Music Channels

Music channels, also known as 'music television' is a programme which features on TV, focusing mainly on playing music videos from bands and also artists, this can be used as a form of promotion, and entertainment. A majority of the time each music channel will host their own competitions, which may feature prizes such as free gig tickets, signed instruments, or the chance the meet the artist/band. They also hold and put together their own charts, this usually involves listing the top 40 selling singles, albums, or even artists of the genre in which the channel belongs to. One of the top music channels being MTV, which is now also known for hosting TV shows too, and less music videos. 

MTV
MTV was originally known as Music Television, before being shortened down to the three simple initials which everyone knows it as today. The American based channel was launched in 1981, and owned by the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. In the channel's early years it's original purpose was to play music videos guided by television personalities, at this point the channels main target demographic was young adults. Whereas now in modern day MTV, the channel is aimed at young adolescents instead of young adults. MTV became famous as it played music videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As television programmes were becoming shown on the channel, less and less music was being played on the channel - which led to other spin off channels such as MTV hits. As well as this the the company upgraded the variation of MTV, by creating a website for the channel which then led to the audience being able to watch the music videos online in both America and the United Kingdom. 

Video Music Awards
In 1984, the channel produced it's first MTV Video Music Awards, or as everyone else knows it, the VMA's. The awards ceremony was originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards. The annual MTV Video Music Awards ceremony has often been nicknamed as the "Oscars for youth", an acknowledgement of the VMA ceremony's ability to draw millions of youth from teens to 20's each year. The statue which is given to the award winners, is of an astronaut placing an MTV flat on the moon. When it comes to the awards, they are given for many different reasons such as, Best Music Video, Best Live Performance, Best Single, and also Best Album. Madonna was the first people to win an award on the show, after she performed her hit song 'Like A Virgin' live on the awards show. She also has a record when it comes to the VMA's for winning 20 awards, that's more than any other artist has ever won for this. The awards ceremony takes place every year. Some of the current award categories are:

• Video of the Year
• Best Male Video
• Best Female Video
• Best New Artist
• Best Pop Video
• Best Rock Video
• Best Hip-Hop Video
• Best Collaboration
• Best Direction
• Best Choreography
• Best Visual Effects
• Best Art Direction
• Best Editing
• Best Cinematography
• Best Video with a Social Message
• Best Song of the Summer
• Best Latino Artist
• Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award

Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award

The Video Vanguard Award, also known as the Lifetime Achievement Award is giving to musicians who have made a large scale effect on the MTV culture. The award was renamed in 1991 as the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award from then on. The award is given to music video directors who have created some of the most popular and acclaimed music videos in MTV history. Some of the recipients for the awards were/are:

• David Bowie
• Madonna
• George Michael
• Janet Jackson
• Guns N' Roses
• Beastie Boys
• Duran Duran

Best Rock Video

The MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video was first given out in 1989, and it was one of the four original categories added to the VMA's that year. That year, thought, the award as called Best Metal/Hard rock Video, and in 1996 the award was once again renamed Best Hard Rock Video. Finally in 1997 the award gained its present more general name, as after 1998, acts would have previously been eligible for the Best Alternative Video award. Aerosmith is both the biggest winner, and also the biggest nominee in this category, having been nominated a record eight times for this award, and winning four of these. Another few winners of the award were/are:

• Guns N' Roses
• Limp Bizkit
• Korn
• Linkin Park
• Green Day
• AFI
• Foo Fighters
• Thirty Seconds to Mars

This is the music video in which Limp Bizkit won an award for. The video won as it contradicts the average conventions of a rock video, and also follows it follows them in other scenes. For some of the scenes, the band is shown 'cruising' down a street in a car they just stole, which matches one of the stereotypes of the genre, as they're often classed as misbehaved, and thieves. 

