I like the homemade feel of this video and the minimalism used of something so simple as her skating being the video but fits well with the song to tell the audience what the songs about.

I like the filter used for the video and light colour palette and home feel the video has almost VHS vibes

(Here’s the link to take you to the video on youtube because the blog sometimes says the videos unavailable for some reason)  ↓ 

• https://youtu.be/wI8fL77-0e0?t=7

The peach pit video has the perfect idea for representing headphones for the company, and gave me the idea to do a spin on the initial idea I had for the video, by changing the tone, to show the bits of lockdown that arn’t so bad. I think by doing this, it will make it stand out more to other students work. This means I’m going to need to find a more upbeat un-copyrighted sound track. I think going forward I could ask my friends to participate by filming themselves little vlogs or them doing activities that keep them happy in lockdown, whilst also show casing the headphones in snips of the video.

The peach pit video gave me the idea to give the music video more of a homemade feel, by not giving it a serious tone but more fun and goofy look to the video I can link it to a previous CSP’s like the maybelline “BOSS advert”. It shows that videos that are slightly more goofy, and fun can be more memorable and therefor can help sell the headphones better.

showing a music video of isolation in a pandemic with the main points showing not people being defeated and anxious at this time but how there stay remarkably strong and pulling together and even helping one another get through this. so showing how we are all doing the best that we can in a time where, the best thing they can do is stay at home is different, and I think its a positive, and good approach to show how the youth are coping at this time.

I can make the main idea for the video being. Yes, we are in isolation and, yes we can’t meet as easily as we used to. But we can still be connected and show the brighter sides from all of this. So our whole isolation situation won’t be only seen in a negative light, but how our youth used the internet and other activities to stay sane and make the most out of quarantine. By showing the positive points and showing that people adapted and are trying their best in this situation the video can be more relatable to the viewers. And also by showing people taking a breather from this chaotic time with little things that help them and keep them happy in my music video it can give a sense of calm and make people smile. maybe the message I can convey and highlight are how amazing teens and younger people are doing and coping with this pandemic.

Also by making a video with a more home made feel, it can make filming and editing a lot easier because me and my friends won’t need to stage so much of the shots or need amazing lighting or great acting skills. it gives me the ability to be more creative and have more fun with the video by taking this approach .

I changed my ideas for topic of isolation indoors to outdoor location because I think it can give me more to work with for the music video. Plus the outdoor location can give more of a desolate feeling.

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1. COLONIALISM-Occurs when a country or a nation takes control of other lands, regions, or territories outside of its borders (boundaries of the country) by turning those other lands, regions, or territories into a colony. Sometimes the words “colonialism” and “imperialism” are used to mean the same thing.
2. POST COLONIALISM-Is the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonised people and their lands.
3. DIASPORA-A diaspora is a large group of people with a similar heritage or homeland who have since moved out to places all over the world.
4. BAME-Is a term long used in the UK to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic people. Its origin derives from “political blackness”. An idea that various ethnic groups united behind to fight against discrimination in the 1970s. Now, more than 7.6 million people in Britain come under this category.
5. DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS (GILROY)-Double consciousness is a term describing the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonised groups in an oppressive society. It was coined by W. E. B.(William Edward Burghardt)
6. CULTURAL ABSOLUTISM / RACIAL ESSENTIALISM-According to Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen (1992), cultural absolutism is the idea that psychological phenomena, such as intelligence and honesty, do not differ from culture to culture: They are the same among cultures. The literature commonly defines racial essentialism as a belief in a genetic or biological essence that defines all members of a racial category.
7. CULTURAL SYNCRETISM-Is when distinct aspects of different cultures blend together to make something new and unique. Since culture is a wide category, this blending can come in the form of religious practices, architecture, philosophy, recreation, and even food. It’s an important part of your culture.
8. ORIENTALISM (SAID)-Refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident; the East and the West, respectively. Edward Said said that Orientalism “enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present.”
9. APPROPRIATION-The act of taking something such as an idea, custom, or style from a group or culture that you are not a member of and using it yourself: Theft is the dishonest appropriation of another person’s property
10. CULTURAL HEGEMONY-Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.
11. THE PUBLIC SPHERE (HABERMAS)-Jürgen Habermas says, “We call events and occasions ‘public’ when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs”. Jürgen Habermas defines ”the public sphere’ as a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens”.
12. THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN TERMS OF FAIR REPRESENTATION OF MINORITY GROUPS / INTERESTS– P.S.B’s role is to reflect multiple community interests and news, and different ethnicities and cultural background. to be all inclusive to there listeners.

Explain how representations used in Music Videos communicate information about their cultural and political contexts.

