Media Studies - COMP 3 Final Piece

This blog post, written by me (Maxi), contains my groups final music video, digipak, and social media page for our component 3 project.

Music Video: 

In the case the video ever becomes unavailable on YouTube, the music video can also be seen at this Google Drive Link. Additionally, here is the link to the YouTube video itself, as viewing the video directly on YouTube may provide higher video quality.

Digipak:

Front Cover

Inside Left

Inside Right

Back Cover

Social Media: 

Here is the link to KIARA's live social media account.

Below is a screenshot of the accounts home page, including her profile picture, bio, and more.

Below is a full image of all her posts, along with the the additional posts that can not be seen in the first screenshot.

Below are screenshots from a few of KIARA's posts that showcase her personality best, as well as comments left by her fans, and the way in which she replied to those comments.

"Feather Dance Challenge", which encourages fans to covering her dance and posting it on their own accounts with a Hashtag, building up her branding and fandom. 

KIARA responding to fan comments on her music video teaser post, showing fans she isn't an out-of-reach artist, and is just as ordinary as her fans themselves.

Media Studies - COMP 3 Self Reflection

This blog post features my (Maxi) critical self reflection for my teams Component 3 project. 
Cambridge's brief for this project was to produce a music promotional package for an artist that includes a music video, social media page, and digipak. I decided to do this project in a group of 4, and together decided to create a promotional package for our fictional pop artist, "KIARA". In this essay, I will be reflecting upon and evaluating the creation of this promotional package comprehensively,

