1. Pastiche – a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist
2. Parody – a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony
3. Bricolage – involves the rearrangement and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning
4. Intertextuality – one text/sign is referencing another
5. Metanarrative – how the media stories over a period of time.
6. Hyperreality – inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.
7. Simulacrum – not just a representation of the real, but the real itself
8. Conumerist Society –
9. Fragmentary Identities –
10. Implosion –
11. cultural appropriation –
12. Reflexivity –

Post modernism is a kind of philosophy/way of life and a way of seeing the world.

New expressions of identity and being are actually new iterations (versions) of previous expressions. Postmodernism as a complicated and fragmentary set of inter-relationships.

Shuker (talking about music videos) – their preoccupation with visual style, and associated with this, their status as key exemplars of ‘postmodern’ texts.’ (2001:167)

fragmentary, decentred nature of music videos that break up traditional understandings of time and space.

 ‘no longer able to distinguish ‘fiction’ from ‘reality’

Surface and style over substance

Richard Hoggart (Uses of Literacy). Lost our ‘Neighborhood Lives’ we are more concerned and centered around consumption

Fragmentary consumption = Fragmentary identities

Postmodernism is the development of fragmented, alienated individuals living (precariously) in fragmented societies.

Jean Baudrillard would describe as implosion which gives rise to what he terms simulacra.

A ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’ 

become more than a representation or simulation and it has become simulacrum not just a representation of the real, but the real itself.

an understanding of uncertain/certainty that Baudrillard terms the hyperreal.

Orientalism – Edward Said

The link between Culture, imperial power and colonialism.

“the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism”

“an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness“

‘an economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’ V. G. Kiernan

the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan We are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’

all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject

ISA stands for Ideological State Apparatus

we are socially constructed and what socially constructs us is ‘despite its diversity and contradictions . . . the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’

“Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way to ‘recruit’ subjects among individuals . . . through the very precise operation that we call interpellation or hailing“

Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth

“mechanics of colonialism and its effects of those it ensnared“

As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, Frantz Fanon took an active role, proposing the first step required for ‘colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity.

Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony

Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others

Hegemony is a struggle that emerges from negotiation and consent.

Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation

mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities

Paul Gilroy – is insistent that “we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.”

 Double Consciousness, derived from W. E. B. Dubois

“hybridity”, “ambiguity” and “cultural polyvalency”

How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? Refer to the close study products ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Letter To The Free’ in your answer

Narrative in music videos are important as it adds a story and structure to the music video. Vladimir Propp explains how each story has 7 main characters; the hero, the villain, the princess, the victim, the dispatcher, the false hero and the father. Todorov explains how each narrative should follow a structure of equilibrium, disruption and then new equilibrium.

Analysing the music video for Ghost Town, there is a clear equilibrium, disruption and new equilibrium. The music video starts with the band driving down a lone road with no cars around, giving it an eerie and ghostly feel. In the middle of the music video, the band drive the car uncontrollably, this may represent how the unemployment rate started spiraling uncontrollably. Then as we enter the last part of the music video we see the new equilibrium start to play out as the band has much more gentle approach with throwing rocks across the water, creating the feeling that the madness has passed and they are in a much more normal state of world.

Analysing Letter To The Free, the equilibrium would be the guy playing the piano alone, which symbolises a lone voice expressing their self. The disruption in the middle would either be the appearance of the black square which could symbolise an empty space/feeling, or it would be all the people joining in which shows a group chant of them expressing the same feelings. And then the new equilibrium would be the pianist going back to playing by himself with the mellow tune like he started out with.

Referring back to the question, I believe that narrative’s are very important when analysing music videos, this is due to being able to follow a clear story line and see a dilemma pop up, like an incident which affects a character or changes the mood of the story, and then having the final equilibrium which shows that the dilemma got resolved.

