Audience Theory

The Effects/Hypodermic Model:

• The original model for audience was the effects/hypodermic model which stressed the effects of the mass media on their audiences. This model owes much to the supposed power of the mass media to inject their audiences with ideas and meanings.
• Totalitarian states and dictatorships are similar in their desire to have complete control over the media, a way of controlling entire populations. An example of this the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will.
• The effects model has several variants and despite the fact that it is an outdated model it continues to exert influence in present debates about censorship and control in the media.
• A less theoretical variant of the effects model was developed in response to the violent content of certain TV programmes. Groups such as the National Viewers and Listeners Association took issue with TV output that was deemed to be explicitly sexual, too violent or in other ways offensive. Their concerns were for those vulnerable members of the population who could be corrupted as a result of such material.

Inoculation or Culmination Model:

• This theory suggests that long-term exposure to repeated media messages makes audiences 'immune' to them. Thus, for example, prolonged exposure to media violence would desensitise the audience and therefore might be more likely to commit a violent act.
• However there are many criticisms of mass audience theories, and one of the problems with the effects model, in whatever form, have to do with its roots in behaviourist psychology. The behaviourist explanation of human behaviour (Skinner and Pavlov) is looking increasingly hard to justify as we have come to develop a fuller understanding of the complexities of human behaviour, which is not predictable nor is it controllable. There are also the difficulties of linking cause and effect in terms of how we engage with media texts. The large number of studies that have been done do not prove the case conclusively either way.
• Other criticisms of this model centre on the stress that it places on the audience as passive, whereas newer models suggest that the audience is much more active than was initially supposed.
• Mass audience theory can also be seen as elitist. The theorists who are analysing the masses see them as easily led and less perceptive than themselves.
• A less extreme interpretation of this model is to note that the media, especially TV, can influence general perceptions about public events and social trends.
• This model, it seems, is something of an anachronism but it is constantly revived by politicians and social commentators when moral panics are generated around issues such as 'video nasties' and their influence on children, such as the Jamie Bulger case of 1993. Such concerns often try to scapegoat parts of media output as if these were the sole relevant factor in anti-social behaviour. This approach ignores the other factors that work as a mix to influence behaviour such as home, school, peers and social interaction.

The Two Step Flow:

• The idea of this theory is that whatever our experience of the media we will be likely to discuss it with others and if we respect their opinion, the chances are that we will be more likely to be affected by it. The theory calls these people opinion leaders.

Uses and Gratifications Model:

• A more recent model of audience is that of uses and gratifications, which suggests that there is a highly active audience making use of the media for a range of purposes designed to satisfy needs such as entertainment, information and identification. In this model the individual has the power and they select the media texts that best suit their needs and their attempts to satisfy those needs. The psychological basis for this model is the hierarchy of needs identified by Maslow. Among the chief exponents of this model are McQuail and Katz.
• The main areas that are identified in this model are:
• a) The need for information about our geographical and social world (news and drama)
• b) The need for identity, by using characters and personalities to define our sense of self and social behaviour (film and celebrities)
• c) The need for social interaction through experiencing the relationships and interaction of others (soap lives and sitcom)
• d) The need for diversion by using the media for purposes of play and entertainment (game shows and quizzes).
• A criticism of this model is the assumption is that audiences are always active. It does not take account of the fact that a viewer may watch a TV programme because they can't be bothered to turn it off. Similarly they might look at an advertising poster because there is no other around. They do not have the choice of a poster that satisfies their desire for a particular representation.

Reception Analysis:

• This can be seen as an extension of the uses and gratifications model. It concentrates on the audience themselves and how they come to a text. The idea is that the audience themselves help to create the meaning of text and this depends on their social values, such as gender, age, class and context of time in which we are living.

The Active Audience:

• Stuart Hall's reception theory suggests that audiences take either dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings of texts. It is a semiological approach because it recognises the importance of the analysis of signs, particularly visual signs, that shape so much of modern media output.
• Dominant: The reader recognises what a programme's referred meaning is and broadly agrees with it.
• Negotiated: The reader accepts, rejects or refines elements of the programme in the light of previously held views
• Oppositional: The dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons.
• This model also takes into account the idea that we can never consider one example of the media on its own. Understanding of one text may be affected by our knowledge of another, for example a tabloid article about a soap opera.
• Morley looked at audiences and found that there are clear differences in the uses that people made of the media in their everyday lives depending on gender. He found that men prefer factual programmes, while women prefer fiction. Also, men prefer watching the programmes extensively whereas women tended to be doing something else at the same time. Finally he found that if someone had control over what the family was watching it tended to be the man, often with the remote control in his hand.
• Still in line with the active audience idea is the concept of mode of address. This refers to the way that a text speaks to us in a style that encourages us to identify with the text because it is 'our' kind of text. For example Friends is intended for a young audience because of the way it uses music and the opening credits to develop a sense of fun, energy and enthusiasm that the perceived audience can identify with. This does not mean that other groups are excluded, merely that the dominant mode of address is targeted at the young. Mode of address can even be applied to entire outputs, as in the case of Channel Four which works hard to form a style of address aimed at an audience which is informed, articulate and in some ways a specialised one. Newspapers, too, often construct their presentation to reflect what they imagine is the identity of their typical readers.