The major aspect of our project was to create a Music Video for our artist KIARA, a 17 year old female musician of Asian descent. The song we chose for her was Sabrina Carpenter's "Feather", a song which is centered around a positive reaction to breakups, subverting the common conventions of songs of the genre. The social issue of modern relationship culture played a large part in us choosing Feather as our song, specifically due to the rising obsession individuals (mainly youths) have with being in a relationship, which may possibly due to rising social pressures from social media platforms, which lead them to not being able to see the negative effects/pullbacks of their own relationships. Thus, the aim for our music video was to spread the message to our audience that; the joys of life go far beyond romantic relationships, how important letting go can be, and the substantial role a strong bond of friendship plays in girlhood. The representations in our music video center around Asian teenage girls, as that is our target audience's demographic. We decided this due to under representation of Asian solo female artists in the western music industry, as from the research we've done, we can see that Asian representation commonly revolves around bands (specifically K-pop groups). This may be because of the fetishization of Asian culture that places them in a submissive societal role, which stems from post colonial roots (Gilroy's Post Colonial Theory). We hope that by having KIARA be a solo female asian artist, she will be able to break the common misrepresentation of Asian artists as "others" not being able to gain success individually, and have her story inspire her audience to break these boundaries of the western music industry. Furthermore, since teenage girls tend to suffer the most from issues concerning heartbreak, we hope that KIARA's strong and independent nature is able to serve as motivation for her audience who may be facing similar issues. Our research shows that “Feather” goes against the conventions of most breakup songs, as it's generally quite happy and upbeat, and not sad. We followed this message, and portrayed the process of letting go in a joyful and vibrant form, using various different aspects of media language. To convey the message of fun and enjoyment we intended to have KIARA and her friends partake in exciting activities at high-end locations which have connotations of thrills, leisure, and luxury. We prepared extensively before the shooting of the music video through various ways, including scouting out possible locations [Fig. 1], conducting screen tests to find the actor who would best fit our artist, and acquiring props [Fig 2] that would be used in our music video. I played a role in this by creating a screenplay [Fig 3] for the music video which I'd done by researching other similar screenplays, like those of musicals. The screenplay helped massively in the filming of our music video, as it was the main source of reference which the team used for finding what shots we’d need, what lines were being said in each scene, and overall gave a detailed idea of what the music video would be like to the team and cast of actors. In the final music video, we used a myriad of filming techniques to convey the exciting nature of the music video, as well as showcase our artist. We filmed scenes of activities like pillow fights using slow-mo shots and close ups [Fig 4] to portray the amount of fun the cast are having, as well as scenes where the cast drive down roads together all while performing, talking, and having a great time. We filmed these with tracking shots [Fig 5] of the girls’ vehicle from the outside, as well as handheld shots from inside the car [Fig 6], which provide a more personal experience for the audience, making them feel as if they are there in the car themselves. The shakiness of handheld shots also increasing the thrills and excitement in the scene. Furthermore, aside from filming techniques, heavy planning went into the mise-en-scéne showcased in the music video, such as the costumes we had chosen for the cast [Fig 7], which aimed to match the outfits our target audience would likely also want to wear when hanging out with friends. We made sure to give these outfits a classy, elegant, yet also casual look - as to make sure it wasn't out of touch with our target demographic. These outfits serve as a tool that builds admiration towards our characters, as audiences will see their outfits and take inspiration, as they'd most likely want to dress just like them (Gauntlet's Identity Theory). Additionally, the chosen locations not only add onto the excitement of the video, but also the idea of a lifestyle that is luxurious and coveted. Locations such as villas, the beach, lush green parks, and car interiors all provide connotations of wealth, which allows our audience to build up their own aspirations from watching KIARA partake in such a lifestyle, prompting them to believe they can have that too. We also included various scenes in which KIARA lip-syncs to the lyrics of the song while looking into the camera, which is a direct mode of address [Fig 8], conveying how she's talking to the audience, leading to a connection being built between the star, and the fans, in turn leading them to like KIARA even more. This is done throughout the video using close up shots which make clear the emotions KIARA expresses as she sings these lyrics, culminating at the very end with KIARA blowing a kiss goodbye to the camera, and thus the audience as well. To further build KIARA’s brand and showcase the type of artist she is to audiences, we created a social media page, as well as digipak for her. Our vision of KIARA from the start was to be a sweet, kind, and charming girl, who rose to fame at an early age. According to Dyer’s theory of stardom, fans become interested in stars due to their real persona’s, which incorporate aspects such as their ordinariness, which is what we decided to represent the most in our social media page. Through research on the social media pages of other solo female artists in the pop genre, we decided on specific posts that we'd create, and the ways in which we could convey KIARA's personality to make her seem like a normal girl who’s no different to her fans that look up to her. We decided to publish posts such as interviews, dance challenges, and personal pictures of KIARA, which focussed on expressing her personality, as well as posts like concert tour posters and music video/release date teasers, which focussed on promoting her upcoming album and music video. Posts like her dance challenge announcement allow for her fans to take place in fandom culture, as described in Jenkins' theory of fandom, specifically textual poaching. Fans can create their own covers of the "Feather Dance", post them online, and in turn build a larger fandom/community with other fans who enjoy KIARA's music. I also played a large role in developing KIARA’s personality through her interview post, where I curated questions and answers that would appeal towards our target audience [Fig 9]. Furthermore, we represent KIARA as being kind and humble by having her engage with her audience by replying to fans that decide to comment on her posts, showing her fans that she really is just like them. In addition, the digipak we created builds upon this further to create a solidified brand and aesthetic for KIARA. We do this by including a tracklist with songs that represent KIARA’s personality, all titled as to sound dreamy and aesthetically matching KIARA's identity. The pictures we chose of KIARA in the front cover, back cover, and tracklist [Fig 10], utilize close up shots and low angles, which generally connote power and respect, therefore empowering her and painting her as a strong, independent artist. This is important as we aim to follow modern feminist narratives, such as those outlined by Van Zoonen's feminist discourses, and ensure that KIARA is not merely an "object" used to attract attention, but is also able to empower and inspire her audience to better themselves. We believe KIARA's fans will find her aura/image in this digipak very enchanting, and give them more reasons to look up to KIARA as a person and artist due to her strong empowering image as a female artist. Her music video, social media, and digipak all portray a sort of “girl next door” that not only captures attention wherever she goes, but also encourages people and inspires them to become the best version of themselves they can be; which we believe encapsulates who we imagined KIARA to be excellently.

References/Figures:

Fig 1: Pictures taken during the location scouting process

Fig 2: Props we had acquired to use in the filming of our music video

Fig 3: Screenshot from the first page of the screenplay I wrote for the music video

Fig 4: Scenes from our music video in which slow-motion capture was utilized

Fig 4 Cont'd: Scenes from our music video in which close up shots were utilized

Fig 5: Process of filming exterior car tracking shots, as well as the results in the final music video

Fig 6: Process of filming interior car shots, as well as the results seen in the final music video

Fig 7: Costumes worn by our actors in the music video

Fig 8: Shots in which KIARA is seen looking at the camera and lip syncing to the audience, including the final shot of her blowing a kiss goodbye to the audience.

