male role) she is reduced to a sexualised object by the camera
• Print example
• Main focus is her legs - frame the texts and take up the majority of the frame
• Skin tight body suit - reveals her figure
• Facial expression - inviting and sensual further sexualising her

Can sexualise men as well - opposite theory

Marjorie Ferguson - Facial Expressions

Identified 4 types of facial expressions on the front cover of British women magazines

• Chocolate box
• Half/full smile
• Lips together/ slightly parted
• Teeth barely visible
• Full/ three quarters of face to camera
• Blandly pleasing
• Uniformity of beauty
• Devoid of uniqueness
• Soft and sweet
• Like smooth perfection -  is more important than her qurtks or her personality
• Invitational
• Empasis on the eyes
• Mouth shut with a hint of a smile
• Head to one side or looking back at the camera
• Suggestive of mischif/ mystery
• HInt of contact rather than sexual promise
• Super smiler
• Full face
• Wide open, toothy smile
• Head thrusts forward or chin thrown back
• Hair often wind blown
• Enthusiastic
• Demanding
• Exciting
• Agressive
• Look at me
• Romantic or sexual
• Male or female 'two-somes'
• Dreamy
• Heavy lidded
• Overtly sexual/sensual
• Wantonness
• Availability
• Unashamedly erotic

Trevor Millum

Built on Fergusons research of facial expressions and added a further 10 categories

Reduced to 5

• Seductive
• Similar to invitational
• Less focus on the positioning of face and angles
• Eyes less wide
• Less reserved but still self confident
• Carefree
• Nymph like
• Active
• Healthy
• Vibrant
• Outdoor girl
• Often smiling/ grinning
• Practical
• Concentrating
• Engaged in business 
• Mouth closed
• Eyes directed towards object
• Hair tied back or short
• Frowning slightly
• Comic
• Deliberately ridiculous
• Exaggerated
• Foolish
• Pulling faces
• Catalogue
• Neutral look
• Dummy look
• Artificial/ wax like
• Looks remain vacant
• Devoid of personality

The images and categories shown in womens magazines and advertising serve to reinforce status quo

How can you apply these theories to your coursework?

Remember to use other aspects as well - narrative theories, genre

Think about 5 questions

• Who is being represented?
• How is it being created?
• Who's created it?
• Why is it created in this way?
• What it its effect?

Camera angles

Sound

Editing

Camera Movement

Mise-en-Scene

Special Effects

A2

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze

• Camera constantly pans and tilts over her body
• Wears tight clothes - crop tops, leggings, shorts 
• Close ups of her face 
• Emphasise her lips - red lipstick

Marjorie Ferguson - Facial Expressions

• Romantic or sexual
• Male or female 'two-somes'
• Dreamy
• Heavy lidded
• Overtly sexual/sensual

Had our couple constantly touching each other, hugging, kissing etc 

Who is being represented?

• Our artist
• Make sure that we're following conventions by representing her in a sexualised way 
• 
  

How is the representation being created?

• Camera angles
• Close use of her face and body - sexulise her - body  shots show that she doesn't have any personality
• Close ups/ two shots of the couple - holding each other - clearly in love - his property when he's holding her 
•  limo scene - people shouting out of the window - looks like a mobile phone camera - media savvy
• Sound 
• song is R'n'B - typical sexual songs 
• Artist represented as fun - upbeat song
• Editing
• 
  
• Camera Movement
• Pans over her body - emphasises her movement
• Mise-en-Scene
• Tight clothes - crop tops, leggings, high heels - show off her figure
• Black and red - sexual colours
• Special Effects
• 
  

Who's created it?

Why is it created in this way?

What it its effect?