Ancillary Texts - Illustration Album Artwork

Lady Gaga - Applause (lighting)

Although none of the Lady Gaga songs match the genre in which I am using for my music video, I am fascinated by the aspect of lighting within her videos, especially this music video for the song 'Applause'. My main interest being in the black and white parts of her music video, where the background is completely black yet she is still shown in clear view, without any of the lighting affecting her features, or blocking out some of the visuals when it comes to her movements. Although some of these effects will need special equipment which I cannot afford, I would love to experiment with a cheaper kind of feature, when it comes to filming the original video. As when it comes to filming the video in black and white, it may have a better effect than filming the video in colour - or at least for a majority of the video. As some parts could feature colour, just as the above Lady Gaga video also does. 

Test Shots

These three videos were experiments when it came to filming ideas when it came to the music video. Although there is a lack of lighting within the videos, I also like the effect which has been created by there being a lot of light at one side of the side, and no light at the other. The way the face is shown half light, and half shadowed relates back to the genre and effect of the song chosen for my music video. Although the model had a lack of preparation when it came to learning the lyrics for the test shots, he will be ready and will have learnt them when it comes to the actual music video - as well as other members. Another fault with these videos is the way the camera keeps losing focus and then gaining it once again, this effect will also not be happening when it comes to the music video being filmed. The face paint in this has a nice effect as it shows the parts of his face, which wouldn't have been shown if the model had his original skin tone showing. Another effect which I favour within these test shots is the red wall as the background, as it can connote danger - matching the war paint on the model's face which in my opinion is a decent combination. 

Face Paint Tutorial

This video features myself face painting one of the models which will be featuring in my music video, although the idea of my characters in the music video having their face painted isn't important. I did want to experiment with the idea of giving the characters a different look, almost making them unrecognisable. During this video, I first started off with a single coat of white paint, then letting it dry and re-coating the face one more with white paint. This making the white more vibrant against his skin tone, and also more obvious when looking at the face. After this, I mixed a white paint with a black paint to create a silver coloured grey paint - this then being placed on the eyelids, and around the eyes. Adding a more worn down and almost dead effect to the character being painted on. Once there, I then added "war paint" which throughout history has always being considered as threatening. This effect is helpful, as it relates to the powerful effect in which the song 'All I Want' is considered to have - this helping the mise-en-scene relate back to the lyrics being used in the music video. For the war paint, I added two large black tear drops on each cheek, before drawing a line which separates at the bridge of the nose before spreading down into two separate lines down the rest of the nose. From there I also added another line on the chin, to add to the symmetry of the design (war paint). After the video cuts out, I also added another layer of white paint onto the skin to brighten it up and make it more vibrant once again. 

Final Outcome:

I am proud with the final outcome as it came out with the effect in which I wanted to have. That effect being that at first the face paint is not threatening at all, although after staring at it for a while it seems to have an effect which can get to an audience, and almost intrigue them. With the extra white coat which was added after the video has finished, it gives off a more vibrant effect on the model's face. As well as the grey around the eyes making the colour of his iris' more vibrant and bold against the make-up, once again intriguing the audience as having brightly coloured eyes is not considered as natural. 

Tim O'Sullivan - Ideology

Tim O'Sullivan (1998) created the term ideology, which refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. Ideology involves a widely held ideas or beliefs which are seen as 'common' sense and becomes accepted by society. Ideology helps us to make judgments about the world and the different views people have within it. It can also be argued, and is one mechanism by which a ruling group tries to deceive and control the ruled.

More about Ideology
Ideology implies that a powerful group can choose how and what messages are leaked to the media, and how that society view these people/messages in certain ways because of expectations. An example would be that the powerful want black people to be represented as gang members which have negative connotations, because they have the power to feed this ideology to society, and believe it to be true as this is what the society are told by the more powerful groups who control the media. Ideology is controlled, the audience have to consume their opinion to be the right one, as the audience have no control. 

Terry Eagleton
Terry Eagleton said "Nobody has yet come up with a single adequate definition of ideology."
Eagleton may be right as far as the wording of the concept of ideology is concerned. However, scholars generally agree on the social nature of ideology: it is about social relations, consciousness, and power struggle which play important parts in carrying out ideological objectives.

Ideology and Society
Because of Ideology we have ideas about the world that we live in. Because the media is so powerful it can control what and how ideas are portrayed to an audience/consumer. The more powerful you are in society, the more control you have over how messages are given to an audience.

