Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product is of any greater value than another. However there isn’t a definate meaning of postmodern due to the many ideologies behind this theory. The distincton between media and the reality has callopsed and we live in a ‘reality’ defined by the images and the representaion - ‘a state of simulacra’.

The transition between the modernism and postmodernism has chnaged to something tahter serious and meningful to irony and paraody. It proves that postmodern rejects the ideas modernism movement has bought.

There are many postmodern media texts in this current day, I will be looking into specific examples and how they have features of postmoden. For TV, I’ll be looking at ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (Mark Cendrowski, 2007 to present). In terms of postmodern film, I will be looking at TMNT (Liebesman2014), Video Games, Batman Arkham: Knight (Sefton Hill, 2015) and a pop music video, Ariana Grande - Break Free (2014).

Concluding, postmodern is more evident in current media texts as there is that idea of just adapting old ideas into something ‘new’. This theory have been accepted into the society, however media texts have been expected at a newer standard by audience, as they would like to see texts to fit in with the post postmodernism genre, where the mediums are rather meaningful, realistic and serious.

Media Language

Media language

Media Language refers to the methods of communication that exist within all media products. All media texts are rich with meaning whether it be structural, symbolic or ideological. Producers rely on a generally agreed set of interpretations of the language by the audience in order to communicate their message.

·         Levi Straus is one theorist in which helps me evidently showcased the use of media language in my music video through the use of binary opposites. The binary opposite in the music is ‘weak vs strong’, it portrays the main protagonist and the ballerina as weak in the beginning through the use of body language, slow and small ballet steps and technical skills such as time remapping and slow motion and through lyrical meaning, however as the music video progresses alongside the song, the main protagonists body language while singing is more open and confident, portraying even though she was weak and hurt and portrayed emotional, she is being strong and showcasing signs of moving on. Furthermore, the ballet performance gets bolder and more complicated dance steps are introduce, depicting this strength of woman power.

 

·         Saussure, regarded as one of the founders of semiotics proposed the model of the sign as being a product of both the signifier and the signified, arguing that no object is without meaning and no meaning can be generated without its source. Media texts are rich with signs that communicate these accepted messages and my video is no exception.

 

·       Richard Dyer – Codes that support the commodity of stars. linked in with Representation, where the performer is represented as a ‘star’.

Audience

Audience

Audiences are seen as active producers of meaning, rather than as merely consumers of media meanings. They make sense of media texts accord­ing to their social position (in terms of their identity) – and their gender, race, class etc.

·        Reception Theory - We use our own personal experiences and cultural knowledge to interpret a text in a personal way. Stuart Hall states The social situations of readers/viewers/listeners may lead them to adopt different stances. ‘Dominant’ readings are produced by those whose social situation favours the preferred reading; ‘oppositional’ readings are produced by those whose social position puts them into direct conflict with the preferred reading. Reception theory suggests that our reading of a text is MEDIATED by our own cultural experiences. Hall states that producers encode a message and audiences decode them.

·        Uses and Gratification – Suggests 4 uses and gratifications that audiences obtain from a text – Diversion, Surveillance, Personal Relationships, Personal Identity.

·        Roland Barthes – wrote a seminal essay entitled ‘The Death of the Author’ (1967) In it he states The essential meaning of a work depends on the impressions of the reader, rather than the “passions” or “tastes” of the writer; “a text’s unity lies not in its origins, but in its destination,” “To give a text an Author” (and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it) “is to impose a limit on that text.” He states the author (or the producer’s intention) is not important, what is important is the way/ways in which audiences interpret the text. i.e. The audience is more important that the producer.

Representation

Representation

Representational theory is a complex notion that deals not only with how factors (e.g. people, places) are represented, but also why certain representations exist and the effect of those representations on the mass audience. Crucially representational theory looks to explore the ideologies behind the representation.

·         Richard Dyer – Stars. A star is an image (not a real person) that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g advertising, magazines etc. alongside films and music. Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings. The audience sees their ‘reel image’ not their ‘real’ one. In my music video, it can be assumed that the performer has been created to be a star, and that the construction behind this star is via ideologies created through promotional methods. However it can be challenged that the performer is not a star persona but seems to have this star feel but is felt to be authentic through the use of ideologies such as the headphones she’s worn around her neck portrays her compassion and her seriousness for music and would prefer to be herself rather than a made up pop star.

 

·        Antonio Gramcsi’s ideas of Hegemony (dominant ideology) Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others. This represents not only political and economic control, but also the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’. Meaning representations come from the producers and they can be used to control the way audiences view the world. Look for dominant or counter representations in your work. As my music video is a performance video, all based on the performer and the ballerina, there is this ideology of female empowerment. Even though the song is a break up song, there is no clue of who the ‘person’ is that broke her heart therefore empowering this sense of independency of the female performer.

Narrative

Narrative

Narrative theorists are typically not interested simply in what happens in a story but more importantly how the story is told. Moving Image products such as a music videos and short films are able to utilise many interesting methods in presenting the narrative to the audience. As music videos are by their nature creative, they are able to explore both classic and experimental methods in the way they present a narrative.

