Music Video and the Spectator: Television, Ideology and Dream

Structural relationships of music and images in music video

“…in agreement with Kinder's (1984) well-known categorisation. in agreement with Kinder's (1984) well-known categorisation.…”

“…The apparently widely accepted mainstream line of explanation of these characteristic traits is based on the argument of postmodernism: the 'postmodern condition', pervading all of contemporary industrialised society, finds its most adequate representation in the fragmentary forms of music video, combining practices from Classical high art, avant-garde modernism and popular culture (see, for instance, Aufderheide 1986;Kaplan 1987;Strom 1989). While postmodernism sometimes approaches the vague, all-embracing status of a Zeitgeist, many scholars relate it, and the characteristics of music video, to the development of the specific media codes of commercial television (Berland 1986;Jones 1988;Kaplan 1987;Larsen 1987), and especially, stressing the advertising function of music video, to the aesthetics of television advertising (Allan 1990;Frith 1988;Goodwin 1987;Kinder 1984;Laing 1985;Movin and 0berg 1990;Strom 1989 and others). While postmodernism sometimes approaches the vague, all-embracing status of a Zeitgeist, many scholars relate it, and the characteristics of music video, to the development of the specific media codes of commercial television (Berland 1986;Jones 1988;Kaplan 1987;Larsen 1987), and especially, stressing the advertising function of music video, to the aesthetics of television advertising (Allan 1990;Frith 1988;Goodwin 1987;Kinder 1984;Laing 1985;Movin and 0berg 1990;Strom 1989 and others).…”

“…One line of argument apparently lying close at hand involves the view of the specificities of music video as a consequence of a general tendency, determined by social and media-technological developments, towards a Benjaminian 'distracted mode of perception', requiring a structure allowing the user to quickly catch the point of the message (Jones 1988;Larsen 1987;Movin and 0berg 1990); at times this view is extended into postmodernist speculation on the 'schizophrenic subject' (Jensen 1988). The parallelisms between these structures and the workings of the primary processes of the psyche have been pointed out (Brown and Fiske 1987;Ruud 1988), as well as the potential of fantasy for exploitation for commercial purposes (Kinder 1984). The parallelisms between these structures and the workings of the primary processes of the psyche have been pointed out (Brown and Fiske 1987;Ruud 1988), as well as the potential of fantasy for exploitation for commercial purposes (Kinder 1984).…”

“…The opinion has been proposed that, for the user, the music is somehow 'dominated' by the visuals (Berland 1986;Kinder 1984;Tetzlaff 1986); this, however, seems to have little bearing on matters other than the individual mode of perception and musical preferences of these scholars. Nevertheless, in spite of the significant role of music in this context (if nothing else, as the alleged justification for the entire phenomenon), most of the authors cited have remarkably little to say about it.…”

“…Allan, in a discussion of correspondences between musical film and music video, identifies the functions of music as 'those of grounding, unity and resolution ' (1990, p. 9), while Kinder (1984) states that the continuous flow of the music imposes unity on the video. These are among the rare instances of music video scholars approaching the significance of structural aspects of music; another example is Berland's (1986) somewhat impressionistic account of the relationship between formal song structure and visuals.…”