From looking at the mise-en-scene of this music video we can see that the setting of it is in a run-down area of London. It also depicts some real life scene from the London riots which was in the same area. If we were look to look at Andy Medhurst's Theory of stereotyping on the short hand we could apply this here as we see all of the negative stereotypes of council estates and the people that live there in a short space of time as it is in a music video which is significant,Examples of the stereotypes include Plan B saying "Urban Safari", Safaris are often used to connote wildlife in jungles or deserts so to compare the people living in this part of London to that makes them seen like they're animals just to be looked at.
Furthermore, the editing used it typical in a music video as it is fast paced and almost like a montage sequence showing various fast paced shots. This also helps us to imply the genre of the music video as this sort of editing and cinematography is commonly used in rap videos. The props and costumes used also helps us to imply a genre, for example we see the use of tracksuits and hoodies being worn by people on the estate, this is another example of Medhurst's shorthand theory as wearing this sort of attire is associated with bad behaviour and troublesome/violent youths. This is illustrative as the music almost seems to be reinforcing the negative stereotypes in-order to strengthen the points of the music video about not enough is being done to help the people that come form this environment.
Media Representations
The rioters are also represented in this music video but as the way most people would expect to see them as you wouldn't expect to see a middle class white man joining in in the London riots and this reinforces that. The reason why we see the rioters as "chavs" and people on "council estates" is because these representations are formed from the ideologies that have been passed down form the opinion leaders which are usually the government and higher class white people. This links to Levi Strauss's theory on representation and ideology. Strauss also wrote about the producer of the text holding the set of values and beliefs but this doesn't link well with what Plan B may have been trying to communicate as his views of the politicians in the music video are overshadowed by the erratic violence caused by the rioters which he is saying is the government's fault. As a result we may see Plan B being hypocritical as what he is trying to resolve may cause further violence as he is showing what fun could be had of looting and rioting.
Media Audiences
First of all, i believe the typical audience for a Plan B song would be older teenagers and young adults, this is because Rap music is typically aimed at this segment. Also there would be a higher male audience in comparison to females as Plan B has more fans that are male as more of his songs may appeal to them. Because of this specific audience different groups of people will get different feelings about this music video. For example an 18 year old male may feel like Plan B is communicating with him directly due to the direct address and because he may idolise him as an artist making him and his loyal fan audience followers from an opinion leader. This is based on the two step flow model which also suggests that the opinion leader (Plan B) is influenced by the mass media but in this case we see it being subverted as Plan B doesn't seem to follow what the media says, especially about the working and lower classes.
Media Institutions
For a music video as big as this you would expect there to be different types of media promoting it,such as print,broadcast and E-media. This is because it was distributed by the conglomerate Time Warner. As a result they would be able to finance the promotion on various media platforms but the most effective way in my opinion would be on social media. This is because it would be able to reach a lot more of Plan B's fans as the majority of them are young teenagers and are avid users of social media. By using E-media to promote the song it may also be able to promote the film that goes with it as there wouldn't be any other large costs as posing to social network sites such as facebook and instagram is free. Cross promoting is called synergy and Plan B is able to do this very well as he could use the promotion of the film to further his music career and use the music to promote the film in-order to get his message across.
No comments:
Post a Comment