Representation of feminism

Happens at both a structural level and a textual level

Radical and reactionary

Toril Moi:

• Feminist – A political position
• Female – A matter of biology
• Feminine -A set of culturally defined characteristics

Laura Mulvey – Visual pleasure and narrative cinema

• Visual pleasure
• Signs of visual pleasure
• The male gaze
• Woman as image, Man bearer of the looks
• ‘The pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female
• Scopophilia – taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze.

Raunch Culture

• Performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality.

Time – how is it going to be organised? beginning, middle and end? linear, non-linear, sequential, circular, chronologically?

Space- how will each scene/setting fade into the next?

Theme – what is the theme of the video?

Narrative – this is the overall structure

Story – this is the overall theme

Plot – how you sequence everything

Equilibrium – wakes up , disruption – imagining doing things (parties etc), new equilibrium – wakes up again

Vladimir prop (character types and functions)- stock characters. hero, damsel in distress, princess etc. The stock characters have stock functions

Claude Levi-Strauss (binary oppositions) – one thing that connects groups connect people as they tell similar stories – about binary oppositions

Seymour Chapman (satellites and kernels) – kernels – if you remove something from a story it will not work (removing a main character or setting) – Satellites – if you remove/change something in a story it will not make a massive difference (changing the colour of a car)

 The War of The Worlds was broadcast in America by CBS radio, as part of The Mercury Theater’s ‘On the Air’ series. The broadcast is an early example of a hybrid as it mixes conventions from H.G Wells’ science-fiction story together with a News / Documentary type broadcast. Roughly 80% of households in the US owned a radio at the time. There was a drama performance of War of The Worlds which was adapted to sound like a present day, live broadcast with no intervals and only having one announcement at the beginning to warn listeners that it was a play and not a real broadcast.

 The broadcast employs cultivation theory by using the codes and conventions of genuine news reports multiple times to convince the listener that what they are listening to is actually real, while also exposing, in the vein of Barthes, how the professionalism of news reports does not mean they are more truthful or trustworthy than any other information source can be. 

At the time of the broadcast American citizens will have been very on edge considering the events happening in the world around them; the anticipation of a second world war. The broadcast became famous for allegedly causing mass panic among its listeners however, many doubt the scale of panic that was claimed to have been made as the radio channel have relatively few listeners.

The War Of The Worlds is a historically significant media product as it was an early idea of how the media can persuade and effect peoples thoughts and views on the world around them and can influence a person’s thoughts and feelings .  Even though people are more aware of the role the media plays, people are still susceptible to believing it. 

I really like this style of music video with the ideas based around bikers. With my chosen song being up beat and called driving fast I thought I’d interpret that into motorbikes and being on the road.

Having a GoPro and a number of mounts I can record from various angles from a close to the floor (wheel height) to my head height (attached to my helmet). With also having a group of friends who ride I can record different footage of different scenes, different bikes and a variation of group and solo rides to fit in with the song.

• Pastiche : this is an artistic work or style which is similar to the work of another time period or artist in which they may have drawn inspiration.
• Bricolage : this is where a traditional object or language is given a new and subversive meaning and context.
• Intertextuality : the relationship between texts – especially literary ones
• Implosion : happens when an organisation or a system suddenly fails and collapses.
• Cultural appropriation : is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of customs, ideologies and practices of a more typically more dominant society. Cultural appropriation is also called misappropriation.

I have been listening to this song a lot recently and have decided I would like to use it for my own music video.

With Morf being a street artist none of his versions of his song are the same.This version is the best he has done in my opinion, but with it being a live performance you can hear him thank people for giving money.

A version I did see on Spotify was of the same song but created slightly differently.

This is another song which I think could work, a cover of John Lennon’s Imagine.

This is another song I am thinking of using as the lyrics have a soul filling meaning and the beat for the beginning whilst being up beat has quite a mellow feel, which is perfect for my video idea with bikes, as you can start off chill and gentle and have parts which are exciting and hair raising.

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