Music videos can convey a lot more subtly and or powerful messages that other forms of communication can’t. The political point, The Specials were trying to get across was, the experiences they observed whilst touring around England and the event happening around England in the 1980’s. In the 1980’s England experienced a recession in the industrial workplace. As a result, in 1981 the recession had left the country suffering badly, and unemployment increased immensely with It being estimated that over 3 million were unemployed in the UK around this time.

The video itself constitutes “eerie” and from my research a great quote that links to the idea of the song and music video is  Mark Fisher’s work, “The Weird And The Eerie”, to understand it. He wrote how,

The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or there is nothing present when there should be something.

Here, in a major capital city, where the streets should be teeming, there is no-one but The Specials, a group of young black and white men, from a depressed and demoralised Midlands town. They are in charge. 

As if to further underline this, the camera was placed on the car bonnet so we see The Specials as if they are crashing into us. And when they all sing “yah, ya ya, ya, yaah, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya…”, they seem like an insane Greek chorus, before Lynval Golding, the band’s rhythm guitarist and vocalist, murmurs the last line “the people getting angry”. The song fades out in dub reggae tradition, inconclusive, echoing.

The summer of 1981 saw riots in over 35 locations around the UK. In response to the linking of the song to these events, singer Terry Hall said, “When we recorded ‘Ghost Town’, we were talking about 1980’s riots in Bristol and Brixton. The fact that it became popular when it did was just a weird coincidence.” The song created resentment in Coventry where residents angrily rejected the characterisation of the city as a town in decline.

England was hit by recession and away riots were breaking out across its urban areas. Deprived, forgotten, run down and angry, these were places where young people, black and white, erupted. In these neglected parts of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool the young, the unemployed, and the disaffected fought pitch battles with the police. 

“Ghost Town” was the mournful sound of these riots, a poetic protest. It articulates anger at a state structure, an economic system and an entrenched animosity towards the young, black, white and poor. It asks,

“Why must the youth fight against themselves.”

The streets that The Specials conjure up in “Ghost Town” are inhabited by ghosts; dancing is a memory, silence reigns. The sounds of life, community, creativity are no longer, “bands don’t play no more”. In the song’s short bridge section in the bright key of G major, Hall asks us to,

“remember the good old days/before the ghost town/ when we danced and sang, and the music played in de boom town”.

Ways music videos create and communicates meaning using media language

opening scene is low camera angle of passing buildings, and street lamps. The weather helps contribute to the doom and gloom of the music video as its grey and cloudy.

Then the shot changes to the band in a car with an effect of passing light over the windsheild. the band members are shown quite apathetic as they take there turns to sing a line from the song.

the next few camera shots have more energy and movement involved as the song leads up to the chorus. the shots go from a shot of their car driving through a tunnel then the shot changes quickly to the driver swerving the wheel as the group sings ‘Non-lexical vocables’. This leads to a couple of short sharp shots switching between perspectives of being in the car and another shot done inside a car in front of the bands.

There is a lot of movement involved in this part of the song to convey in my opinion chaos. I think the producers of the music video did this, since a ghost town gives off the feeling of the feel of an apocalypse scenario , no society or civilisation to be found and with that it would also give off a more creepy atmosphere with no rules or laws.

as the song goes into its next verse the shot changes to the shadow of the bands car telling the audience its now night. the next few changing shots are dark shots of the car as it passes by the camera and then again another shot of the drive with his face only light by blue lighting to again tell the audience the mood of doom and gloom and now creepier factor of a ghost town

As the band starts singing the lyrics again they do a shot with interesting lighting choices by lighting only under their faces to give off more of an eerie tone. then the camera switches to different shots of the street lamp lit roads that the car is driving along and as the song leads back into the non lexical vocables, the scenes start get shorter and snappier showing fast driving scenes and the vocalists beginning to maniacally laugh with short switches between them and their car driving recklessly on the road and even dodging a turn into a wall.

Then the camera switches to a bright light and starts spinning with the bright lights flashing on screen. then the camera slowly and smoothly fades the bright lights to the windscreen again directed at on of the singers with a very monotone facial expression. and to lead to the final scene the camera start to do its spinning light affect to then finish on the shot of the band out of the car by the river thames throwing rocks into it. the band have a brief moment were they acknowledge the camera and pause what they are doing which gives of a great feeling of creepiness to the scene and then they go back to throwing rocks but getting slower and slower with more head turns to the camera until it fades to black.