Fig 9: List of questions and answers for the "10 Questions With KIARA" post which I helped create

Fig 10: Pictures chosen for the covers, and tracklist, of KIARA's digipak

Media Studies - Power and the Media Exam Practice

To what extent do you believe that the media has influence over the opinions of audiences? [15]

The ability to represent events, places, and people is a power that is heavily incorporated within the media industry. Since audiences look towards the media to gain information regarding these topics, it would be more than reasonable to assume that since the media has the ability to control what information to spread, they are the ones who influence the opinions that audiences will build regarding these topics as well. This essay will explain and concentrate on various instances wherein the media has had an effect and been the driving factor influencing the public opinion on certain people, specifically celebrities, and events such as global issues and conflicts. 

The media provides a portrayal of many different people, which includes celebrities and stars. Depending on how the media presents them, the opinion of audiences on these celebrities is bound to change with it. According to Richard Dyer's theory of Stardom, audiences will be interested in celebrities due to their "real personas", which include aspects such as their love life, their ordinariness, their success story, as well as their downfall. All these aspects are separated from their reel persona, which is where they exist in their career, while their real personas are who they are outside of their careers. A prominent example of a star who has been in the limelight of recent media attention would be the American Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift rose to stardom in the mid 2000's, and gained a loyal following due to her songs that focussed on her personal experiences with love, breakups, relationships, and more. Today, she is one of, if not the biggest artist of this generation, and one of the most influential women in the world. However, the media portrayal of Swift hasn't always been as bright and positive as it is now. Previous controversies, especially those with American rapper Kanye West, saw Swift fall from the public eye after media outlets, mainly tabloids like MTV and TMZ, published heavily exaggerated stories of the controversy, in which Swift was labeled a hypocrite and a liar, after commenting on West's usage comment regarding how he made her "famous" in one of his songs. The public had lashed out heavily on Swift, which saw Kanye West's fans, as well as her own fans spread hate against her, with hashtags of snake emojis and "She's a snake!" trending on social media sites such as Twitter (Now X). The controversy blew over quickly however after her album "Reputation" released in 2017, wherein she had addressed the controversy directly, and had her audience back on her side. Back in the present however, Swift's glare is once again at an all time high, with the Pop industry almost revolving entirely around her, even being given the title of Time Magazines "2023 Person of the Year." This current spotlight heavily revolves around her personal life, specifically her widely public relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce, which became public in October of 2023. Media coverage of her has been incredibly positive almost ever since, with magazines, news sites, and news channels all gushing over Swift finding the "Perfect" one for her after a string of failed, and also heavily publicized, relationships. The attention that she receives for this from audiences can be once again explained by Dyer's Stardom theory, specifically the fact of how audiences become obsessed with a star due to their love life and relationships, as they may also want to have relationships like that in their own lives. Media corporations also benefit highly from this as the more articles they can produce about the couple, the more revenue they generate from audiences clicking on their sites and reading their articles. Overall, Swifts rise, fall, and rise again provides a great insight into how the media can help change audience opinions on celebrities, and how they stand to gain from the subsequent attention as well.