The Ethnographic Model:

• The researcher enters into the culture of the group and uses questions and interviews to try to understand media engagement from the perspective of the group. What seems to be emerging from this work is:
• a) The focus on the domestic context of reception of media texts
• b) The element of cultural competence
• c) Technologies
• The engagement with the media is often structured by the domestic environment because of the domestication of entertainment and leisure. It appears that the home is not a free space and there are issues about finance for purchase of media goods, control of the remote, the gendered nature of watching TV and the 'flow' of TV that fits alongside or within a set of domestic relationships. So TV viewing may not be the concentrated, analytical business that some theorists suggest.
• The second area is best understood in terms of texts that can be identified as belonging to a genre that has gender appeal. For example, soaps are usually seen to have a strong female bias in viewing audience. There is a selection of competencies that are brought to such texts so knowing about cliff-hangers, the role of the matriarch or the fluid nature of character relationships simply adds to the pleasures associated with the text.
• Competencies even include the very expectations that you have for the text. The male preference for news and more factual forms can be seen as a feature of cultural competence because men occupy more public space than domestic space and therefore feel the need to be aware of the public worlds reflected in such texts.
• The third area identified relates to the way people engage with the hardware in order to enjoy the output of the media. There seems to be a strong gender divide here with computers and complex technology having a strong association with males. If present trends in technology continue then there is a real danger that just as our society is dividing along lines of information-rich and information-poor then there will be a further demarcation along gender lines. This explains why schools and TV programmes need to present positive gender representations and good practice that supports females and technological expertise.

Archer: How to Study Music Videos

Steve Archer constructs a list of 'Top Five Things to Look For' when defining the quality of a music video:

 

1. 'Thought Beats' or Seeing the Sounds in your Head:

• The idea of visualising images comes from the psychological process synaesthesia, where an individual pictures sounds in the mind's eye. This is central to understanding music videos as they build on the soundtrack's visual associations in order to connect with the audience and provide additional pleasure.
• Lyrics don't need to be analysed word for word like a poem but rather considered for the way they introduce a general feeling or mood. Very rarely do song lyrics have a coherent meaning that can be simply read off. So key phrases or lines, and especially those repeated in the chorus, will have a part to play in the kind of visuals associated with the song.
• Roland Barthes' theory of the 'grain of voice' is relevant. This sees the singing voice more as an expressive instrument, personal, unique to every singer and therefore able to create associations. The voice of a song may even possess trademarks that work hand-in-hand with the star image.
• Finally, if songs are stories, then the singer is the storyteller and this obviously makes music videos stand out, as they feature a first person mode of address rather than the invisible 'fourth wall' of television narration. Goodwin compares pop singers to stand-up comics in the way the personal trademark or signature dominates the performance. The music generally works with the lyrics and grain of voice, generally by looking at key sounds, like the tempo and structure of the song in terms of verse and chorus. We all share a memory bank of popular culture imagery, intertextuality, a sense of shared cultural history to aid references in music videos. Places, people, feelings and situations can be summoned from the sounds of popular music.

2. Narrative and Performance:

• Songs rarely tell complete narratives, the narrative fuzz in songs affects the way stories are used in music video representations of a song's meaning. So, often only suggestions of a story are shown, or a hint at some kind of drama unfolding.
• The music video's role in advertising provides another reason why music videos should avoid a classic realist narrative. Music videos need to have repeatability built in to them. We need to be able to watch them repeatedly in a more casual way, with a looser approach to their storytelling. Performance is usually considered more important. Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist's performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the 'repeatability' factor. Sometimes, the artist, especially the singer, will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-sync close-up and the mimed playing of instruments that remains at the heart of music videos.

3. The Star Image:

• The music business relies on the relatively few big name stars to fund its activities; it usually fails to connect with popular audiences - only about one in ten acts put out by the industry actually makes any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to play in the music video production process. Meta-narrative is a term that describes the development of the star image over time, the stories that surround a particular artist.
• Meta-narratives of star image are not simply a matter of manipulation, but a dialogue or negotiation of what the music business asserts about their star. Still, in each new video, the artist tries to regain control over their meta-narrative but they can't just switch off all the different associations they've accumulated during their career, whether good or bad. So music videos can best be seen as one of the most important ways that the image of the artist is 'managed'.

