Riptide

Riptide by Vance Joy

• Is Vance Joy's first single to be released in the USA
• Nearly has 300 million views on youtube
• Directed by Dmitri Basil and Laura Gorum
• Vance Joy is Australian
• His music is indie-folk pop

• Very atypical for a music video
• It is deliberately difficult to analyse
• It has a lot of hard-cuts (no smooth transitions)
• A lot of binary opposition
• Master shot of the 'singer' singing into the camera
• The chorus and the verses is very structured
• The video is Atemporal
• Objectification of women, being vulnerable, we are positioned uncomfortably in the video
• Made for heterosexual men: Lisbet Van Zoonen, Male Gaze
• low-key hinting towards being feminist
• Sexualisation is used
• Voyeurism
• Scopophilia: Scopophilic pleasure, taking pleasure at watching someone
• The video is very polysemic
• Bizarre, creepy and can promote word of mouth advertising
• Its very contrapuntal : When the song doesn't match up with the video
• One ideology perspective of the video is that women are weak and vulnerable
• video is very sadistic 
• Video may be a criticism to a patriarchal society

Structuralism: Claude Levi-Strauss

• Is about and underlying meanings in signs and symbols
• Strauss argued that we make sense of the world through Binary oppositions. This is to say we can only understand something through what is not
• You can also call binary oppositions, Diametric opposition
• Producers uses Binary opposition because of:
• Entertainment
• Comedy
• Horror
• Grabs the audience's attention quickly and easily
• Emphasises one side of the binary opposition
• Makes it easier for the producer to construct ideologies

The muted colours creates sadness and misery, the first person male gaze as well             >

<Her gesture makes her seem like a statue, this objectification suggests that she is more of an object than a person

< Pastel pink blouse connotes to the stereotypical girl colour

< Low angle shot makes her seem powerful

<The dark side shot, the female hands in this posture suggest that females are weak, the lighting is low-key and there is proairetic code

Mise-en-scene of her eyes signs that she is afraid, suggests manipulation, and the purple suggests its creepy                       >

How the video could be seen as feminist:

1. The use of women's bodies being used to sell media products
2. Low angle of woman on balcony connotates power
3. Woman injured but carries on singing
4. mid-shot of woman in graveyard and low-key lighting connotes death, misery and darkness
5. Mid-shot of women removing swimming costume is critical of the sexualisation that is common in music videos
6. Preferred reading is that people are supposed to enjoy the video
7. An uncomfortable moment is the master-shot of woman singing and losing her makeup between shots. The fact she is bleeding is important it is symbolic of how women are treated in the entertainment industry. According to Van Zoonen, women are used to sell the product.
8. Intertextuality
1. Close-up shot of screaming woman face, shrouded by darkness
2. Colourful dream-like quality that echoes through out
3. Woman who is terrorise by men's pleasure
4. highly emotive use of colour
5. Use of cowboy iconography links to "A fist full of dollars"
6. 
   

Introduction to Music Videos

A music video is an advert for a song

The 2 songs we will be analysing for Music videos are:

1. Riptide: Vance Joy
2. Formation: Beyonce

MTV: Music television

• They used to only show music videos
• But in our days they now play just tv shows

Convergence: When different media industries combine, such as music and video

Synergy: when 2 things work together really well

Celebrity: The attribution of glamorous or notorious status to an individual in the public sphere

What is a music video?

• Have only one song contained in the video
• a lot of short shot-takes
• a lot less dialogue
• Is an advert
• Mise-en-scene is more bold and over the top
• A lot more emphasis on movement
• The person singing is famous, and is him/herself 
• Edited in time with the music

What is cinema?