Global events are also heavily portrayed and focussed on by media corporations and news organizations. When a global issue occurs, audiences and society look towards media corporations for information regarding the event. This gives corporations the power to portray the events in a way which benefits them, which is usually by creating a Moral Panic around these events. A moral panic can be described as a widespread and irrational fear about a certain event, social group, place, etc. Moral panics happen frequently in the media, of which a recent example would be the Israel-Palestine conflict that began in October of 2023. The Palestinian militant group "Hamas" had initiated the conflict by firing missiles into Israel, where shortly thereafter Israel had launched a full scale counter attack into Gaza. This was covered by news organizations across the globe, with many different viewpoints of the conflict based on the beliefs and values of the news organizations themselves. Islamic and middle eastern news corporations heavily backed the Palestinian cause, criticizing Israel for its oppressive and immoral occupation of Palestine, whereas Western media organizations, especially those in the United States, glaringly try to paint Israel as the victim of the conflict. American right wing media organizations like Fox News quickly published articles calling Hamas a "Brutal terrorist organization", and spreading the message that the entire Palestinian population were cruel and barbaric, cherrypicking specific videos, photos, and stories where Hamas soldiers had been seen murdering Israeli civilians, while not looking at the far more common instance of the same thing occurring with Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians instead. A hostility complex was then created against the entire Palestinian people, leading the majority of American audiences to now see not just Hamas, but Palestine as a whole as "folk devils". The next and most important stage of moral panic then occurred, and still occurs today, where news organizations share heavily exaggerated, and even made up stories of the suffrage of Israeli people, their hostages, and the jewish community across the globe, focussing on their suffering and how Israel needs to "wipe out" Palestine. This is majorly due to the United State's strong alliance with Israel, and the US's warmongering nature, as everyday the conflict continues, the more weapons the US gets to sell to Israel, and the more money they generate. Both right-wing and left-wing media have shared this view of villainizng Palestine, and further generating hatred and hostility towards Palestinians and Middle easterns as a whole, which in part stems from the fact that the United States have the largest Jewsih population in the world outside of Israel, and how a large portion of incredibly powerful people (politicians, businessmen, etc.) who run the United States, are Jewish. This moral panic that creates fear in the general population against Palestinian people stands to benefit these American media organizations, as the more fear there is, the more often it is that people click on news articles and watch the news, which subsequently generates more revenue for said corporations. This goes to show how media corporations benefit from and why they can and will use their power to alter public opinion to their own advantage. On the other hand though, activism on social media sites like X and Instagram has led to many individuals seeing through the fear mongering nature of these news organizations, with millions of American citizens voicing their opinions through country wide protests that aimed to stop the war in Palestine, and called for the immediate stoppage of all US support of Israel and their war crimes. 

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Theory of Stardom)

"The media Condition the way we think." To what extent do you agree with this statement?

The media provides a portrayal of many different events, people, and issues. Depending on how the media portrays these events, people, and issues, the manner in which audiences perceive these is also bound to change with it. Specifically, a scenario in which the media alters our perception is with our judgements of celebrities. A prime example of this in recent times would be the recent portrayal of American Singer-Songwriter Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift started her career off in the mid 2000's singing primarily country music, which saw her gain massive success with her debut album being certified Platinum in 2007 having sold over a million copies. Her next album “Fearless” found even greater success, and led to her first original “controversy”, which saw her in an altercation with rapper Kanye West, at the 2009 VMA Awards, where West stormed the stage and declared that singer Beyoncé deserved the award more than she did. This initially led to her being slammed by the cult-like fans of West, but didn’t lead to much backlash against her, as most of it was directed towards West. This event came back to the spotlight 7 years later however with West having released his new song “Famous” which included lines about Swift. Swift was later bashed by the media and tabloid magazines for protesting against West’s usage of her in the song, even though she had apparently cleared the usage of the line in the song. This saw her image being slandered in the eye of the media, and led to Swift having to reclude, which saw her even black out her social media accounts. This can be seen as an example of one aspect of Richard Dyer’s theory of Stardom, which would be the “Downfall” of a celebrity. The media portraying Swift’s personality as being hypocritical and sensitive saw millions of people clicking on articles to find out what’s going on with her, which overwhelmingly altered the public's perception of her. In most cases though, this would be the end of most star’s career; a massive controversy that sees the artist fall out of the public eye is a more common event than one may think. However, after coming back with her next album “Reputation”, the public came back to supporting her, especially after her hit song “Look what you made me do” which specifically called out West, hit number 1 on the billboard hot 100. In recent times, Taylor Swift is more popular than ever. Her love life has been the centre of attention of the media for as long as she’s been in the spotlight, however now has reached a new high with her newly found relationship with American NFL Star Travis Kelce. Her previous breakups and relationships were covered by the media heavily, with many describing her music and discography as a gallery of her past love’s, however with her latest flare, the media has covered her relationship more than ever, and has seen her expand her audience even further. This would be another aspect of Dyer’s Stardom theory, where he states how people are interested with celebrities due to their love lives, which rings quite true for the case of Taylor Swift. All in all, without the extensive media portrayal of all of Swift's relationship and love affairs, the way the public view her would most likely be incredibly different that how it is now, due to how important it’s become to her stardom.

