Media BTW Assessment

Media BTW Assessment

Musical artists create music videos as they are able to gain revenue from them through the use of several streaming platforms thanks to technological convergence. They are able to put certain messages in the lyrics and video, which can appeal to the audience. If the audience chooses to accept these messages, they will subscribe to the artist, and begin to listen and watch their other songs that they have to offer. They can do this through certain platforms such as YouTube and Spotify, which let the artist earn a small amount of royalties. From this, the audience can further accept the artists messages and proceed to attend concerts, in which they can see them live. This earns the artist a lot of revenue, helping them continue producing more music videos, and spread more messages. By becoming well established and creating an image for themselves, the audience will acknowledge music videos as belonging to a certain artist, without themselves being featured in the music video itself; this is known as Richard Dyer's star theory.

Radiohead's 'Burn The Witch' music video is a great example of an artist putting messages and viewpoints in their songs, as it contains multiple messages and viewpoints which can link to ideology. The song released in 2016, and at this point they had an image for themselves, and are not shown in the video as a result. In the video, an inspector visits and tours a community, which on the outside to the regular person, seems lovely and innocent; this perception of the community changes with each shot being more and more sinister. This inspector sees disturbing things, particularly the clear mistreatment of women, a message which Radiohead chose to put into their song. Every woman in the video is shown to be wearing a particular type of clothing originating from Germany, showing that they are treated the same, without any freedom in what they wear. They can also be shown to be on the wrong end of sacrifices committed by the community, which they believe to be normal. On top of this, they are shown to be doing stereotypical actions for women, such as domestic labour, which represents the viewpoints from Radiohead in which they believe society stands by idly while the women are made to do the dirty work, showcasing that the men have more power. This is patriarchy, and is included within Van Zoonen's feminist theory, in which she believes that women are objectified, and that they are represented as domestic. Radiohead included this message and viewpoint to make their audience change themselves and to begin being anti-patriarchal, to make society a better place. They also included this message to make their audience reject Right-Wing ideals, as right-wing parties have been known to have marginalized women in the past. This is because Radiohead dislike Right-Wing parties themselves.

Another message shown in 'Burn The Witch' is the mistreatment of immigrants. The inspector is an outsider in the music video, having never been to the community previously; to them he is unknown. The community chooses to use the inspector in a ritual sacrifice they do each year, mirroring the actions of the community in the movie 'Wickerman'. This sacrifice involved putting the inspector inside a burning wooden statue and burning it, killing him in the process. The end scene is where Radiohead's message about the mistreatment of immigrants becomes clear, as the shot pans out with the community turning towards the camera and waving to it, acting as if nothing has happened, when there is a man burning alive behind them. This community acting normal can represent Right-Wing parties promoting opposition towards immigration, with the inspector being the immigrant.