• Fully developed plot-line
• long-shot takes
• have multiple songs, can be used for background music too
• Can have sequels/prequels 
• Is the product
• A lot more dialogue
• Budget is way greater
• The actors aren't themselves, they are characters in the movie

Paul Gilroy: we are living in a post-colonialism society so we still view certain people groups in certain ways such as black people

Stuart Hall:  heavy amounts of tv can help reinforce hegemonic norms in society

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Baby pop: France Gall

• Shot duration is surprisingly long (long take)
• very few locations, exterior and interior shots
• Very repetitive
• Gall looks awkward and unconfident  

Vanity Angel: Rebecca

• Very 80s
• shot takes left, right and centre
• very colourful and all over the place
• many, many locations
• Intertextuality: American Car
• Excessive uses of primary colours
• Binary opposition with bright primary colours and black leather jacket, is symbolic of how wild the 80s were
• Mise-en-scene of the costumes, no one looks normal and standard

Babies: Pulp

• Cheap production that makes it feel authentic
• unconventional use of transitions
• mid shots
• strange costumes
• Font: title cards/inter-titles
• Done in a cheap chabby way
• Working class identity
• mocking other music videos
• Simple bland and boring

Da funk: Daft Punk

Applause: Lady Gaga

• Constantly looking at the centre of the video, eye-line match
• very sexualised throughout
• Close-ups of here emphasise her status
• Gets people talking a lot, controversial or what she wears
• Strobe lights connotes to celebrity
• Black and white connotes to that the video and lady gaga is classic

Who Dat Boy: Tyler the Creator

Twerk: City Girls

• A majority people in the video are black, mixed raced and other ethnic minorities (BME) in America
• Video is focussed on more larger women and extreme close-ups (ECU) of the women's posteriors
• There is a homogenised representation of women. specifically women with larger body types
• Explicit example of sexualisation
• Fast paced editing
• Presenting an ideological perspective that all women are the same
• Reinforces a stereotypical representation that black and ethnic minorities posterior are large
• Mise-en-scene of the yacht, money and power reinforces the anchorage that these women are dancing for money
• Target audience for Cardi-B is teenage girls but also appeals to heterosexual men
• This is hyper-sexualised
• This cultivates hegemonic-ally acceptable ideology about the representation of women
• Colonisation

Gucci Gang: Lil Pump

• Bright psychedelic colours and editing present what it feels like to be on drugs
• Explicit use of drugs, particularly lean and cannabis 
• Emphasises his status as rich because of his intent to sell drugs
• Tiger is connotative of aggression and Lil Pump's determination to cause harm. And reinforces the stereotype that BME can cause harm
• Behaves disruptively and disrespectfully, this reinforces the stereotype that BME disrespect authority
• Breaks hegemonic norms such as:
• Face tattoos at a young age
• Smoking in school
• Stereotypes come about when theres an imbalance between different people groups
• The reason lil pump acts like this is because he is a minority and is in a position of little power

Billy: 6ix 9ine

• hand held shaky camera connotes to being threatening and chaos
• uses n-word a lot and isnt black
• shouting and threatening connotes anger and violence by black people
• use of police creates binary opposition with the performer
• explicit references to murder and sex reinforces stereotypical ideology that BME people are criminals
• locations used include: chicken shop, can be associated with black people

Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters.

Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters.

Woman and Adbusters are both magazines but both have completely different and contrasting ideologies. The ideology for women is that the producers believe all women should be housewives, this can be seen encoded on the front cover of their Woman magazine (published 1964).  Women magazine are aimed towards heterosexual women. Since their ideology is that of housewives, whoch are stereotypically are straight.

In the title, the hegemonic norm during the time is that women belong in the kitchen, we can see that the mise-en-scene for the mid-shot woman on the cover is that her dress code includes shoulder length hair, and is a brunette which is stereotypically the average colour hair of women during the time of the magazines publication. Also brown eyes and she is an attractive, supposedly middle age woman. The bold text at the top “WOMAN” reinforces this ideology the producer are trying to show, that the hegemonic norm of women of 1964 was the woman in the picture. In addition the way she looks at the audience with her pearly white teeth and fake smile suggests that she is relatable. Being relatable could suggest that the target audience is that of middle age housewives, which the ideology of the producers is trying to reinforce onto the target audience. That all women should be housewives, to further reinforce this ideology on the cover it say at the bottom “seven star improvements for your kitchen”. This not only shows signs of exaggeration on how great the magazine is but also reinforces the stereotype that women should be in the kitchen. This is further reinforced by David Gauntlett’s theory about pick and mix, in that audience select which ideologies suit and ignore the elements of the product. And in this case, middle age, heterosexual working class women select the images of the beauty of the women on the cover and would start acting and looking more like the hegemonic norm.

