Your sample 1b answers

For now, this one only - the main point here is look at my suggestions, though there are also good egs of applying theories by Jess here too:

1b. Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre

A genre is a critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements. David Chandler (2001) stated that the word Genre came from the French word for type. My music video was just on genre, Pop, this genre is so broad and wide that it is hard to distinguish whether it was just pop [APPLY THEORY: many poss’s here: Mittell (2001) genres are cultural categories or perhaps Abercrombie (1996) ‘a steady dismantling of genres’ as genre boundaries collapse]. All of Robbie Williams songs are pop and this was my groups personal taste. The conventions we found for our genre in music videos were, dancing, heterosexual relationships, lighting, lip syncing. When male artists are in a music video, they tend to be portrayed as a alpha male who is in love with a women, not only is this [heteronormative in forming part of the dominant discourse (Fairclough)] stereotyping but in today’s post-modern society, it doesn’t represent males who are gay etc [Queer theorist Judith Butler has written about how gender and sexual identities are wholly artificial constructs; concepts which do not have any objective meaning or exist in nature, but which we learn to perform through the reinforcement of acceptable, ‘normal’ behaviour through videos such as ours. We were aware of reflecting common stereotypes and encouraging such ‘performativity’ of gender, as Butler would put it, but felt that this was necessary to fit within the expectations of the genre and our stated audience. This highlights that genre is more than a neutral means of categorising content. Daniel Chandler has also raised similar points, arguing that genre texts provide a “reading position” for audiences; embedded within texts are assumptions about the 'ideal reader', including their attitudes towards the subject matter and often their class, age, gender and ethnicity]. Artists that do this [what? confusing] are Olly Murs, One Direction, The Wanted and Bruno Mars. However showing a male in a heterosexual relationship was perfect for our video because the lyrics matched the narrative [is there not polsemy over who the other person is who thinks ‘she’s the one’? even if not, make the point explicitly re the title ‘she’s the one’].

Our music video consisted of 3 generations of a boy and girl and performance, with lip syncing and typical conventions of a pop music video. Are narrative scenes and performance was a clear indication to the audience that it was the pop genre, and after getting lots of feedback, it was clear that our predictions were right. Rick Altman argued that genre offers a set of pleasures, I think that our music video offered emotional pleasures because the audience can relate to the narrative, we have created verisimilitude which again makes it more realistic and watching cute children growing up into young adults in love would make the audience feel different emotions. [this is good and will pick up marks; you could also draw on the uses & gratifications theory here]

The cast we used were attractive, and our male cast members linked with Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze Theory because they were attractive [you could be more specific; break this down: Western beauty stereotype of slim, make-up, long hair, Caucasian, blonde for instance?] and the audience liked watching them, this was also helpful as our main target audience was 15-24 females, so therefore they relate more because they are the same age as the cast. Steve Neale declared that genres are instances of repetition and difference, our video has elements from existing current music videos [point starts well with EAA, but you’re not getting easy marks for EGs here as you don’t back the point up with any specific example/s], I think that within the pop genre, it is all very much similar and the trends were set back in the 80’s when videos were first starting to come alive [Simon Reynolds 2011 book has coined the term ‘Retromania’ to describe the growing popularity of older existing texts with young and old audiences alike].

After receiving plenty of feedback we decided to have our narrative in a non-linear sequences but we still stuck to the conventions of cutting to the beat and matching lyrics with the narrative. Most pop videos are fast pace and serious, however, we challenged these conventions because our video was slow as was the music and within the narrative was cute and funny elements, for example, when the girl puts paint on the boys noise.

I think that our music video is clear and precise as to which genre it is conveying. The video can really relate to the audience and overall the video is not a typical pop video.

[Good in parts and close to a C overall – very strong on EAA at times, picking up useful marks too on TERMY, though the EAA can be extended and the real weakness here is EGs: too little specific illustration from your text and/or from your research]

EAA              7

EG                4

TERMY         3