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?

Q1B - GENRE

CONCLUSION - POST POSTMODERN

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.  

Indesign document on Postmodern and Case Studies

Q1A - USING CONVENTIONS FROM REAL MEDIA TEXTS

The Big Bang Theory and Postmodernism

Postmodern and Television - The Might Boosh

Mock Exam Typed up

Jeans Baudrillard and Jean Francis Lyotard

Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard was a French Sociologist, Philosopher, cultural theorist and a political commentator. He has been credited for his work which has frequently been associated with postmodernism
His most notable work consist of theories such as Simulacra and Simulations, Hyper Reality, Symbolic Exchange and System of Objects.

His main ideas and concepts have been used to understand the effect of living in a postmodern environment on our perceptions of reality. He argues that we have lost contact with ‘real’ in various ways that we have nothing left but a continuing fascination with its disappearance.

In link with his theory of symbolic exchange, Baudrillard saw traditional human communication and relations and meaning making as ‘symbolic exchange’ and saw replacement of this by the contemporary media as dangerous. Furthermore, he states that our entire reality is a semiotic production and simulation.

Simulation clearly means the process in which a representation of something comes to replace the thing which is actually being represented. The representation then becomes more important than the ‘real thing’. Baudrillard also claims that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs and that human experience is a simulation of reality.
Simulacra’s definition is the repetition of another thing, object, person and any static object. Baudrillard's uses these meanings to explain that today’s reality is not real and that we all live in something called a hyper reality. Baudrillard’s definition of hyper reality is ‘the simulation of something that never really existed’. A pure example of simulacra stated by Baudrillard is Disneyland. This is a perfect example for understanding how reality works in the postmodern world. It is a place which is at the same time a real, physical space but also a fictional, representational world.

Hyper reality is the division of between the ‘real’ and simulation has collapsed, therefore an illusion of an object is no longer possible because the real object is no longer there.  The audience is left feeling depressed as they have a life which doesn’t live up to the artificial reality.  He suggested that the media can now create such idealistic representations of reality that outperform actual reality.

Some critical opinion about him or his theories include; He has been often criticised for his bleak interpretation of postmodern culture. He has also been referred to not postmodern or ‘too’ postmodern.  Anther theorist linked into Postmodern, Featherstone is critical towards Baudrillard’s approach to consumptions and states that the foundations of such critique of mass culture on the part of intellectuals like Baudrillard.

Jean Francis Lyotard

Jean Francis Lyotard is known for discussing the theory of the ‘end of meta-narratives’. He was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is very well known for his opinion towards postmodernism after the late 1970’s and the analysis of the impact of post-modernity on the human condition.

His works is characterised by a persistent opposition to universals, meta-narratives and generality. He is severely critical of many of the Universalists claims of the enlightenment and several of his works serve to undermine the fundamental principles that generate these broad claims.

He proposes an extreme simplification of the ‘postmodern’ as a fundamental principle that generate these broad claims. These meta-narratives and grand narratives are grand, large-scale theories and philosophies of the world, such as the progress of history and the possibility of absolute freedom.

Lyotard claims that he rejects the concept of meta-narratives as he opposed the idea that everything is knowable by science and that science posed a higher kind of knowledge. Furthermore he argues that the theory of the meta-narrative was never neutral and thus leading to scientists having no more direct access to the truth tan philosophers and historians.

He also notes that the narratives made by scientists are only exploring the limits of the systems. Documents include research papers and hypotheses.

Postmodernity in Movies

Jean Baudrillard

Genre Paragraph

Genre Paragraph
The music video which I'll be producing has a genre of Drama (relationship) and an element of Musical.
My music video can be characterised by one of the three broad typologies: Performance, Narrative and Conceptual (Firth, 1988).
The genre of song is Urban and Dance. With my music video, it is going to be both performance and narrative. The performance video will feature the 'artist' who will be in the studio singing to the camera as well being outdoor and performing.
A theory which can possibly be linked in with genre in my music video would be that 'Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen. (Schwichtenberg 1992).
In my music video, it follows the same pattern. The protagonist in my music video will ensure that after a recent event of a relationship being broken. She expects something to happen in which makes her react into moving forward in life.
The content of my music video will feature a sound (a song audio) and footage of indoor and outdoor locations.
The genre of my music video reinforces particular representations in Gender. This will portray the woman hopeless after breaking out from a relationship.
There is also a sense of pathetic fallacy in my music video; it will focus more on the narrative rather the performance. As my narrative will feature rain - it will give a sense of sadness. This technique is called pathetic fallacy. I will use this as it engages the mixture of emotions that is being created through the performance and the lyrics of the song.
Genre is represented through my music video through the miro-features. The camera shots will vary in angles and shots. High and Low Angles will be the camera angles which I will consider to include especially in the studio footage of the protagonist. I will be including more close up shots to focus the actor’s emotions and ensure that they are engaging with the audience in the video.
The representation will be about a girl who overcomes her past and becomes strong. The protagonist will act out on walking away from a relationship and regretting what has been done in the past and tries to move on.
The connection the music video will have with the audience will be that the audience will be able to understand and give a sense of sympathy towards the protagonist. There will be an emotional package, where I am trying to encapsulate the emotions such as sadness, regrets, strength and confidence.

Basic Genre Information

Genre means 'the type' or 'category'. It is generally seen as a fusion of semantic and syntactic features that over time become conventional to the audience.

There are 3 approached to Genre analysis. Aesthetic approaches, Ritual Approaches, Ideological approaches.

Aesthetic approaches  - focuses on formal, stylistic features and innovations. It typically looks at narrative structures and ignores other syntactic features. It also usually provides limited insight into the genre's rhetorical force.

Ritual approaches - Focus on underlying mythic, culture-typal themes. It often use semiotic/structural analysis. Use enduring or changing features of popular generic texts to explore cultural tensions, rules, roles and efficacy of social myths.

Ideological approaches - Focuses on how ideas, roles, norms that 'naturalise' current inequitable distribution of economic, social, political power and resources are expressed in text. Use semiotic/structural and ideological critical terms and concepts. It provides insight into how genre texts question or celebrate the social , political, economic and cultural status quo of society.