For Adbusters, their whole ideology is that their anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist and has a hatred towards adverts as they are so called “Adbusters”. The way they introduce their ideologies through their magazine is by having an ad of a very rich and expensive product and then using Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory on binary opposition in that everything in a magazine or product has an opposite to contrast it, in Adbusters the binary opposition is that of contrasting the rich and expensive product for higher classes with that of people in poverty and near to death. One such example of this is their 2016 publication of Adbusters, in it we have a Zuchetti Tap, mid/ high-angle shot, with “him” as a masthead of the advert contrasted by a (assumed) women (as the stereotype of skinny legs and smooth skin indicates that is could be a woman) (mid/high-angle shot also!). She seems to be in poverty as the mise-en-scene is that she is supposedly sitting in a poorly cleaned bath tub naked, with the wrinkled hands suggesting that she is in a position as if she’s a beggar, and is symbolic imagery of poverty and misfortune. Also her tattoos and her wrinkled hands highlight that this is what magazines don’t want you to see as this (such as Woman) is no the ideal woman as tattoos is stereotypically seen as rebellious or rather not seen as beautiful as many fashion magazines of soaps and conditioners shows women with “perfect” skin which is smoothed and is blank with no tattoos. With Adbusters contrasting this with the Zuchetti tap shows clearly their anti-consumerist nature as it shows that people would rather spend money on rich useless items rather than help the poor. The poverty page is also rough as the text is unaligned and badly printed, whilst the image itself looks like as if it’s trying to get covered up by the white, which is symbolic imagery of Ads trying to cover up the bad side of them selling their products, the lack of effort for both the rough edges of the image and the text symbolizes division between the rich and poor in society.

Adbusters here is trying to subvert Gerbner’s cultivation theory, wjhich is about heavy exposure to too many brands and products on the TV reinforces ideology and stereotypes of certain people groups. Adbusters tries to be subversive of this theory, by bringing up the woman in poverty shows that Zuchetti is more of a money grabber, which Adbuster’s ideology is trying to explicitly trying to say. Woman on the other hand follows Gerbners theory a lot as it believes it’s audience/ target audience follows societies rules that all women are housewives, Woman Magazine is also helping cultivate the hegemonic norms of the British society.

Magazines and Audience and Revision

You can talk about representation in audience/industry

There are 2 types of audience question

1. How does the audience respond to the product?
2. How does the producer target/position the audience?

Explore the different ways adbusters and woman target their audience through content and appeal

Media language: shot type, camera angles, font, mode of address, theorists

Bonus theory: Audience pleasures, uses & gratifications (a pleasure)

what is pleasurable about tv shows?

• Social-interaction: after a tv show ends you can discuss about it to others                                
•  Escapism: want to leave the outside world as it is boring
• Voyeurism: Taking pleasure in someone elses actions
• Relating: feeling an intimate connection
• Entertainment: Because it's fun
• Sexual Gratification: being attracted to someone

• Aspirational
• Aesthetically pleasing
• Hegemonically attractive
• Direct mode of address
• Advert tells women they must use the product and stay clean, it would solve their life
• Voyeuristic hyper realism

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Stuart Hall: Reception Theory

Preferred: Audience agrees with the ideology of the producer

Negotiated: Audience partially agrees with the ideology of the producer

Oppositional: Audience fully disagrees with the ideology of the producer

Aberrant: When the audience totally doesn't get it

Ideology of this advert: anti-consumerist --------------------> 

1.  Preferred: We need to help the poverty in Africa, Africa are unable to help themselves
2. Negotiated: There are issues in Africa, but they can't hate on Louis Bouton because it's not their issue
3. Oppositional: Corporations help society, Africa need to sort themselves out
4. Aberrant: Audience thinks they should buy the shoes

Audience positioning

• Shot types
• Intertextuality
• Direct mode of address
• Pull quote pulled directly from a text

• Close-up shot of Alfred Hitchcock
• pull quote- "they're like snow capped volcanoes"
• stereotyping women in a magazine about women
• Hand gestures suggest affirmation
• The way he looks directly at the audience creates a controversial atmosphere 

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What are Adbusters?