Richard Dyer - Understanding Representations

Richard Dyer is a representation theorist who studied the representation in media, and looked at how media texts represent themselves within society, and also an audience. He closely studied the ideological and historical significance of film stars, and also looked at the media in general. "How we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them. How we see them comes from representation."

Dyer created a set of questions that are considered when studying representations in general:

• What sense of the world is it making?
• What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
• Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
• What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?

Representations
Representation enables us to understand a media text. It allows us to be able to categorise the ideology of the text to give us meaning. With out representations texts would be meaningless, without representations text would have no messages. Without it texts would also not be able to translate a narrative to an audience, and without this there is no denotation.

Two Step Flow Theory

Origin of the Theory
The study of the 1940 election campaign. In 1940, Lazarsfled, Berelson, and Gaudet conducted the first full-scale investigation of the effects of political mass communication. Their research focused on the 1944 Presidential election campaign and their findings were published in 1944, in The People's Choice more research had been conducted.

The Importance of Social Influence
Their research was originally based on the simplistic hypodermic needle model of media influence, whereby it was assumed that a message would be transmitted from the mass media to a 'mass audience', who would absorb the message. Lazarsfeld's investigations suggest that media effects were minimal, and that audiences did not respond to a campaign as such but were more influenced by a person they knew or an opinion leader. The conception of a 'mass audience' was inadequate and misguided due to individuals having opinions towards a message. Social influences had more of an effect on the process of opinion information and limited the media's effect. The research found that we are more likely to respond to people we trust and know.

Limited Effects
The study by Lazarsfeld concluded that only 5% of people changed their voting behaviour as a result of media messages. Audiences exposure to election broadcasts turned out to be a relatively poor predictor of their voting behaviour, especially when compared with other factors such as their personal communication with friends, union members, business colleagues and the political tradition they were raised up in. This view of media effects was confirmed in a variety of other investigations demonstrating that as individuals we are more likely to consume something if it is recommended by friends or family, or people the audience knows. For example, they are influenced by what they watch or listen to.

Tessa Perkins

Stereotyping is not a simple process and contains a number of assumptions that can be challenged. Tessa Perkins (1979) identifies five assumptions, which are;

• Stereotypes are not always negative (for example; The French are good cooks)
• They are not always about minority groups or the less powerful (e.g 'upper class twits')
• They can be held at one's own group
• They are not rigid or unchanging
• They are not always false

Tessa says that stereotyping is not a simple process. She identified that some of the many ways that stereotypes are assumed to operate simply aren't true. As society changes it's hard for stereotypes to change as they stick in society. Not all stereotypes are bad, not all good and the audience categorise themselves.
Stereotypes are always usually wrong in content. They are negative concepts a majority of the time. They are about groups with whom the audience have little or no social contact with; by implication, they're not held about ones own group - that's a stereotype of a stereotype.
They are about minority repressed groups, yet they are more than often simple. People either 'hold' stereotypes of a group, meaning they believe them to be true, or they don't. Because someone holds a stereotype of a group, his or her behavior towards a member of that group can be predicted. Stereotypes are an invaluable aid to understanding the world, and all the stereotypes must have a bit of truth or they would not have such an influence.

John Berger

John Berger analyses how men and women are culturally represented. In "Ways of Seeing" Berger claims that the representations of men and women in visual culture entice different 'gazes', different ways in which they are looked at. He states that 'men act women appear, men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at'. The woman is usually posed in a way to please the viewer and the audience, her gaze is meant to entice the viewer, and this notion is the same in modern day advertisements and photographs. Berger states that a women unconsciously acts in a way knowing she is being viewed. Women are constantly surveyed, and not only by men, but other women too, and also by themselves.

More about Way's of Seeing
John Berger's "Way's of Seeing" is an in depth look on art, the way people view it and the influences that traditional oil paintings have had on society and modern day publicity. A lot of famous artists from hundreds of years ago, mainly during the French revolution painted naked women, either looking at the audience, or glancing through the corner of their eye. This intriguing the audience, due to the way she is looking, and also for the lack of clothing.
John Berger looked at art and how historic paintings have adapted to modern day imagery and ideologies. Images are the most powerful communicator that exist. There are things that people cannot describe in words, but that images can illustrate and explain. The power images have also mystifies viewers. An example of this is the old saying "A picture is worth a thousand words."

