Anthony Giddens

Artists such as avril lavigne go against this theory as she's portrayed in the media as a skater chick to go against the norm of mainstream artists such as katy perry and rihanna as sex icons for the male gaze, to create a subculture for her target audience (teenagers) to enjoy her style of music rather than having fans because of being branded as a sex icon and having that as the selling point of her music so that the audience are listening because they like the song, however avril lavigne is getting success in other ways because she has her own brands of perfume being a actress and a fashion designer which helps promote her in the music industry, I think shes created her representaion to stand out in the music industry because of all the compettion to be succesful but shes created her own brands to help her without having to be a sex icon or releasing new singles every month so shes not like most other mainstream female artists.

Role models

2) Role models

Lily allen argues that she's not a role model to society and she produces music because that's her job and that she doesn't want to be idolized and therefore wont alter her behaviour for her target audience and will do what she wants to do.
Geri Halliwell argues that the government need to approve of more positive role models for young females to idolize because of the increased rate of crime and drug use of people copying their idols such as Amy Winehouse and Lily allen who have both appeared at live concerts drunk and are openly shown within the media being drunk and on drugs.
I disagree with Lily allens argument that she's not a role model as choosing that career is going to make people look up to you because your'e in the media portraying a certain lifestyle to fans and younger generations looking up to her, meaning that its inevitable to not be a role model.
The government proposed that they want the media to promote positive role models for young women which intented to encourage teenagers to reach their full potential. It is shown that it is essential to young girls development to have a positive role model, and young girls out-perform boys throughout their teens however they fail to reach their potential and the government want to investigate into this from the way artitsts (teenage role models) are portrayed in the media and so the Government formed an 'approved group' of female role models. This was critiscied in the media as 'no youngster would be seen dead with a government approved role model' and would therefore mean the teenagers would rebel and go against these positive role models.
 I think it is important artists to be portrayed as positive role models as this will influence society.. however music videos are portraying more artists negatively (females as sex icons, partying and getting drunk or doing drugs and males as gangs and involved in crime) although there are some positive role models for example greenday who promote political awareness.

Laura Mulvey - Male Gaze

http://www.slideshare.net/natashaakindred

Music Genre: Dubstep

Dubstep is a fairly new genre of music that originated in South London, England. The earliest release of a dubstep song dated back to 1998. Originally the music was described as dark, more experimental, and instrumental dubbed (The “wobbing” you hear from a general dubstep song) remixes. Since then it has evolved into a much more upbeat, rave-type sound. In 2001, dubstep music began to be showcased and promoted at London’s night club Plastic People. This started a massive increase in popularity of the genre. Dubstep started off as an underground scene, but as its popularity built, mainly in the late 2000s-early 2010s, it became more mainstream and acceptable to listen to it. A very early support of the sound was BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who started playing it from 2003 onwards. In 2004, the last year of his show, his listeners voted 3 dubstep artistes in their top 50 for the year (Distance, Digital Mystikz, and Plastician). Dubstep came out of the small scene it was created in and became more mainstream in late 2005-early 2006. In fact, around this time, many websites devoted to the genre appeared on the internet which massively helped the growth of the scene, an example of one of these websites is dubstepforum. But, as well as websites, music magazines picked up on the increase in popularity in the genre. A magazine called The Wire has a regular feature entitled “The Month In: Grime/Dubstep”. In January 2006, BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs started championing the genre, beginning with a show devoted to it called “Dubstep Warz”, this pushed the popularity of the genre even further! Around 2008/09 the genre became more commercially successful within the UK, with many more singles and remixes entering the charts. Also, pop artists started using dubstep as the backing tune to some of their songs, such as Boucne & Boom by Box Bottom (which also featured in a Vimto advert). In 2010, something massive happened to the genre. A new artist whose music genre was called “Brostep” (a branch of Dubstep, much heavier and ‘ravey’) hit the scenes and set the popularity off the scale. His name is Skrillex, and to-date, is the most popular dubstep/brostep artist. The rise of Skrillex and the genre brostep helped increase the popularity more worldwide, with his own tours in the USA, Spain, Brazil, and the UK all selling out.  

By Lewis Finney

Digipak Analysis - Bradley

This is the digipak for the album 'Day and Age' by The Killers. They are an indie rock band, hence why I chose this digipak.

On the front cover the band name is clear, bold and bigger than the album name. This might be because the band wants fans to recognize them and to draw in new fans as it stands out from it's size. For our digipak we will probably make the font of the band name bold and big, as this will draw in new members of our target audience.

 For the next two inside pages there are pictures of band members. Fans are more likely to buy the album, therefore most consumers will recognize the band members. Fans also like to see pictures of band members because they are role models, so the digipak provides them with various pictures to associate them with. In each self portrait there is a mosaic portrait. This could give off the impression that it is designed this way to make the individuals look more important. For example in Roman times only people of high importance were drawn or painted in mosaic. For our digipak we will include pictures of the band but they will be pictures of them performing in the music video. By doing this, audience members who have seen the video will be able to recognize the band, furthermore if they have seen the band in the pictures they will be able to recognize the band in the music video as well.