• Anti-consumerism, consumerism is making society poor
• Anti-capitalist
• non-original
• anti-advertisement
• anarchist
• Culture Jamming
• Environmentalism
• Subversive
• lacks anchorage
• Atypical
• Anti-authoritarian 

Adbusters and Women are very different

• Anchored in such a way that is criticising the ad (zucchetti), because they're manipulative and spreading ideologies that people have to buy the product
• Close-up, high angle shot of the tap,  to say that we are in the room with the tap
• The transition from the image of the (assumed) women (as the stereotype of skinny legs and smooth skin suggests that it is; to the white background makes it as if  the advert is trying to cover up the actual poverty caused by this, which adbusters is trying to address, that it's subversive
• the mise-en-scene of the wrinkly is symbolic code of poverty and misfortune
• The close up shot of the model on her knees in this positions is deliberate way to not sexualise her, it's to prove a point
• Suggesting the target audience is educated and knowledgable 
• Binary opposition between rich and poor
• Suggest theres a division between people who can afford luxury items and everybody else

Messages and values of woman magazine

• buying certain products will improve your life
• women should be housewives
• published in 1964- sociohistorical context
• reinforce hegemonic views of women
• Specifically tells the audience how to be attractive
• women must be family orient 
• Singular

1. Trying to friendly by showing fake smile and the close up shot enforces that the audience is in the room with the woman
2. The colour purple is symbolic of

https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/activism-2/adbusters/

Woman Magazine

1. simple straight-forward for women
2. stereotypical representation of gender
3. Promotes a gender binary
4. Consistently reinforces hegemonic values

Adbusters

1. consistently subversive
2. Lacks anchorage through the whole text
3. No clear preferred reading of the magazine

Lisbet Van Zoonen

• Women are used to sell products which appeal to heterosexual men

• The homeless women is sitting on the floor
• She isn't stereotypically attractive
• Binary opposition between rich & beauty and poor & unattractive
• Androgyny: Unsure what gender they are
• Adbusters is 'preaching to the converted' which means they're talking to people who already believe their views
• Adbusters suggests that their audience are people that don't like society's rules "culture jammers"

Adbusters- Initial analysis

• Adbusters lack articles, it doesn't have a clear demarcation.
• Brings up topics that other magazines don't have.
• The layout is sparse, huge elements of white space.
• Woman is monosemic, simple and straightforward.
•  Adbusters is deeply Polysemic, the white space could suggest that life is boring or that it represents that news articles are useless or that you could write anything in them.
• There is an emphasis on photos and not much writing
• Similar to high-end fashion magazines by criticising them
• Adbusters are anti-consumerist however their merchandise shop shows commodity fetishism, which is hypocritical
• Adbusters has no adverts, it's anti-commercial and anti-consumerist

Groups of people represented in Adbusters

1. Poor people (poverty)
2. Depressed People
3. Upper class people (consumerism)
4. Black people
5. Men/Women
6. Old/young people

Roland Barthes

1. Proairetic: refer to something within a media product that suggests something will happen.
1. 
   
2. Hermeneutic: refer to something in the media product that creates mystery or suspense
1. Why are they behind the barbed wire in the first place
2. who are wearing those shoes, this high-angle close-up creates a lot of mystery
3. Symbolic: Something in a media product that creates a deeper meaning in the audience.
1. Mocking rich clothing brands with the pun "LouiBouton" refering to louis vuttion, this is a parody. It is also stereotyping that this is an african kid by the colour of their skin and the dry ground
2. The people behind the barbed wire suggests their immigrants
4. Referential: refers to another source of media product
1. Clear reference to LouiBouton, used without permission, this can relate to Water-aid
2. The ad criticises people who buy louibouton shoes and that it causes people to be put in poverty. This can increase the inequality of the world