Cultural, Social and Historical Background

• The tour for the group’s More Specials album in autumn 1980 had been a fraught experience: already tired from a long touring schedule and with several band members at odds with keyboardist and band leader Jerry Dammers over his decision to incorporate “muzak” keyboard sounds on the album, several of the gigs descended into audience violence. 
• The industrial workplace in 1981 in UK had left the city suffering badly and unemployment rates were at the highest level within the UK.
• it was known that in the UK unemployment was heading up to 3 million people
• The video’s locations include driving through the Rotherhithe Tunnel and around semi-derelict areas of the East End before ending up in the financial district of the City of London in the early hours of daylight on Sunday morning, where the streets were deserted as it was the weekend. The shots of the band in the car were achieved by attaching a camera to the bonnet using a rubber sucker: Panter recalled that at one point the camera fell off (briefly seen in the finished video at 1:18) and scratched the car’s paintwork, to the displeasure of the car’s owner. The original Ghost Town car can be seen (and sat in) at The Coventry Music Museum.
• the song is remembered for being a hit at the same time as riots were occurring in British cities
• In 2002 Dammers told The Guardian, “You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down … We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience. In Glasgow, there were these little old ladies on the streets selling all their household goods, their cups and saucers. It was unbelievable. It was clear that something was very, very wrong.”
• Jo-Ann Greene of Allmusic notes that the lyrics “only brush on the causes for this apocalyptic vision—the closed down clubs, the numerous fights on the dancefloor, the spiraling unemployment, the anger building to explosive levels. But so embedded were these in the British psyche, that Dammers needed only a minimum of words to paint his picture.^“ The club referred to in the song was the Locarno (run by the Mecca Leisure Group and later renamed Tiffanys), a regular haunt of Neville Staple and Lynval Golding, and which is also named as the club in “Friday Night, Saturday Morning”, one of the songs on the B-side. The building which housed the club is now Coventry Central Library.
•  As they travelled around the country the band witnessed sights that summed up the depressed mood of a country gripped by recession

The Specials-Ghost Town

Background Information/Facts

• Released 12th June 1981

•  Jo-Ann Greene of Allmusic notes that the lyrics “only brush on the causes for this apocalyptic vision.” —the closed down clubs, the numerous fights on the dancefloor, the spiraling unemployment, the anger building to explosive levels. 

• In an interview in 2011, Dammers explained how witnessing this event inspired his composition: “The overall sense I wanted to convey was impending doom”

• The song’s sparse lyrics address urban decay, unemployment and violence in inner cities.

• The group got ideas and inspiration from touring in the 1980s

• It was the last song recorded by the band before splitting up

• The song spent 3 weeks at No.1 and 10 weeks on the top 40 uk charts

• The band started in 1977 and broke up in 1981

• three of the major UK music magazines of the time awarded “Ghost Town” the accolade of “Single of the Year” for 1981

• The Specials record label/company was 2 Tone

• The video, directed by Barney Bubbles, consists of bass player Panter driving the band around London in a 1961 Vauxhall Cresta

• The video’s locations include driving through the “Rotherhithe Tunnel” and around semi-derelict areas of the East End before ending up in the financial district of the City of London in the early hours of daylight on Sunday morning, where the streets were deserted as it was the weekend.

First ideas for style model

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facts about the novel

War of the Worlds, a science-fiction novel by author HG(Herbert George) Wells, was first published in 1898. It is a story of alien invasion and war between mankind and an extra-terrestrial race from Mars.

(be spectical about what is on line about the radio broadcast)

orson wells

In 1938, the world was on edge as Germany mobilised to invade Europe and populations feared gas attacks from another world war. In the weeks leading up to the 1938 broadcast, American radio stations had increasingly cut into scheduled programming to bring news updates from Europe on the chances of war. This meant Welles’s use of radio news conventions had more of an impact on listeners who were unaware that it was a fictional radio play.

The novel is the first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon

The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It was most memorably dramatised in a 1938 radio programme that allegedly caused public panic among listeners who did not know the Martian invasion was fiction.

he novel has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert H. Goddard, who, inspired by the book, invented both the liquid fuelled rocketand multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 Moon landing 71 years later

it was a halloween special

stanley Cohen links with “moral panics”

fake devils and moral panics

he talks about that every time there is something new that’s bad blame the media

development of radio

fake media vs media studies

32 million people listening to that broadcast

history

Andrew crissell wrote a book about understanding radio. learning the languages of different media forms

“radio is a blind media”- crissell

“Ive always said you can’t understand the world without the media nor the media without the world”-Professor Natalie Fenton, quoted in Fake news vs Media Studies J. McDougall p.17 2019, Palgrave)

this csp tells us more about the meaning behind the idea

For many, the wider social, political, historical and cultural contexts are not just clearly connected to media studies but they are in some ways more important.

This is the last CSP and again features in SECTION 3, assessed by a long form answer to a broad question which will look to assess knowledge and understanding around all four elements of the Theoretical Framework (Language, Representation, Industries, Audience) although most likely the focus will be on Audience, Language (ie the Language of Radio) and technology.

he argues that fake news is nothing new and is a good thing to think about when talking about this csp (McDougall)

a great example of fake news or proper gander is war of the worlds

hard times are a breading ground for misinformation