Textual Analysis: The First MTV Music Video

As consumers in today’s entertainment business, we don’t really think and evaluate about how a person or item captures our attention. Critics use media literacy to effectively evaluate how a celebrity can take hold of a consumer's time and energy. PartyNextDoor is one of many celebrities who manage to take some of the music business’ audience for himself. In order for a consumer to understand how he has done this, they must use the five tools of media literacy which is description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement.

Director Sut Jhally, in his documentary film, “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex, and power in music videos”, analyzes the issue of how women are portrayed in the music world. Jhally, in his film argues how music and media has become a proud industry when it comes to advertising women, all for the benefit of popularity and record sales. Jhally believes these videos both inform and misinform our culture about our dominant attitudes regarding femininity masculinity, sexuality and race. He uses an empathetic tone in order to appeal to pathos, the feelings and experiences in women when he presents video clips that are somewhat offensive to watch as proof that women have become a common necessity shown in music videos. Often presented as being sexually aggressive and submissive, being objectified by men. He also intentionally wants to try to stir up emotions as he introduces song lyrics of women being called inappropriate names and images of women being fondled by men throughout the film. Sometimes, aggressively without consent.

yappy dog you would expect a old lady to own. On the contrary, it is

In the first chapter of The Rhetorical Power of Pop Culture by Deanna Sellnow, the author defines popular culture and explains the importance of studying the subject. Sellnow begins with a short explanation of ethics to convey that the influence popular culture has is not always used ethically. Secondly, Sellnow compares the different contexts of culture, elitist and diversity, to explain what popular culture is not. Popular culture is compiled of everyday things that influence people through subtle messages such as what is appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, and so on.

I argue that authors and producers often attempt to impose their own set of cultural and political ideologies on its audience through a certain depiction of right and wrong. In this manner, works of fiction might influence, perhaps even alter, the ideologies of the audience.[3] Accordingly, analyzing the depiction of ideologies in media content can serve as a basis for further research on if and how producers intend to influence their audience.

Popular music is often one of the best lenses we have through which to view our own cultural orientation. Many of the artistic and experimental shifts in popular music have mirrored changes in our own society. For instance, the emergence of Elvis Presley as a public figure would signal the start of a sexual revolution and the growth in visibility of a rebellious youth culture. Similarly, the folk and psychedelic music of the 1960s was closely entangled with the Civil Rights, anti-war and social protest movements. In this regard, we can view popular music as an artifact through which to better understand the time and place in which it is produced. In light of this, the state of popular music today may suggest troubling things about our society.

Have you ever wondered about MTV and how it became as big as it is today? The reason for this is that it has been around a while and your parents may have even watched it when they were younger. So, they have a little experience in how to draw young teens to watch their programs. MTV got its big start and revolutionized television as modern viewers know it today.

Memorabilia is an important area of rock and pop. In addition, memorabilia has evolved widely over the past fifty years. This book does a great job of outlining this, “Today, every item of memorabilia connected with an artist like Madonna – from badges to posters, photos to videos, lines of cosmetics to fashion ranges –has to be officially approved by her or by her management. That certainly wasn’t the case in the past” (144). With all the new privacy laws, this change is not necessarily a reasonable change, for it makes the whole process of commercialization complicated. Full of value, memorabilia’s are expensive items today. The proof has been outlined by this book, “Although the paper itself is only a mimeographed copy, the fact that the signatures were authentic and that the ceremony was such a high profile occasion that sent the price soaring to over

