MUSIC VIDEO THEORY

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY

Uses and gratifications theory is the common approach of understanding the mass communication through an audience. It looks at how the audience is the main focus and how they are not passive but instead interpret the information for themselves and create their own opinions. The theory also says that the audience are responsible for choosing the type of media to best suit their needs. However this can be disproved as you are not always responsible for the media that you use as you may be a secondary or tertiary user.

The uses and gratifications theory suggests that the media chosen must be to fulfil one of these: Identify- To be able to recognise and identify the people or topics used for example role models or popular topics talked about at the time. Entertain- The media form should be entertaining and the audience must be able to enjoy what they are reading. Educate- should be able to teach the audience something new and be able to learn something from the form of media chosen. Social interaction- The form of media could be included in conversations and can be discussed between people.

LAURA MULVEY
Laura Mulveys theory looks at the Male Gaze and how people in the media are perceived by an audience. Feminists look at it in three different ways; how women look at other women, how men look at women and how women look at themselves. This theory can be argued as many people believe that women enjoy being looked at and having a lot of attention. She also looked into the narrative cinema and how its story telling films.

ANDREW GOODWIN

Andrew Goodwin looks into five differents aspects of music videos that audiences should look out for: Thought beats and seeing the sounds- how the music reflects the artists voice and keeps in time with the beats and the music Narrative and performance- Shows a clear link between what the lyrics are talking about and what the narrative/story is for the video. The star image- This can include a meta narrative of how a star became successful within a music video. Relation of visuals with song- how the song itself links to the video and shots chosen. Technical aspects- How the different use of equipment keeps the video exciting and holds the audiences attention.

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY

This suggests that information is injected into a mass audience through the media Different attitudes, beliefs and views are injected into the audience via the mass media. This can be seen as a negative as it can be conveying the wrong messages to the audience E.g violence. This does not always work as people are effected differently through the media and some people are more aware of what the media are doing and therefore does not have any effect on them.