Regulation in Music Videos

What is regulation?
Regulations are a set of rules/guidelines in which music video creators are advised to abide by if they want their video to be shown and allowed on various sites. For example, if a music video includes explicit material, nudity, offensive scenes etc. it would either not be shown on TV or have a warning at the beginning on sites like YouTube.

TV stations:

• Regulated by Ofcom
• Editorial standards must match Ofcom's code of conduct
• Government can place reporting restrictions on a case (if a teenager committed a murder)
• Super injunctions can be placed on high profile cases

The Internet:
There are no official regulations on the internet, however most sites have policies about their comments sections and various other areas:

• Twitter has been hugely under fire for the amount of abusive content it hosts
• Youtubers are now made to disclose whether they are being paid to advertise a product in their videos 
• Facebook banned photos including female nipples which caused mass controversy
• Most sites get away with these controversial issues due to blaming it all on 'User Generated Content'

Music Videos:
In the British music video industry, light touch regulations are put in place, which simply means that there are a set of guidelines or a polite agreement between production companies and companies such as Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music which are in everyone's best interest to stick by, but have no harsh consequences when violated. These regulations recommend music videos not to include:

• Violence
• Drug abuse
• Explicit sexual activity
• Dangerous behaviour presented as safe
• Bad language

Examples of videos which go against these guidelines include, Rihanna's 'Bitch Better Have My Money' video, Kanye West's 'Famous' Video, and Nine Inch Nail's 'Closer' video.

There are many different attitudes as to whether music videos should be regulated or not. A large amount of people believe that music videos should be regulated and restricted for older age groups if they feature mature content as they wouldn't want their children to view offensive and adult content, which is perfectly understandable. However, there is an argument that having restrictions on these videos only makes them more desirable to children as it becomes a 'wanting what you can't have situation.

We Media and Democracy – How We Consume Media

As the ever-changing world of technology continues to evolve, we move along with it, navigating our way through the media maze, but we all have our unique ways of accessing the news in today’s society. Whether it be a large earthquake, an EU referendum or Kim and Kanye's wedding, most people take interest in finding out about the world around them and the current events making headlines, and seek out this news in different ways.

Personally, I am extremely interested in keeping up to date with the news of the world, as I feel it is vital to know what is happening to other people in other areas of the world, and to be able to learn from, and be involved with events happening elsewhere; in my opinion it would be ignorant to not keep updated with current events. I like to know about the serious things such as politics, tragedies and crime, however, I also enjoy hearing about pop culture, celebrity gossip and music and fashion related news.

I access my news in many different ways, one of these ways being the television. In the morning when I’m having breakfast, sometimes I might flick over to the news to see what has been happening in the world. Other times I might pass a newspaper in a shop and have a gaze over the biggest headlines. Another way I access news is through the internet, where I might see a news story on a website or in the advert section. However the main source of news for me is Twitter. Every day when I wake up, the first thing I do is check my phone for notifications, after doing that I go onto Twitter and open up the trending section and see what the most tweeted events of the day are. I find this to be extremely useful and reliable, because I know if millions of people are talking about it then there must be truth to it. This is an example of Dan Gilmor’s idea of the consumer becoming the creators from his book ‘We the Media’.

The idea that millions of people come together to spread awareness of a story turns us into the journalists in a way, because it gives us a voice, an opinion, and an ability to spread the word. With 313 million users active on Twitter monthly, word can spread incredibly fast. I have found out about many of the top news stories via Twitter, for example, I heard the news about the death of certain celebrities such as David Bowie, Prince and Alan Rickman through Twitter, however one thing Twitter is common for is creating false death stories, so I always have to validate them online when I see one on the app.

One experiment my class conducted was where we all downloaded the BBC News app on our smartphones, chose topics that interested us, and reported back a week later on our news consumption. I wrote down the findings of 5 other students and two teachers. The information I gathered was in a table that featured sections asking about their age, what categories they picked, how often they checked the app and what stories they learned about. My findings were that the older test subjects (teachers) tended to check the app many more times a day/week than the member of my class who are between 17 and 18 years of age. Also I found that the teachers had chosen more categories than the class, and included more serious topics such as Politics and Education, whereas the people my age had chosen things such as Entertainment and Music. Furthermore, most of the males that I took information on had chosen Sports as a category.

This experiment has helped me to learn a lot about our news consumption. The first thing I realised is that the older people taking part in the experiment would check the app a lot more frequently than the younger ones, but I believe this to mainly be down to the fact that the younger generation are a lot more active on social media, so come across news this way, and feel less of a need to check the BBC app. The next thing I learnt was that boys and girls had different interests, for example the boys I took notes on all had some type of sport as a category, whereas the girls had more of the celebrity news as a focus. However a lot of people still had a lot of the same big news stories remembered, such as the Olympics in Rio and Brexit, which says to me that even though we all have separate interests, we all hear about the main stories and care about them to an extent.