The third double page spread is a photo of the band members and various details about the production of the item. The photo has been put there as it is another example of the way the band is portrayed and it allows the audience to relate to them. For example if fans have bought previous digipaks, they may have seen older photos of the band, so this new photo allows the audience to see how the band's image has changed or not changed. On the second part of the double spread it has the names of the band members, the record company they are associated with, who the digipak was produced by, the engineer, who it was mixed by and assisted by, additional engineering and specific songs, the management of it, booking, legal, A&R administration, marketing, business affairs, business management, mastered by, artwork/painting, band photo, package design, art/package coordination, package production and how to get info on tour dates, fan clubs and more on their website www.thekillersmusic.com.
The purpose of having this information is so that each person involved in creating the music and product gets recognized.
For our digipak we will probably put all the details of the people involved, on one page in a small section like in this digipak. The reason for this is because fans may not be interested in these aspects, so it doesn't take up unnecessary space. However details on how to access to tour dates and gig dates will probably be bigger as they will be more important to this band, as it is not as popular as "The Killers".

The next two double page spreads are also pictures of the band members. By putting them after the photo of the band it splits it up nicely so that consumers aren't just flicking through portraits of the band members the entire time. Again these are there to show the importance of the band members and it allows the audience to recognize them.

The back page includes the Track listing, the barcode, the logo of the record company(vertigo) and the record company's website. It also has the official band website, copywriting details, and the barcode. The purpose of having the company's website is so fans can visit it and it may allow them to find similar artists that they may begin to listen to. The band website has been placed on the back because most consumers will look straight at the back of the product. This encourages more people to visit the website. The copyright details are there just for evidence and the barcode allows electronic notifications of when and where the album was bought. It makes it easier for each store to keep track of how many albums have been bought each day and for what price.
In terms of our digipak we will have the track listing on the back as well, as this is a universal trait for most artists. The barcode will be on the back rather than the front as this is also universal. The copyright  details will be kept to a minimum size as these are not essential for the consumers to see.

Bradley Norris

Music Video Swede 2- Planning

My group and I have decided that it would be beneficial for us to do a whole music video swede before conducting our own music video as it will show us the time needed to take every shot and the specifics that will need to be taken into consideration such as the mise-en-scene as I believe that if our swede is more accurate to give the same message across as the original video we will be able to establish how to portray certain messages and representations in our own music video with the help of the theories we have looked at such as the beauty myth.

One music video which we did consider sweding is Loverboy by You Me At Six as this is of a similar genre as to the one we would like to pursue in our own music video (Rock) meaning we are able to look at what is used within the music video and how to band is represented and use that in our own music video.

While story boarding this music video we decided that it may be better for us to swede another video as the shots used are too quick for us to be able to replicate them for exaple we can see that from 0.14 minutes to 0.17 there are about 4-5 shots that all have fast transitions and as our last swede was much easier than this we thought as we are not professionals we should pick and easier music video.
However after realising this we now know that for our next music video we must make sure it is not too complicated otherwise it will be hard to produce from paper, although the fats transitions work well with the music video as it too is quick which means my group and I must make sure that when we are conducting our music video that it compliments our music as well as our band.

By Laura Thorpe

Anthony Giddens

Modernity and self-identity

This basically means in societies where modernity is developed we will create some form of identity, whether we intend to or not as in some cases people believe they have done nothing to create an identity still have through what they wear, how they talk, where they live and what music they listen to. However as it was not always like this many societies used to tell people how to act and what to be thus being they are defined which I believe is one of the reasons there are such strong stereotypes of people today such as that women are to be a house wife, cook and clean etc this can also be best exampled in Beyonce’s music video ‘Why Don’t You Love Me?’. I think this video can show both old and new identities which women are supposed to have as Beyonce is wearing multiple ’slutty’ outfits but also doing the housework meaning she is making other young girls believe that they should follow this identity as they would want to be like her. I must take this into consideration when doing my own music video because if my band were to be a success then members of my target audience may look up to them and create an identity similar to my bands/ artist therefore I must consider the way in which they are presented and represented in my music video.

Through the early day and age Giddens himself said ‘What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity- and ones on which some level or another all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behavior’ This is because he can see connections between ‘micro’ aspects of society and the big ‘macro’ picture of the state meaning he sees a relation between identity, capitalist corporations and/or globalization, which I believe means corporations are the reason for many individuals identities today especially corporations such as MTV and EMI who produce and advertise today’s celebrities and ‘want to be women/ men’ as their target audience (teens and young adults) are always wishing to meet someone who looks like them or wishes to look like that themselves. Having said that it makes me wonder whether many identities are the same with only minor differences to make us unique as everyone is exposed to the same influences of identity. These ideas have been brought about in my opinion through the social changes of how individuals view life and what they believe to be socially acceptable and what is not, which is why many people do not mind seeing celebrities such as Rhianna without many clothes on as we find it to be the ‘norm’ and are therefore desensitized to it.

How Will I incorporate this into in own music video?

I will use Giddens theory within my own music video by thinking about my own self- identity and how I would want to be represented within a music video, for example I may wish to be represented as cute and innocent or loud and fun, although I think that as self- identity is best shown within stereotypes I believe it would be best for my group to look and as many possible genre’s for our music video as possible so we are able to see how artists of that genre are represented and how their target audience could then be represented. For example looking at the Pop industry and Katy Perry, her identity in the music video ‘Teenage Dream’ is to be fun, young and in love therefore her target audience (which I believe to be teenage girls) will have an identity when listening to that music as being quite mainstream but also fun and young. Therefore Genre can also play a big part in ones identity meaning that my group and I must not only look at genre but also society and our own self-identities with the music we listen to as we can then get a rough understanding of how our band will want to make their target audience feel towards them but also what the band is like towards their audience.

By Laura Thorpe