Richard Dyer - Theorist

Dyer is a representation theorist, he studied representation in media generally and looked at how media texts represent them selves to society and an audience. 'How we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat other is based on how we see them. How we see them comes from representation'.

Representation is so important because it enable us to understand the media text, without representations texts would be meaningless. Without representations texts would have no messages, and there would be no denotation. Also, texts would not be able to translate a narrative to an audience. Dyer formed a set of questions when analysing media representations in general:

1. What sense of the world is it making?
2. What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
3. Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
4. What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?

With the questions, I am going to answer them in relation to my music video so far.

1. My music video relates to younger girls of this generation, particularly teenagers, when wishing that they had a boyfriend. It is very realistic in sense of the locations, outfits etc, creating verisimilitude. I needed my music video to be realistic because other wise, it wouldn't make any sense of the world what so ever, giving my audience nothing to relate to, therefore, making them not enjoy the video as much.

2. It implies that a lot of teenagers go through a similar situation to what my female actor is going through, making it easier to relate to. Although my music video narrative is a bit extreme, teens are still able to relate to this in some way, even if they are wishing for a boyfriend but not as dramatically. It shows a typical view of the world, but the way that Blossom is acting is very deviant, and could even be labelled as a 'psychopath'.

3. My music video's target audience are female teenagers, aged typically 13-21, as the narrative is the only age group that it would be associated with typically. It could be argued that it is also aimed at some males, either relating to Mulvey's 'male gaze', with the fact that males only want to watch the video to watch the female actor, or they could view themselves as being the male actor in the video, and have some kind of relation to this.

4. It would depend on how people respond to this text, depending on whether or not they can relate to this. I would hope that all teens can relate to it as it is a typical 'love' story, but with a slight twist ending, then making it not so 'typical'. Some audience may respond well to the text, giving them a sense of something to relate to. Others may respond badly to this, having nothing in common for the video and thinking of it as a waste of time to watch.