Test Revision

Revision

Heat magazine

• From the Heat media pack: "In print – we bring readers a truly unique, quality experience. From clever A-list access shoots no other magazine could pull off to celeb news – heat has the celeb contacts to give readers the exclusive every time."
• The magazine also offers shopping and lifestyle tips: "Our all-inclusive approach promises style for everybody, no matter what shape or size, and our team test fashion and beauty products to make sure readers spend their hard-earned pennies wisely. And Life Hacks gives readers down-time insporation by curating the buzziest experiences in travel, food, fitness, wellbeing and homes."

Heat's target audience

• FEMALE/MALE: 90% / 10%
• AVG AGE: 37
• AGE PROFILE: 52% AGED 15/34 (14% 15-24, 37% 25-34)
• SEGMENT: 50% ABC1
• MARITAL STATUS: 57% MARRIED (or living with partner) / 43% single

Source: Heat Media Pack 

Media Language

• Typography/Fonts:  Sans serif fonts to make the magazine feel modern, informal and offering the latest gossip. ‘Posh’ written in serif to make it feel ‘posh’.
• Cover lines: Indirect address favoured by celebrity gossip magazines emphasises the gossip feel. Questions to audience create inclusive, gossipy feel and words like ‘shock new pics’ and ‘Behind closed doors’.
• Name checks/star appeal: the cover is packed with celebrity gossip and the magazine sells itself on having the latest celebrity gossip. Note the stars are given first names only - Heat readers know these celebs already and want to hear the latest.
• Colour scheme: Pink, yellow and red. Bright colours to attract attention – important without a single central image. Gossip magazines tend to be busier and more packed with images to suggest issues that are bursting with different stories.

Representations

• The people represented on the cover are mostly celebrities and well known actors, reality television stars and music artists. Why?
• Celebrities are presented as important and desirable – but some of the paparazzi photography is designed to make them look like ‘normal’ people.

Social and Cultural Contexts

The features in Heat focus on a few key areas:

• Relationships: normative and subversive as words are used such as ‘secretive’, ‘baby daddy’ and ‘heartache’. Focus is on relationship breakdowns. 
• Shopping: Christmas shopping suggestions on front cover. Heat magazine emphasises High Street shopping recommendations and affordable ways to get the latest looks.
• British TV and music: Most of the images and stories relate to reality TV stars and/or pop stars (or former pop stars). This is an example of intertextuality with Heat regularly references other media products (e.g. ‘I’m A Celeb Exclusive’).
  

Tatler Magazine

• Tatler is Britain’s oldest magazine (founded in 1901).
• Targeted at upper classes and upper-middle classes.
• Lifestyle magazine with focus on fashion; high society events such as balls and celebrities such as the Royal family and members of the aristocracy (people with inherited wealth, titles and land.)
• There are versions in Russia, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
• Over the years, Tatler has remained interested in the lives of the Royal family, but has tried to re-invent itself as more ‘edgy’ and modern in recent years, to try and target a younger audience. 

Media Language

• This refers to how the producers communicate their message to the audience through the media text. 
• Mise-en-scene: what you see - remember CLAMPS (Costume / Lighting / Actors / Make-up / Props / Setting)
• Typography / Fonts: serif title and sans serif cover lines. 
• Words used and their connotations. 
• Colour schemes: usually two or three in a magazine. Sometimes title matches or is juxtaposed with colours elsewhere on the cover.

Representations

• Tend to reflect dominant representations/stereotypes of wealthy upper-class British people on the cover through images and cover lines.
• The cover star is Emma Weymouth (aka Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath) and is a rare black cover star for Tatler. Emma Thynn's father is a Nigerian oil billionaire and her mother is an English socialite (socialite: a person who is well known in fashionable society). This cover star shows Tatler is trying to update its representation of race in the magazine in response to recent cultural changes such as the Black Lives Matter movement.
• Average age of Tatler reader is 41 but the cover tends to focus on celebrities or models who are younger than this (due to dominant ideals of beauty in the Media).
• Cover lines (stories inside) tend to focus on preoccupations of upper classes e.g ‘Inside the new British establishment'; Blond ambition (about Boris Johnson's brother); Off-duty Royal dressing. 

Social and cultural contexts

• The issues that Tatler is concerned with tend to be political but not in a particularly gritty way because the magazine is more interested in fashion, merchandise, beauty and ‘lifestyle’ rather than dealing with news in any depth. Hence references to Boris Johnson's brother and 'the workings of the Westminster web'.
• The preoccupation with parties, private schools, luxury holidays and exclusivity (the ‘Tatler Privilege Club’) assumes a high level of income and an elitist attitude which may alienate or offend people from a different social class. 81% of the readership has an above average income. 44% buy shoes or clothes more than once a month so the cultural context of the magazine could be judged as ‘niche’ (for the few) rather than ‘mainstream’ (for everyone).
• Some of the stories featured in Tatler can be seen as outdated as they are concerned with riding, hunting and shooting which are pursuits generally only enjoyed by upper classes. 

Blackpink

Industries

BLACKPINK: Manufactured by YG Entertainment

Blackpink was formed in 2016 by Korean entertainment company YG Entertainment and by 2020 was one of the most successful K-Pop bands in the world. As of 2021, the band was the most followed girl group on Spotify and the most-subscribed music group, female act, and Asian act on YouTube.

The Changing Nature of the Music Industry

How You Like That demonstrates the changing nature of the music industry and how important YouTube and social media has become for music artists. 