·    Andrew Goodwin’s idea of clear link between the lyrics and visuals can be applied to my music video. The ballet performance helps the lyrics visually be understood, there is a part of the song ‘feel the tears roll down’, the ballerina signifies this lyric by performing a step where she her arms gradually go down as she is representing the tears rolling down. Andrew Goodwin also established that there can be links between the music and visuals. This is regarding pace and how often cuts are made and the speed of these cuts. The pace varies throughout my video and on the slow parts and verses, longer cuts are shown to allow the audience to take in what is being shown and connect with the singer. The chorus and faster parts of the song tend to have faster cuts so that the visuals don’t contradict with the beat of the song.
Alongside, Andrew Goodwin’s narrative theory can be applied; Goodwin talks about the 5 key aspects for music videos, 1. Thought beats, seeing the sound 2. Narrative and Performance – some sense of narrative can be applied where it shows the performer becoming a stronger and getting over a break up 3. The Star Image – the performer is portrayed as a star who is sharing her emotions with the audience and has mainly been in the spotlight for the whole of the music video. 4. Relations of visuals to song – The ballet performance have been a big aspect to visually relating to the song. 5. Technical aspects of music video – there was a wide variety of technical equipment used to create a technical meaning in my music video.

 

·    Furthermore, another theorist’s idea could be applied to my music video. Even though my music video doesn’t portray a typical narrative, the performance itself creates this sense of binary opposites. It’s more about how the artist is progressing throughout the music video.  Claude Levi-Straus suggested that narratives are based on conflicts and these conflicts were through binary opposites. There is some aspect of conflict; the artist seems to fight her past and move on, this is viewed emotionally through the artist’s performance. There is a binary opposite of ‘strong vs. weak’ through the use of camera and editing. A lot of low angles and high angles have been used to signify the artist being inferior. Lyrically, the strong vs weak binary opposite can be visualised and linked with the lyrics of the song. ‘Crying for no reason’ depicts both strength and weakness of the artist, portrayed through direct and non-direct address.  Alongside other contrasts such as the locations having binary opposites ‘Indoor vs Outdoor’ and the lighting ‘natural light vs artificial light’.

 

Genre

Definition - Genre categorises media texts and have them placed in particular groups due to the codes and conventions which beings out this ‘identity’ of different mediums, furthermore the implied audience and the producer can also affect a media text being put into genre.

Genre theories that relate to my music video;

·     In relation to genre, David Buckingham regards genre as a concept that is not simple given by the culture; rather, it’s a constant process of negation and change. This has implied that genre isn’t fixed according to David Buckingham however it will retain certain characteristics of the certain genre. My video clearly supports this theory stated by Buckingham in regard to the genre. As seen in my music video, there are many vital codes and conventions which belong to the R&B music genre which I have attempted to challenge in my own musiv video from real media texts. Through the process of editing, the use of colout in my music video has portrayed the emotions of ‘breaking up’ by colour grading the the performance scenes in the black box studio with a  ‘cool blue’ colour filter, highlighting this certain mood. Generally, in R&B music videos, if it’s a break up song from a R&B artist, the music video would typically have a grey tone or sepia tone.In music videos such as 'Beyonce - Broken heartd Gril' and Rihanna - Diamonds', there is a black and white tone when the artist is performing aongside dark colours for other parts of the music video, this clearly gives away this 'dark' and 'miserable' mood set by the music video. Furthermore, in this genre, there are typical conventions that are commonly seen in those R&B music videos; such as cars and a big crowd behind the artists. I have seemed to challenge those conventions and used other conventions which are not commonlly seen in the R&B genre. For instance, there is more of a performance focus with my two actresses; Natalie who is the artist and Holly who is the ballerina, however they are both shot in the same location, the black box studio which demonstrates that I have gone off route and haven’t stuck to the ‘common’ convention that you find in a R&B music video. This also suggests that genre can be played with alongside play an on-going important social role as they are able to reflect the changes and remain relevant.

·     Genre can impact the relationship between the texts and the audience. This can also challenge David Buckingham’s theory as there are few elements of my music video which follows certain conventions for instance; in my music video, there is an element of slow motion through time-remapping in the ballet performance which heightens the sense of emotion and signifies the strong emotive feeling the artist has. This is a convention heavily recurrent in the R&B music video genre as slow motion is mainly used in performances and in dramatic scenes which are not very common in R&B music videos as they are all performance and not narrative based.

·     According to Katie Wales, genre is an ‘intertextual concept’, they exist and grow because certain motifs and conventions from other texts are included, by using other elements of other texts, they begin to help different genres and texts evolve. This can evidently be seen in my music video where I have taken inspiration from different texts and put them in my own music video. For instance; after researching similar products, I had begun to take inspiration from those texts and use them for my own video. Looking at ‘Rihanna– Diamonds’., I was inspired to create a performance video with a range of shots from close ups to mid-shots to low angle shots to create this direct address, moreover, the use of a black background was also another feature taken to ensure the performance stood out. There is a sense of intertextuality in my work which signifies that audiences who are familiar to this genre would recognise the text more, rather than audiences from another genre.

 

Q2 - WHY ARE SOME MEDIA PRODUCTS DESCRIBED AS POSTMODERN?