Berger states that women were 'depicted in a different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator is always assumed to be male, and the image of the women is designed to flatter him'. Jib Fowles states 'in advertising males gaze and females are gazed at' (1996)
This shows that both Mulvey and Berger feel that women are the objects for men to look at, desire and seek pleasure from. An example of this being used in modern day culture, is in a lot of modern music videos, a prime example being Rihanna - Pour It Up.




The video features Rihanna, and several other women wearing hardly anything at all, and performing seductive dance moves - this being used to gain the males attention to the video, and also Rihanna's music. As well as this, it also gains the attention of females, either those that like other women, and also those who wish to be like Rihanna, and have her body/looks.

Paul Messaris (1997)
Paul Messaris says female models in ads addressed to women 'treat the lends as a substitute for the eye of an imaginary male onlooker'. Adding that it could be argued that when these women look at these ads, they are actually seeing themselves as a man might see them.
This argument by Messaris is saying that women know what they are portraying and that they are able to view themselves as how men want to perceive them to be in control of their desirability. 
Women and sex are used profusely in advertisement since it appeals to both women and men. Men want the women and the sex, and the women want to be the women within the advertisements. This study looks at and compares how women in the media industry are used to the exact purpose that female nudity was used in traditional oil paintings. To be looked at, desired, envied and to be seen as desirable women, not only by men but also by other women.

 'Such ads appear to imply a male point of view, even though the intended viewer is often a woman. So the women who look at these ads are being invited to identify both with the person being viewed and with an implicit, opposite sex viewer'

This demonstrates that women are aware of the choices they make, and are making these statements for a reason. The example images above, show modern day album covers by Rihanna, Batforlashes, and also Nicki Minaj. Rihannah and Nicki being well known for hardly wearing in clothing, and also for showing off a lot of their bodies in both music videos and the real world.

Laura Mulvey - Feminism

Laura Mulvey is the creator of the theory of the 'Male Gaze' (1975). She looks at how the audience view people who are presented in the media. The Male Gaze typically focuses on emphasising the curves of the female body, referring to women as objects rather than people. It also focuses on the display of women, and how men think they should be perceived, as well as female views, viewing the content through the eyes of a man.

The Male Gaze describes how the audience or viewer is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male. The concept of 'the gaze' is one that deals with how an audience views the people/person presented. An example of this is the recent look and behaviour of Miley Cyrus, and how she has gone from dressing respectively, to dress in short and clingy clothing, and also showing off a lot more of her body. 

Mulvey states that in film women are classed as objects, rather than the possessors this is displayed by the control of the camera. The camera uses particular movements to perceive the women in an idealistic view. Some women may disagree with this use of camera yet others may feel liberated. 

The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual man, for example, it lingers over the curves of a woman's body. The man emerges as the dominant power within the created film fantasy. The woman is passive to the active gaze from the man. An example of this is a majority of music videos which are shown on TV, and how the camera objectifies the women by focusing on the areas of the body in which would expect to see the males gazing at, breasts, bottom, etc.

Mulvey also states that the female gaze is the same as the male gaze because women look at themselves through the eyes of men.

A feminist may see the male gaze as either an expression of unequal power between gazer and gazed, or as a conscious or subconscious attempt to develop that inequality, men are more powerful therefor it is okay to objectify. Summarising the women is displayed for the male gaze to provide pleasure in a sexual way (voyeurism). However women may want to be objectified and find this empowering. This objectification is a running theme in music videos, and within all media elements.

Binary Opposites

Levi Strauss (1958) came up with the idea of binary opposites. He believed that we understand words not solely based on their meaning they directly contain, but of our understanding of the opposites they reflect, hense 'binary opposites'. The ideas of these terms are culturally constructed. Our understanding of the word 'hero' depends on our understanding of the word 'villain'. Within the media world, binary opposites are used on a frequent basis. They are usually the basis of our understand of a story as it is a conventional narrative and enables an equilibrium. Binary opposites are used in films to help plots, they are also used in music videos are part of a narrative to re-inforce song lyrics. Levi Strauss' theory links heavily with our ideological values of how we feel we should 'perceive' the world.