Target audience for Adbusters is middle-class, assuming that they have a high-level of education

Assumes that the audience is media-literate

Presenting an anti-consumerist ideology: criticising a high-end luxury brands

Lacks anchorage

Claude Levi-Strauss

1. Binary Opposition
1. between the rich and the poor, the"Louibouton" logo to the ragged shoes.

Adbusters is an anti-capitalist magazine

• Black and white has connotations to sadness

Bricolage: When different things are put together

Adbusters looks like it has low production values

Commodity fetishism: The process of ascribing magic "phantom-like" qualities to an object, whereby the human labour required to make that object is lost once the object is associated with a monetary value for exchange.

Marxist belief: a struggle between the working class and the ruling class, and that the working class are being controlled by the ruling class.
 Believe that the rich control the world to get the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Lacks anchorage

Détournement: Hijacking/culture jamming

Positioning: how a magazine positions its target audience in it's articles

Nihilistic/Nihilism: The belief that the world has no meaning and there is nothing to live up to

The mise-en-scene of the milk bottles, followed with the dark skin with a high-angle close-up suggests extreme poverty. And the fact we don't see the face is that a lot of people get affected by this or that it suggests that the whole of Africa is like this.

1. Low-quality image of the feet suggest low quality of life and poverty of Africa
2. the mise-en-scene of the unclean feet give a message about African people
3. By the grossness of the image, it suggests that the target audience are sympathetic
4. Stereotypes allow more people to relate to an image/scene
5. Criticising Loubouton
6. High-angle close-up shop makes us uncomfortable

• Binary opposition between luxury and blandness/death yet again
• left image connotes sadness  and the high-angle shot shows she is vulnerable
• The representation of wrinkled hands and tattoos is unconventional and not sexualised
• The preferred reading is that we are supposed to find this woman vulnerable
• The tattoos stereotype suggest she's not cultural capital but rather working class
• the frame also suggests the magazine is trying to cover the image as if this is what actual magazines try to cover in their photos.
• Magazine is highly polysemic, yet it lacks anchorage
• The entire double page spread is all hermeneutic
• Detourment is showing that zucchetti is cruel

• There is no attempt at a visual aspect in this article
• This makes you more concentrated on the text instead of anything to distract you
• It adopts this mode of address to make you think about what you read, stating that everything you do in your daily lives ruins the environment
• The title is attention grabbing- the effect may be that the audience may kill somebody
• Big issue for IPSO, potentially for people suffering from such examples as depression may do such a thing
• The faded, smashed-up title is a symbolic code of the world we live in is completely screwed
• "chapter 1" is very unconventional
• article adopts a sophisticated lexis mode of address, assumes that the audience is educated
• Positioning is a direct mode of address, the articles makess the audience have all the blame and guilt.
• language is emotional and blunt, not poetic. 
• It's nihilistic: belief in nothing 
• Nihilistic/Nihilism: The belief that the world has no meaning and there is nothing to live up to

Contextual Factors: Background information

ADbusters are against adverts, they believe that adverts are misleading and promote a false ideology, they also do not like the idea of consumerism 

For a magazine, adbusters doesn't show many text

Adbusters has a dark and controversial subject matter

Adbusters is only one of two texts that are not for profit

Curran and Seaton: Power and Media industries
There are a few different companies who own all of the other companies

• "Audiences are made"

Livingstone and Lunt: Regulations

The rules and regulations a media product must follow

IPSO- British

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Digital Convergence:


Buy Nothing Day

• Anti-consumerism
• Very difficult to do

• This page is an extract from a book
•  It is unconventional, it shows that there wasn't much commitment to the page
• but there are elements that are conventional such that it has a letters page 
• Adbusters is actually not as atypical as it's supposed to be
• Adbusters criticises big organisation
• Adbusters is produced 
• Non-profit organisation
• Propaganda reinforces beliefs we already have
• target audience is:
• liberal
• open-minded
• young adults
• middle-class wealthy aspirational audience