Madonna has stated her identification as a “queer” supporter, and has publically aligned herself with gay culture and politics. Many of her truest fans are a part of the lesbian, transgender, and gay community. Even amongst her more vocal support and greater understanding of the queer community, Madonna’s use of gay subculture is appropriation because of the place of power and privilege she comes from as a straight, white celebrity. Musical critic Carol Benson states that “Madonna’s individual economic and social power removes her from the conditions and struggles of subaltern groups so that her appropriation of the subcultures and stereotypes, no matter how well intentioned, can never be more than a form of subcultural tourism.” Due to her position of agency, Madonna masks the powerlessness of this subcultural group and benefits from the use of their exotic identity without having to deal with the lived reality of being queer. Additionally, Benson makes a compelling case about the effects of Madonna’s cultural appropriation. Even taking into account all the identities Madonna has worn, her celebrity is ultimately constructed as a

As the semester goes on, I become more and more media literate. In the beginning of the semester, I watched television with for what it was, I didn’t think about some of the deeper messages contained within the show. After reading and viewing many examples of representation in media, I feel like I have a more firm grasp of how to analyze television. Now, while viewing, I look for things such as race, gender, sexuality and even the companies that produce the media.

Jimmie Manning is a current assistant professor who teaches the Master Program in the Department of Communication at Northern Kentucky University. As a specialist in the field of Organizational and Corporate Communication, he has a fair amount of publicans, such as book and academic journals under his name . Manning’s article “Negotiating Mediated Identities through Language Strategies: The Unique Case of Madonna, Pepsi, and the American Family Association” was published by the Kentucky Journal of Communication in 2007. In this article, he takes a quiet distinctive point of view to discuss the influence that Madonna’s album Prayer has towards the temporal and contemporary society as a communication phenomenon. More specifically, the article

Ramasubramanian and Scharrer’s key concepts were regarding the theoretical definitions and development of media literacy education (2015). Much of the existing literature these researchers examined provided young people’s reaction to media perceptions of ethnic stereotypes and stigmas. Ramasubramanian and Scharrer discuss how media literacy can provide a rationale for the role that media plays in reproducing stereotypes and ethnic misrepresentation. Kavoori’s (2007) found that while students were capable of spotting the stereotypes and racial slurs in media productions, when asked to create their own production of media, the results portrayed these same stereotypes seen in mass media. Researchers in this area of study typically use methodologies such as focus groups, interviews or discourse analysis’. I will be using a discourse analysis to determine how media portrays different ethnic groups and stereotypes. Hobbs, Cabral, Ebrahimi, Yoon, and Al-Humaidan (2010) gathered students to do interviews on them in order to look further into the potential that media literacy has to lessening stereotypes. On the other hand, Vargas (2006) dealt with Latina women to target the media representation of Hispanic women through the use of ethnographic, in-depth

The discourse of authenticity in mass music culture has consistently been a recurring topic; from the mid-1960s onwards, the rise of rock n’ roll intensified a strong culture explicitly concerned with the authenticity of musical artists.1 Remaining increasingly valued, a certain popular music approach emerged, privileging anti-commercial, direct relationships between the autonomous act and its audience 2 over manufactured, commoditized acts mediated before cultural consumption. The conflict between commerce and authenticity3 portrays popular music industrial personnel and practices as ingenuine, manipulative, and corrupted. However, Ed Sheeran, known as an “unconventional pop star”, 4 appears to defy his commercial surroundings; despite prominence in an industry viewed with negative skepticism, his success revolves the rhetoric of true merit and talent. Whether legitimate or not, Sheeran’s perceived passion and genialness should not be absorbed as is; like all cultural texts, Sheeran’s image and music is neither autonomous nor uninterrupted in cultural-industrial contexts. By analyzing Sheeran’s strategic brand management and marketing, this essay will argue that authenticity within the music industry is often enhanced and promoted for profit, and in this case, affecting the direction and contents of Sheeran’s sophomore album, x (pronounced “multiply”). Ultimately, cultural texts that reach a popular audience are always under market-oriented influences, no matter how hidden

Collins, Rebecca L. "Content Analysis of Gender Roles in Media: Where Are We Now and

Collins, R. L. (2011). Content Analysis of Gender Roles in Media: Where Are We Now and Where Should We Go? Sex Roles, 64(3-4), 290-298.