Why use binary opposition?
This theory enables us to have an understand of a narrative before it has even begun. Representations re-present themselves to an audience to assure an understand, meaning and recognition from a text is understood. Having opposites within a text enables climax and interest. However more recently this can be challenged for example; in Lady Gaga's music videos' Judas, or films that have a narrative with no clear protagonist/antagonist. 

Marxism - Theory Representation

Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German philosopher who believed that material goods are at the root of the social world. He said that dominant classes create dominant ideology: how culture is constructed in a way that enables the groups holding the power to have maximum control with the minimum conflict. His theory looks at how society is built in 'classes' and argues that lower classes cannot better themselves and that upper class people are the powerful and control ideological views put to society.

His idea/theory..

He stated that power was held by a minority group known as the 'elite' or the 'bourgeoisie'. He said that these people have access to capital and because of this they could use their money and power and keep within their group to make more wealth. He said that the majority of the population (the average public) the 'mass' or 'proletariat' had their labour to help them make a living. Marx stated because of this industrialization, the elite were the only ones who had access to means of production.

Because the elite help the money and the power it meant that the mass were dependent on the elite, the elite took advantage of this power and to maximize their own profits and accountability they need to get as much labour for as little money possible. Because the workers were dependent on the elite for resources and money the elite group needed the mass of people to accept their role as powerless workers. This basically means the rich are powerful and have lots of money and the rest of the public work for the rich to be able to earn a living, the public have to accept their role in society. They use the public to make money, and if they don't do it, then they have no role or purpose.

How can this theory be used in the media?

Mediation of media can relate back to this theory in a way that the people who are rich, and also hold ideological power. Therefore they can present messages to the word in ways they want people to perceive. The media can control messages and what is shown to give messages about groups of people within certain classes. For example, the ideologies of reality TV shows. 

Uses and Gratifications model

Blumler and Katz 1974
The 'Uses and Gratifications' model represented a change in thinking, as researchers began to describe the effects of the media from the point of view of audiences. The model looks at the motives of the people who use the media, asking why they watch the television programmes that they do, why they bother to read newspapers and magazines, and also why they find themselves so compelled to keep up to date with their favourite TV shows, and soap operas.
Blumler and Katz argued that the audience needs have social and psychological origins, which generate certain expectations about and within the mass media, leading to differential patterns of media exposure. This resulted in both the gratification of needs and in other (often unintended) consequences. This does assume an active audience making motivated choices.

Explaining the model
The idea behind the model is that people are motivated by a desire to fulfill, or gratify certain needs. So rather than asking how the media uses us, the model asks we use the media. The nmodel is broken down into four different needs:

• Surveillance
• Personal Identity
• Personal Relationships
• Diversion

Surveillance
The surveillance need is based around the idea that people will feel better having the familiar feelings that they know, and what is going on in the world around them. The surveillance model is all about awareness. We use the mass media to be more aware of the world, gratifying a desire for knowledge and security. We can associate to the dominant messages of conforming via the dominant ideologies given in media texts such as music videos.

Example: Blink 182 - All The Small Things



Blink 182 are a band that have been around for longer than a decade, and are still creating iconic and popular indie/punk music. Yet their most famous song, is All The Small Things. Even people who aren't fans of the band, always know this one song. The music video tot he song is also iconic, and an insult to those boy bands of a mainstream genre. In the music video, Blink 182 take the 'mick' out of several boyfriends who were around at the time. To do this, the band dressed up in ridiculous outfits, such as combat whilst dancing with other women. Another iconic scene being when one of the band members is being windswept by a fan, pulling faces at the camera. In which the video when zooms out to show the band member sitting on the toilet, grabbing hold of some toilet roll. The video became instantly famous, and also an outrage for some as it insulted those of a mainstream genre - as well as this, it also discussed topics around at the time within the music industry.

