Research - Censorship and Music Videos

Censorship is the act of altering words, statements or visuals in order to conform with and abide by the rules and laws of society. It helps protect the public from offensive/explicit imagery.

Explicit Content Logo is used to help the audience identify if the visuals they are about to see are inappropriate for the audiences eyes that are under aged or even audiences that feel offense towards what they are seeing in the visuals.

Explicit Lyrics Logo is used to help the audience know that the lyrics they are about to hear are explicit and inappropriate for audiences that are under aged or even audiences that feel offense towards what they hear.

14 things get censored:

·         Nudity/sex

·         Language

·         Violence

·         Drugs, solvent abuse

·         Religion

·         Political/controversy

·         Graphic representation

·         Corrupt the young

·         Sexual violence

·         Class

·         Shock

·         Culture

·         Race

·         True events

Nudity/sex:

Rihanna’s music video “S&M” was censored for the explicit imagery of not only Nudity/Sex, but sexual violence as well due to the sexual movement, revealing so much skin, whipping and tying of the body in a sexual manner.

Religion:

Madonna’s music video “Like a Prayer” was censored for the sexual imagery with Madonna and a black Jesus. This was very controversial in the 1980’s and the way she is dancing and revealing a lot of skin in the church was very offensive to religious audiences.

Lyric Censorship:

Blanking: Entire word is not heard however, music is still playing.

Repeating: Having last word said twice in place.

Disc Scratching: Using a scratch sound of a DJ to cover the word.

Bleeping: Putting ‘bleep’ sound over the word.

Cut and Banned:

When a music video is cut, this means the music video is edited to hide the explicit imagery or to bleep out explicit imagery. This is so the audience isn’t harmed by the imagery or lyrics. On the other hand, when a video is banned, it is not allowed to be shown on TV because of the visuals or even listened to on a radio because of the lyrics in the song.

Advantages:

·         Children are protected from copycat behavior.

·         Promotes a political/appropriate world.

·         Protects children from explicit imagery and lyrics.

·         Protects people’s emotional/physical emotions.

Disadvantages:

·         Freedom of speech.

·         Creativity is restricted/limited.

·         Artist is restricted.

·         Decrease in the views.

·         Blocks legitimate criticism.

·         Individual taste.

·         Compromise entertainment.

Overall, researching censorship has helped me understand that it is an important part of the production stage in making a music video. The industry need censorship as this helps protect the public from inappropriate imagery and lyrics being released onto the internet for them to see. Also, this could help artists abide this and not use explicit imagery and lyrics for their music. In my music video I would like to use imagery which will represent explicit behavior but only in an appropriate way. This is so the audience feel the events happening but can watch it without anything being censored.

Research - Hebdige's Subcultures

Subcultures are groups of people who are united through common value systems and tastes (clothes, music, politics, etc) and are also seen as a group of people who are positioned outside of the mainstream culture.

Conformity and Rebellion are not liked by subcultures, they like to rebel against common values and systems.

Attitude to Capitalism and Communism is only followed by subcultures in the communism values. They have their own set of rules and behaviour conduct. They consume their own lifestyle.

Rivalry between subcultures is expected, they don’t like mixing. They traditionally have stereotypes to groups they don’t like.

Traditional Ideas are made within their subcultures. They make beliefs which make them live their own lives in their own way. Do not take upon ‘Neophyte’ ideas.

Music Interest is very unique as they only listen to Niche genres.

For example;

Punks have their own genre of music which complement their style of living. They wear leather jackets, boots, studded clothing and usually have crazy hair and sometimes crazy make up. They neglect mainstream ideas as they don’t match up to their interests.

Teddy boys like to listen to the genre Scar (white reggae music). They believe in the bourgeoisie and have a very smart appearance, which contradicts the fact they are working class citizens. Teddy boys came around in the 1960’s as a threat to society as they were lost, angry boys who were extremely violent, dominantly white young boys. They aren’t around anymore due to new subcultures forming and their lifestyle dying out.

Bikers consists of white old men who are extremely violent and racist. Their hobbies are simply riding motorbikes all day and they are pretty loud, intimidating people. They listen to rock music to symbolise anger which they have in them a lot. They wear denim clothing as well.

Queers are very happy, mellow people who listen to niche music which keeps them in a happy place. They are usually homosexual and rebel against social norm, as well as coming across as quite flamboyant. They believe in happiness and Freedom.

McCracken said that the postmodern world is full of diversity, dynamism and creativity. He said that if we look at the array of values and the ideologies, then we can’t say all subcultures come from one culture.

Birmingham School assume that all subcultures come from one culture (reaction and rejection to mainstream culture) which goes against what McCracken said.

Hebdige said that although some people think subcultures appear to be different, deep down they are the same. He said that ‘Subcultures’ are ‘Little Cultures’, as they are all doing the same thing of resistance. They also say we are all active consumers. Active process, different audiences read the same cultural product. This allows us to resist mainstream and this becomes a sub culture.

Current Day in Relation to Hebdige

Hebdige's theory can still be seen in the public as clear subcultures are seen and will stick in society. However, some subcultures died out, such as; Teddy boys.

Who are you targeting your music video towards? Are they a Subculture? Yes/No? Why?

I dont want to aim my music video at a subculture as my idea doesn't apply to any specific subculture, it can relate to a lot of different audiences with themes such as love and violence. I believe any type of audience can watch it and engage into the events of my music video. Serious events in music videos can reach out to any audience.