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Fandom Theory)

What power do audiences have in the modern media landscape? [15]

Originally, consumers and audiences could only partake in a select phase in the lifespan of media products, which would be in exhibition. Audiences could only consume products, and not much else. However, with the advancements of technology and the creation of new media, according to Curran's and Seaton's beliefs on the consolidation of power in the media industry, audiences now have more power than ever to alter more stages of a products lifespan, now including the production as well as distribution stages, which gives audiences a far greater say in the final outcome of a media product. One example of this change taking effect would be in the ongoing production of the live action version of Snow White, by Disney. Snow white is obviously recognized for being one of the most iconic early animated films of all time, with the original being released in 1937, and is rated as one of the most revolutionary films of all time. Its iconic characters are known by hundreds of millions worldwide and the animated version alone has made Disney over $400 Million, purely from box office sales alone, without considering the overextending impact of Snow White's likeness in Disney's other works, as well as merchandise, and more. In 2023, Disney announced that they would be releasing the live action remake of Snow White, which follows Disney's current business model over the last 5-10 years of releasing/remaking its old classics. Snow White being one of the most popular of Disney's original works, it was an obvious choice to remake. Controversy however had initially emerged after the announcement of the movies cast, which most prominently saw Snow White (who originally had pale, white, skin), being portrayed by the ethnically Mexican/Hispanic actor, Rachel Zegler. This prompted backlash from audiences and consumers on various social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube. However, an even larger wave of backlash was released after it was seen that the Dwarves were portrayed by a racially diverse cast who varied in height and size, meaning they were not dwarves. This backlash may have been caused by several factors, one of which includes the new wave of “wokeness” that has dominated media texts in recent years, where racial checkboxes and gender identity and other issues have been used as puppets in the grand scheme of the media industry to “cater” towards audiences. This led to fans rushing to social media to voice their opinions on the matter, including viral TikToks and YouTube videos by the YouTuber "The Critical Drinker", in which he published a video essay on how Snow White is a mockery of the original and a failure as a movie in general. This critical backlash was brought about by millions of fans who had come together in solidarity and voiced their opinions. This is an example of how consumer fandoms partake in enunciative productivity, which according to Henry Jenkin's theory of fandom, sees consumers taking part in spreading a message, which in this case had a large effect in the production of the movie. This audience collaboration has proven to be effective, and has shown how audiences now have more power in the production of media products, as this has all led to new leaks from the movie, which has shown Disney has altered and recast the actors in the movie, in an attempt to please the outraged audience.

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Moral Panic)

Moral Panic can be described as a phenomenon where widespread fear is spread throughout a society, which is heavily substantiated and pushed by media corporations. 

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Van Zoonen and Feminism)

 How would Van Zoonen's ideas on gender be treated by today's standards?
- How are genders portrayed in modern media?
- What debates are there surrounding gender in the media?
- How have media companies adapted to this shift in social values?

Van Zoonen believed that gender is an identity that is built up through portrayals in the media. In todays ever-changing media landscape, gender ideology has become a heavily controversial topic that has gained prominence due to the change in social values that modern feminism has brought about. Specifically, many people are now inclined to believe that people are free to "choose" their gender, and deny the existence of a "biological" gender. This is often described as a characteristic of woke culture. The media has thus conformed to these ideas and shown and promoted people who identify as transgender, to improve their prominence and liking amongst this new community. An example of this happening in recent times would be how the alcoholic beverage company Bud Light aimed to be more inclusive and broaden their audience by including a transgender influencer in their marketing campaign. Specifically, Bud Light worked with the transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote their "Easy Carry Contest", where Mulvaney posted promotional videos urging people to post themselves trying to carry as many Bud Light beer cans as possible. This then escalated heavily and led to an outrage from conservative audiences. This is mainly because, people who would describe themselves as conservatives have values that go against the modern progressive view of how gender should be represented equally, and how transgenderism is completely normal. In this case, conservatives were appalled at one of their favorite beer companies conforming/giving in to this woke culture by working with transgender celebrities to appear more inclusive. This further led to a massive boycott of Bud Light beers which saw the companies overall sales drop by over 11% in the first month of the boycott, from April until May of 2023. However, this is by far the contrary belief to the general consensus of LGBTQ ideologies, as most people in society would look to support this representation of transgender issues. This is a perfect example which showcases the public's opinions on Van Zoonen's theories about gender have changed heavily. Van Zoonen was considered incredibly progressive by stating that gender is an identity and sex is biological, but now stating that one is forced into a biological sex is considered incredibly transphobic. In this modern societal landscape, people believe that they can choose their sex, and are not only defined by the terms "male" and "female".