Personal Identity
The personal identity need explains how being a subject of the media allows us to re-affirm the identity and positioning of ourselves within the society. The use of the media for forming personal identity can be seen in music videos and also films. Pop stars can often become big role models, inspiring young children everywhere. This is also why there is such an outcry when one of them does something wrong. An example of this being the time when Justin Bieber was photographed smoking drugs, and his fans became heart broken and began self harming. This became a trending phase upon twitter, which then lead to more and more fans doing the exact same thing.

Personal Relationships
This section comes in two parts: Relationships with the Media, and Using the Media Within Relationships.
We can form a relationship with the media, and also use the media to form a relationship with others. Many people use the television as a form of companionship. This may seem sad, but think about how many times you've watched the TV on your own, or with the other people (family or friends) in silence. The television is often quite an intimate experience, and by watching the same people on a regular basis we can often feel very close to them, as if we even know them. When presenters or characters in a soap die, those who have watched that person a lot in a TV show, often grieve and become emotional when the character is gone, it almost feels as though they've lost a friend.

Pink
An example of growing with a character or artist, is the artist Pink. A lot of people were listening to her music when she first started off with early songs such as Family Portrait. Which was a video about the stories of her life, from when she was a little girl up until this song was released.

Since then, Pink has released more music videos, yet all of them have meaning to either her life, or at least the narrative/meaning within the lyrics. This allowing an audience to grow, as she does, as well as letting the audience in on her personal life, and what she has been through.

The more we watch the same personalities, the more we feel we get to know them. Reality TV shows such as Big Brother, or I'm a Celebrity give us such a feeling of intimacy with the participants that they can become a part of our lives. Even though the relationship is completely one-sided, it's easy to see how we can fall in love with TV personalities.

Using the Media Within Relationships
Another aspect to the personal relationships model is how we can sometimes use the media as a board to form and build upon relationships with real people. Having a favourite TV programme in common can often start a conversation, and can even make talking to strangers much easier. Some studies suggest that some families use sitting around watching the television as a stimulant for conversation, talking to each other about the programme, the characters, or related anecdotes whilst it is on.

Diversion
The diversion need describes what's commonly termed as escapism - watching the television so we can forget about our own lives and problems for a while and think about something else instead. We watch music videos to take our mind off our every day lives, we want to distract ourselves from the problems we are experiencing. We want to see that people experience the same feelings as we do, and want to forget about our own problems and focus on someone else's. 

Criticisms
The researcher Ian Ang also criticized Uses and Gratifications approach in three aspects:

• It is highly individualistic, taking into account only the individual psychological gratification derived from media use. The social context of the media use tends to be ignored. This overlooks the fact that some media use may have nothing to do with the pursuit of gratification - it may be forced upon the audience for example.
• There is relatively little attention paid to media content, researchers attending to why people use the media, but less to what meanings they actually get out of their media use.
• The approach starts from the view that the media are always functional to people, and may thus implicitly offer a justification for the way the media are currently organized. 

Audience types

There are numerous factors that effect whether we take the dominant, oppositional or negotiated reading. These factors are:

• Life experience
• Mood at the time of viewing
• Age
• Culture
• Beliefs
• Gender
• Sexuality

Reception Theory -

This theory is an active audience theory, which means the audience is seen as being actively engaged in the media, and in the interpretation of media texts, rather than as passive consumers. Individuals receive and interpret texts in different ways, depending on their age, race, etc.
This theory demonstrates that even though one message is sent out, not just one understanding is made from the text, many meanings can be interpreted from one message. This sometimes making it offensive to some, and not to others. This theory also allows for a media text to be consumed individually and takes in to consideration the meaning of a text, and the relationship an individual may understand from this in relation to sociological factors.

The creator of this theory is Stewart Hall, the theory was created in 1980. The study of semiotics: Encoding - Decoding.
This theory says that the media texts are encoded by the producer (the people who make the media texts) and that these texts are full of ideological values.
The text is then interpreted and decoded by an audience, but not all audiences will decode and respond to the text in the same way. In some cases not how the producer intended on the message being portrayed.