Research - Audience Identification

Audiences are groups of people who consume the entertainment given to them which suit their interests. Audiences can be categorised with age, ethnicity, class, status and income so they can categorise audiences with their basic features. It’s extremely important for an artist to measure their audiences because they need to know who they are aiming their entertaining with their music videos.

Social Categories:

A	Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals.
B	Middle management, teachers, many ‘creative’ e.g. graphic designers.
C1	Skilled workers, trade persons (white collar).
C2	Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff, etc.
D	Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar).
E	Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers.

Advantages of Categorising Audiences:

·         Easier to target.

·         Allows us to make specific choices.

·         Idea of what people are interested in.

·         Use information to encourage companies to advertise on your radio station.

·         Knowing what products they would buy.

·         Being content to suit a target audience.

Disadvantages of Categorising Audience:

·         Doesn’t consider that people are different.

·         Doesn’t consider peoples interests, just income and status.

Audience Reactions:

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT	This describes how an audience interacts with media text. Different people react in different ways to the same text, linking to Hebdige’s theory of subcultures.
AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS	These are what the audience thinks about an artists and their music, for example audiences expect certain aspects from different genres, which links to one of the 8 things Goodwin mentions in his theory, which is a music video always has Genre Characteristics.
AUDIENCE FOREKNOWLEDGE	This is what the audience knows about a music artist and their song/video.
AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION	This is how an audience relates to an artist, linking to Dyer’s star theory.
AUDIENCE PLACEMENT	This is how the media producers target a particular audience and make them feel that the music video is specially ‘for them’.

Different Artist Appeals:

Bands/artists such as; one direction and Justin Bieber appeal to young girls who are between the ages of 8 and 19. So the content of the album, artist image and the music video. Another example is the arctic monkeys, they are an indie rock band who appeal to older, more mature audiences.

This information has helped me understand that I need to do a lot of research on which category of audiences would I like to target my music video at to be more successful in the release of the music video. Although it’s hard, I would love to be able to aim my music video at all audiences and give out a message. However, picking an audience would leave me to deciding that I would like to aim my music video at an audience who would be smart enough to take in the message and understand serious events which will potentially occur in my music video. This means I would be interested in aiming my music video at a higher class audience, so they get the deep message in the music video.

Different genres definitely appeal to different audiences as they express different themes and conventions which only certain people appeal to.

Research - Popular Music Theory

It’s important to understand theories and the theorists who made them because we as an audience don’t actually understand the background to why music is how it is today. We are working class people who are seen as dumb and stupid because we follow the popular culture and we need to understand this. As media students, we should definitely have some sort of understanding to the music culture we are around/what we follow everyday of our lives.

Popular Culture Theory.

Popular culture is the understanding of ideas and attitudes of the mainstream culture in society which has a large influence upon us an audience. Popular culture became mainstream in the 1980’s and was influenced by disseminating the cultural material. It was produced through mass media and was able to through the audiences’ cultural products. Mainly our generation follow the popular culture due to how much it relates to our lifestyle. The popular culture theory says that popular music uses slang, imitates our lifestyle and can relate to us as teenagers/young adults.

Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony.

Gramsci was a leading Marxist thinker. He rejected economist and insisted on the independence of ideology from economic determinism. Gramsci also rejected cruse materialism which offers a humanist version of Marxism, also focusing on human subjectivity.

Hegemony - The term means to look down upon the predominance of someone's social class over others (bourgeois hegemony). This represents political and economic control and the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world. This is so that those who are subordinated by accepting it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’. This is involving willing and active consent.

Gramsci emphasizes struggle. He said that ‘common sense is not something rigid and immobile, but is continually transforming itself’.

Frankfurt School.

The Frankfurt school refers to a group of german-american theorists who developed powerful analyses of changes in the western society during the war. Two main theorists in the Frankfurt school are max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.

Both theorists said “Programmes watch for their audiences and popular music hears for those who listen”.

Theodor Adorno.

Adorno made the Hegemony triangle. This explains how the bourgeoisie (higher class people like the government, royal family, politicians, etc.) are the smart ones that know the real meaning of ‘True art’, which consists of jazz, classical and ancient pieces of art. It explains that the working class people (everyone else) are dumb and everything is ‘dumbed down’ for us to understand. The in between is where stars, artists and other entertainers belong. They distract us from the true art that only the bourgeoisie deserve to have as the triangle represents that they will be the only people to understand ‘true art’.

Birmingham school and its theory is also based around the hegemony. Stuart hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist that supports Antonio Gramsci's theory. Stuart Created his theory from 1973 to 1980 and created the 'encoding' and 'decoding' theory. Encoding is a process by which a text is constructed by its producers. Decoding is when the audience read, understand and interpret. Stuart was inspired by Barthes Theory of Decoding and Encoding to create this.

Dick Hebdige mainly studied Subcultures and how they are made within the masses on the Adorno triangle. He is against Adorno's triangle as he suggests that within the working class group they are different personalities and different groups of individuals which will have an interest in different genres of music. not everyone listens to Pop or Hip Hop.

Conclusion: I learnt many different theorists/theories which may agree with each other to go against each other within the music industry and why people are entertained in different ways. My beliefs in the Popular Music Culture Theory is that it is made to entertain and relate to a wide range of audiences and is only made to keep us as an audience entertained. It creates no morals or life lessons which will help an individual, it just entertains with the typical beats and lyrics which everyone hears every single day. Popular Music Culture is repetitive and audiences fall for it all the time.