4. How Music Videos Relate Visuals to the Song:

• There are three ways in which music videos work to support or promote the song: illustration, amplification and disjuncture.
• Music videos can illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set of images. This is the most straightforward technique and the classic example of visualisation, with everything in the music video based on the source of the pop song.
• Amplification is seen as the mark of the true music video 'Auteur' or author, and an increasingly common way to view music video creatives. Crucially, though, and what separates it from disjuncture, is the fact that amplification music videos retain a link with the song and work to enhance or develop ideas, rather than fundamentally changing them.
• Disjuncture is a term used to describe those music videos that, normally intentionally, seem to work by ignoring the original song and creating a whole new set of meanings. This is quite a radical technique and used by arty bands in order to assert their difference and originality. Usually, disjuncture videos of this type don't make a lot of sense and may be based on abstract imagery. Sometimes though, disjuncture videos are just bad, ill-conceived and self-indulgent mistakes.

5. Technical Aspects:

• The last really essential aspect of music video to study is technical. Broadly, the technical conventions can be summed up as follows:
• 1. Speed: Speed is visualised by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and digital effects. Camera movement is often motivated by running, dancing and walking performers. Fast-cutting and montage editing creates a visually decentred experience necessary for music video consumption, with the images occasionally moving so fast that they are impossible to understand on first viewing and thus need to be viewed several times, repeatability. Post-production digital effects, a staple of music video where images can be colourised, multiple split screens appear, and so on, all to complicate and intrigue, providing pleasure again and again. Not all camera movement is about speed though and some use slow pace through dissolves or static shots. This kind of editing is striking and effective in setting the song apart from the hustle and bustle of most pop activity.
• 2. Meat: The meat of most music videos is the cut to the close-up of the singer's face. This is because the voice is seen as the most important part of pop music.
• 3. Beats: Often, the video will try and represent the music through the use of the cut to go with the beat or key rhythm.
• 4. Lighting and Colour: This may also be used to emphasise key moments in the song, using methods from lighting live performances for dramatic effect. Colour may be used to show a development in the song, going from colour to black and white or vice versa when the chorus comes in. Equally, any change in the mise-en-scene or camerawork can signal the same type of thing.
• 5. Mise-en-Scene: The setting for music videos is important, often to guarantee the authenticity of the clip rather than anything else. So mise-en-scene for many music videos is the concert hall or rehearsal room to emphasise the realness of the performance or the grit and practice that goes into attaining star quality. Increasingly, CGI is used, especially for dance songs, which don't rely so much on being 'real' like rock, soul and rap acts.

References:

Steve Archer, Music Television 2: How to Study Music Videos, (MediaMagazine, 7 February 2004)

Goodwin: Key Features of the Music Video Form

Goodwin identifies a number of key features, which distinguish the music video as a form:

1. Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (with visuals either illustrating, amplifying, contradicting the lyrics).

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (with visuals either illustrating, amplifying, contradicting the music).

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs (or star iconography) which reoccur across their work (and over time becomes part of their star image)

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)

References:

Andrew Goodwin, Dancing in the Distraction Factory, (Routledge, 1992)

Fraser: Code and Conventions of a Music Video

Camerawork:

• How the camera is used and how images are sequenced will have an impact upon meaning.
• Camera movement can accompany those of the performers or emphasis them, to create a more dynamic feel.
• The close up predominates, partly due to the size of the screen and to create a more intimate experience for the viewer.
• John Stewart of Oil Factory: The music video essentially has the aesthetics of the TV commercial, with lots of close ups and lighting being used most prominently for the star's face.

Editing:

• Most common form is fast cut montage, ensuring multiple viewings in order to catch all of the details
• There are videos that use slow pace and gentler transitions to establish moods. This is more apparent for female solo artists with broader audience appeal, such as Dido.
• Digital effects are used to enhance the editing, playing with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.
• These may take the forms of split screens, colourisation and Computer Generated Imagery (CGI).

Star Image:

• Richard Dyer: 'A star is an image constructed from a range of materials'. (1979)
• For pop music these materials include the songs, the record covers, media coverage, live performance and arguably most significantly the music videos.
• Each video may also draw upon its predecessor, reinforcing the star's image and taking the image further, perhaps in new ways.