Lady Gaga:

An example of this being Lady Gaga's outfits, which she has worn to several different award ceremonies. One of the most memorable being her meat dress. This dress was made entirely from raw meat, including the shoes being coated in raw meat. This caused an uproar amongst some audiences, yet others seemed to find it amusing and stylish. The encoder (producer) wanted to provoke an understanding with this dress, and an opinion on a subject matter. Whereas the messages decoded by the audience resulted in several different opinions. As an example of the opinions, a lot of Lady Gaga's fans thought she was a fashion genius, and also extremely brave to wear such an unusual outfit. People who are vegetarian or even vegan caused an uproar in several occasions and on twitter sites, as it degrades animals, as they also state the animals died for her fashion crisis'.

How encoding and decoding works:When a producer creates a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that they want to convey to a mass audience. This is called the preferred reading. This theory will sometimes be correctly decoded and the audience will understand what the producer wants them to, however sometimes the producer can encode a message that is not correctly understood by an audience. This meaning the message then becomes un-effective and useless, often meaning it is taking out of the public's view, and also the media scene.

Audience types:Steward Hall identified three different types of audience readings, or decodings of the text. Those three readings were:

• Dominant or preferred - how the producer wants the audience to view the media text and agree with the message it is conveying on a dominant scale.
• Negotiated - a compromise between the dominant and the oppositional readings, the audience who negotiate are on equal terms, this is where the audience understand and agree with parts of the producers encoded messages. But they also disagree with others, as they have areas that they have their own views and opinions on.
• Oppositional - this is when the audience rejects the preferred readings and create their own meanings for the text, they then reject any of the message as they fully disagree with the encoded message being submitted to the audience.

Audience Theories

• Reception Theory - Steward Hall 1980
• Uses and gratifications model
• Selective filter model
• Two step flow model
• Audience reading theory
• Moral panics and folk devils mass response

Existing mise-en-scene

The above images are screen shots from YouTube, of music videos which exist in similar genres to the song that I have chosen to create a music video for. In this case the bands that I have used are Avenged Sevenfold - So Far Away (first two images), Billy Talent - Viking Death March (third image), Fall Out Boy - Dance, Dance (fourth image), Fall Out Boy - The Take Over, The Breaks Over (fifth image), Panic At The Disco - Mona Lisa (sixth image), A Day To Remember - I'm Made of Wax Larry, What Are You Made Of? (last three images). I have used these as an idea for mise-en-scene when it comes to creating my own music video, not only that but it also explains how the mise-en-scene can relate back to the lyric meaning, and theme of the video in general. It also varies with each genre, and it can also break the generic conventions of a genre. The Panic At The Disco screen shot is an example of the mise-en-scene matching the genre of the song, as the staircase is somewhat aged, yet different compared to average decor, and also the colours used within the wall. Which matches the mystical style of Panic At The Disco's music genre. Whereas the images which belong to the A Day To Remember video feature bright colours within the mise-en-scene and also sport outfits - whereas the song features some lyrics which are screamed, and it also features heavy guitar riffs. This meaning that the mise-en-scene breaks the common conventions of the genre in which A Day To Remember belong too.

Health and Safety

This grid is to help with the health and safety risks when it comes to filming my music video. With this, I can analyse the dangers which may be put into action at the scenes of where I am filming. With this grid, I can now see the dangers and sort them out before the cast or myself get seriously hurt, as well as this, I can also put objects in their rightful places out of danger. This helping to prevent any cause of danger happening upon the set, and also when filming.

How to define a target audience -

• Demographics (social class, economic power)
• Gender
• Age
• Education
• Research into sub cultures (social and cultural consumption)
• YouTube, MTV, Rock pack, smart phone/tablet
• Do they play games? How do they play them (xbox, playstation, smartphone, pc)
• Do they buy CD's? Vinyl? Download?
• Do they watch films? DVD's? Netflix? LoveFilm? Download?
• Do they go clubbing? Watch football? Shop online or in shops etc.
• Geographic location
• Do they drink? What do they drink?
• Do they have healthy lifestyles? Unhealthy lifestyles?

This list of items which define a target audience will help when it comes to appealing to the age group, and types of people which I want to with the use of the music video and digipak. Giving the audience what they want, and how they want it will be a large part of making the music video and album covers (etc) become popular, and also available to a large amount of audiences, instead of the odd few that stroll across the video on youtube/google.