In today’s society, we are becoming curators of our own media; we can create, and view news as we please. We are the media. As part of the young generation today, I can support the fact that we have grown up in a world where news is easily accessible on many formats, and through the use of social media, we can stay updated, as well as make others aware of our own stories, however big or small. Older generations may be able to do exactly the same, however, having not grown up in the same way as we have, are still adapting to these changes and are not quite as accustomed to things like social media as the younger generation, many still read newspapers, which a younger person with a smart phone might never do, as it is simply at the tip of their fingers and a google search away. Overall, I have learnt that we are all collectively significant in the media and have to power to control and consume it in whatever way available to us.

‘Payphone’ by Maroon 5 Analysis

I am analysing the video for Maroon 5 ‘Payphone’ starring Adam Levine. This is due to the fact members of my class recommended music videos which they liked for the rest of us to analyse. 

This mid shot at the beginning of the music video suggests chaos and danger to the main character Adam Levine. He is in the foreground and the shot suggests serious danger however we are not aware what the danger is. The tattoos suggest rugged ‘bad boy’ style character, due to the connotations in films and characters with tattoos. His costume makeup shows he has been injured around his eye and further suggests danger. The prop of the phone links with the lyrics ‘I’m at a payphone trying to call home’ and further suggests the potentially difficult situation Adam is in, as he needs to contact a safe place.

This long shot of Adam and his love interest escaping the bank robbers, with a gun in Adams hands can show many things. For example the prop of the gun shows Adam has immense power and is also a potentially dangerous man, it aligns him with being a criminal but it is clear in this instance it is used for self-defence. The body language of Adam and his love interest can tell the viewer many thing. The fact they are running suggests they need to get away from the situation very quickly and the fact they are holding hands shows that they care for one another and are a unit together. The girl’s hand is in front of her face to protect her, and Adam is in front leading her to safety suggesting he cares a lot about her as he brings her with him to escape the building.

This two shot of Adam and his love interest shows another angle on the above image and symbolises determination to escape the chaos together. As the love interest is blurred out and we are unable to see her face in the shot it shows how Adam is the hero and the main focus of the music video.

This long shot towards the end shows the trouble Adam has gotten himself in, and symbolises how he is trapped. This could be a metaphor for how he is trapped in a relationship ‘Where have the times gone baby it’s all wrong?’ The chaos is shown in the shot with Adam’s car clearly being outnumbered by police cars and he appears to have no way of overcoming the obstacle. Similar to obstacles thrown in his way with his relationship with the woman.

‘Kill ‘Em with Kindness’ by Selena Gomez Textual Analysis

Selena Gomez’s music video for Kill ‘Em With Kindness is a video I took inspiration from when creating my music video to another one of her songs ‘Revival’ I decided to use a lot of close up shots of the main actress in the video and I also took inspiration and made my music video black and white, to keep up with a contemporary audience and do something different compared to most music videos.

The mid shot at the beginning where she is looking directly at the camera is interesting as a viewer because we are getting an insight into her as a character. Her eyes, looking directly at the camera, make her appear confident, however her body language – slouched over and not appearing to be sitting straight, suggest she is shy. The contrast between these two make viewers want to listen to the lyrics, to find out more detail about her. The first words “The world can be a nasty place. You know it, I know it” suggest it’s the outside world that have shattered her confidence. As she looks into the camera this supports the words she sings as she clearly is addressing the viewer and listener. This could mean the video and song itself is Selena’s words of advice to the audience, and the message itself is to be kind to one another. Which is something admirable.

We then see the lighting contrast from light to dark and barely see the main character Selena. This could symbolise the dark times she has been through in her life through the dark lighting and as it changes from dark to light in the video it shows how she managed to escape the dark – which the lyrics suggest is caused by people being mean. However as it appears that a camera flashes the dark could symbolise her private life and the flash could suggest her celebrity status. It could show that she doesn’t want anyone to see her private life, but being a famous celebrity it is inevitable. This could be supported by her very public relationship with Justin Bieber, which she was unable to keep private and eventually the two went their separate ways.

The long shot of Selena shows how she is having her picture taken, but the way she is facing the camera and looking directly at it, shows how she has grown in confidence from the beginning of the video – which could represent the beginning of her fame. She is showing her amazing figure in her dress which we didn’t see at the beginning of the video, showing how her confidence has blossomed since learning to ignore the ‘haters’ by being kind.

The Low-Angle Shot shows Selena feeling powerful and confident and supports the lyrics ‘Kill Em with Kindness’ as she is a powerful advocate of being nice to people and setting a good example and it is shown in this shot how confident she is with that statement.