Voyeurism:

• The idea originates from Freud and has been used greatly in Media Studies, particularly in explaining the gendered pleasures of cinema.
• It refers to the idea of looking in order to gain sexual pleasure.
• Laura Mulvey: Male gaze, people in media are prominently male, leading to the objectification of women.
• The female on display has been a staple element through music videos, from Scopitones to Duran Duran and beyond.
• Goodwin: The female performer will frequently be objectified, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star. In male performance, the idea of voyeuristic treatment of the female body is often apparent with the use of dancers as adornments flattering the male star ego.
• The idea becomes more complex when we see the male body on display and we might raise questions about how the female viewer is invited to respond.
• Also, the powerful independent artists of recent years, from Madonna onwards, have added to the complexity of the gaze by being at once sexualy provocative and apparently in control.

Intertextuality:

• Music Videos can often be described as 'postmodern'.
• If music promos are seen frequently drawing upon existing texts in order to spark recognition from the audience, then this can be considered intertextuality.
• Not all audiences will necessarily spot the reference and this need not massively detract from their pleasure in the text itself, but is often argued that greater pleasure will be derived by those who know the reference and are somehow flattered by this.
• It is perhaps not surprising that so many music videos draw upon cinema as a starting point, since their directors are often film school graduates looking to move on eventually to the film industry itself. From Madonna's 'Material Girl' (Mary Lambert 1985, drawing on 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend') to 2Pac and Dr Dre's 'California Love' (Hype Williams 1996, drawing on 'Mad Max') there are many examples of cinematic references too, as in The Beastie Boys' spoof cop show titles sequences for Sabotage (Spike Jonze 1994) or REMs recent news show parody 'Bad Day' (Tim Hope 2003).
• John Stewart: Sees visual reference in music video coming from a range of sources, though the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography. For the near future, he suspects that the influence of video games will predominate for the younger audience with the more practised look of characters emerging.
• 'Incorporating, raiding reconstructing'

Narrative and Performance:

• Narrative in songs in rarely complete, more often fragmentary, as in poetry.
• This also applies to music promos, which more often suggest storylines or offer complex fragments of them in non-linear order.
• This leaves the viewer with the desire to see it again if only to catch the bits missed on first viewing.
• Steve Archer: 'Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist's performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the 'repeatability' factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-synch close-up and the miming of playing instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it'. (2004)
• The video allows the audience access to the performer in a much greater range of ways than a stage performance could. Eye contact and facial gestures via the close up, role playing through the narrative and mise-en-scene will present the artist in a number of ways which would not be possible in a live concert.

References:

Pete Fraser, Teaching Music Video, (BFI 2004)

Shot Count Analysis

Track: (Whistle While I) Work It

Artist(s): Chester See, Wayne Brady and Toby Turner

Director: Timothy Kendall                              

Release Date: 25 July 2013

 

Length of video: Song 4:24, (entire video 4:37)

Number of shots in entire video: 235

Average length of shot: 0.55 seconds

 

Number of shots in 30 second segment (0:46-1:01):

 

Shot No.	Shot Type	Shot Length	Description	Transition
1 (0:46)	Mid	½ second	Toby Turner marches forwards, lip synching and waving the flyer around.	Straight Cut
2	Tracking, left	½ second	Turner leads the group, at the far left of the frame, with their backs facing the camera. He raises the flyer.	Straight Cut
3	Mid	1 second	The manager turns around to see the flyer that is presented to him, Turner’s arm seen in the far right of the frame.	Straight Cut
4	Mid	1 second	Turner lip synching, group behind him, signalling towards the flyer in his hand to match the lyrics.	Straight Cut
5	(Closer) Mid with slight pan	2 seconds	The manager looks at the flyer then at the group carrying an unhappy expression.	Straight Cut
6	Close-up	½ second	Turner continues justifying.	Jump Cut
7	(Closer) Mid with slight tracking right	1 and ½ seconds	Turner turns to his friends, as his substitute for ‘ladies’.	Straight Cut
8	Close-up	1 second	Manager looking tired at the boys’ attempts of queue jumping.	Straight Cut
9	Close-up	½ second	Man closing the barrier.	Straight Cut
10	Close-up	1 second	Bouncer shoos away and points the boys to the back.	Straight Cut
11	Mid	1 and ½ seconds	The group look up from the closed barrier at the bouncer in frustration	Straight Cut
12	Close-up	1 second	Manager does a flicking motion at the boys pointing them to the back of the queue.	Straight Cut
13 (1:01)	Mid, tracking pan right	2 second	The group protest whilst Turner lip synchs the lyrics in a very expressive manner.	Straight Cut



 

From this process I have learnt that music videos can be constructed from very fast and frequent cuts, and a variety of shot types. I will try to incorporate this into my own music video.