The way people consume music videos has changed – now phones, tablets and YouTube are the primary ways audiences engage with music videos (known as convergence). It also shows music video has become a media form in its own right, not just a way to sell an album. 

BLACKPINK’s billions of YouTube views also bring in money through advertising. 

Music: A Global Industry

K-pop demonstrates the global nature of the industry with BLACKPINK selling out arenas across the UK and USA as well as in the East. They played Wembley Arena in 2019 as well as huge US music festival Coachella. 

Music Videos: Regulation

With music videos now largely consumed on YouTube, regulating the content of music videos is very difficult. Some UK-based record companies get their music videos rated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

The kinds of issues the BBFC considers in classifying music videos include bad language, dangerous behaviour presented as safe, drug misuse, sexual behaviour and nudity, and threatening behaviour and violence.

Music Video Key Conventions

Music videos typically feature movement – often fast paced either in terms of actors, camerawork or editing. Many contain a performance element or narrative. Music videos can also feature visual effects and intertextuality.

Music videos were originally designed as a promotional device to sell the band or artist’s music but have developed over time to become a recognised artform or product in their own right. Modern music videos no longer have the huge budgets of the 1980s and 1990s but digital media means they are now more accessible than ever. Videos such as Psy’s Gangnam Style have received over 3 billion views on YouTube.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is when one media text references another media text – through genre, conventions, mise-en-scene or specific cultural references.

Music videos often use intertextual references – often to classic films but also to television, popular culture, news, videogames or even other music videos.

Music Video History

Originally, music videos were made like mini ‘films’ of the bands performing (e.g. The Beatles, Elvis)

MTV was launched in 1981 as a platform for music videos and the first music channel on television. Programs such as BBC show Top of The Pops also showcased music videos from the charts alongside ‘live’ stage performances. 

In the 1980s and 1990s big budgets were spent on producing innovative and creative music videos such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller that had a film narrative, a well known director and featured intertextuality (horror films)

Arctic  Monkeys

rctic Monkeys are an English indie rock band from Sheffield. The lead singer is called Alex Turner. Since forming in 2002, they have released six albums and won seven Brit Awards. They were one of the first bands to come to the public’s attention due to the internet, heralding a new way that bands are produced and marketed.

I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor is their first single from debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not released with niche, independent record label Domino. The album was released in January 2006 and went straight to number 1 selling over 350,000 copies in its first week.

Unlike BLACKPINK, Arctic Monkeys weren’t put together by an entertainment company, they were all friends from school. They formed in 2002 and wrote songs based on their lives and what they saw on nights out in Sheffield. They played pubs and small venues in and around Sheffield, and built up a huge following online using Myspace

Video analysis and audience appeal

The power of the internet

• Social Media was only starting to be introduced in the early 2000s.
• You could chat to people with similar interests on chatroom or forums.
• You used AOL or MSN Messenger to talk to your friends, send emojis and share pictures and music.
• Myspace was released in 2003 and was one of the first major social networking sites. Myspace was used by bands and artists to gain fans without the need for a record company.
• Arctic Monkeys' music was shared on P2P sites, though this wasn’t known by the band or promoted when they found out. It allowed their music to be heard by a much wider audience.
• The sharing of their music encouraged people to talk about and share their music, which created a buzz about the band.
• Their fan base moved online, creating online communities where they could share songs and information.

Arctic Monkeys: performance video

• This is a performance video designed to look like a 1980s TV performance on programmes such as Top of the Pops or The Old Grey Whistle Test. It was filmed using old 1980s Ikegami 3-tube colour TV cameras to give it an authentic, nostalgic effect.
• The simple performance video subverts music video conventions that became steadily more complicated and narrative-based in the 1980s and 1990s.
• It opens with the singer introducing the song and adding the words 'Don't believe the hype'. This could be a reference to the online following the band built up using Myspace.  

Audience 

• Arctic Monkeys' audience are likely to be predominantly white, middle class and reasonably young. Psychographic groups might include Reformers and Explorers. Recent global success pushed the band into bigger psychographic groups such as Mainstreamers.
• Audience pleasures would include diversion - the song is upbeat and fast-paced. Fans who followed the band from the early days might find a sense of personal relationship while many young people would get a sense of personal identity from the lyrics to the song (about going out to a club and drinking).
• Older fans would enjoy a sense of nostalgia from the 1980s-style performance video.

Industries 

Convergence and technology

• Technological convergence is the development of technology (such as phones and tablets) that allows us to access all types of media through one device. This has fundamentally changed the way music videos are produced, consumed and shared. 
• Technological convergence has created both challenges and opportunities for the music industry - both artists and record companies.

Record company

• Arctic Monkeys did not sign to a major label, but recorded their own music before signing to independent record label, Domino Records. They were not interested in working with a major as it would undermine their creative control.
• Their debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not went straight to number one and sold over 350,000 copies in its first week of release.

Music video regulation

Music video regulation is controlled by the BBFC who set certain standards and ratings for different age groups who they believe should be exposed to content specific to their age via age ratings and certification. YouTube and Vevo work in partnership with the BBFC to age rate all music videos for artists who are signed to Sony Music UK, Universal Music UK and Warner Music UK (the 'big three').  However, not all music producers sign up to this though and the BBFC does not have the power to regulate content on YouTube.

The BBFC regulate many different aspects of music videos. The sort of issues the BBFC considers in classifying music videos include:

• drug misuse
• dangerous behaviour presented as safe
• bad language
• sexual behaviour and nudity
• threatening behaviour and violence