In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

By Lauren Westlake

Digipak Similarities A way in which our digipak is similar to other media products out already is because they both have the purpose to persuade and inform their target audience. For example my digipak informs the audience the title of the album `Really Don’t Care’ which is similar to the digipak I researched, Katy Perry, who also features her album name on her digipak ‘Teenage Dream’.

Also on her digipak cover features a image of herself led down in a pink cloud with no clothes on, aspiring to the Laura Mulveys theory of the Male Gaze. Although my digipak image cover features the Demi and two other girls they are all dressed appropriately, I felt this was acceptable because as the target audience is based around young teenage girls I felt it wouldn’t be right to see their role model naked on a digipak cover.

Digipak DifferencesWays in which my digipak is different to other forms of media text is my digipak included the logo’s of social networking sites on the back cover of the digipak. I included them on the bottom left side of the cover, the sites I chose were Twitter and Instagram as they are currently the most used sites that celebrities use to inform their fans on what they are doing. Therefore fans of Demi can follow her on these sites.

This is not a typical convention of a digipak, as all the other digipaks I researched did not include this. Also I included the logo of the record company that Demi is signed with ‘Hollywood records’ I did this because is gives the company recognition and it is good advertising for them.

Music Video Similarities The ways in which our music video is similar to other media products already out there is that just like other music videos we researched our video contains the typical conventions of performance and narrative.

This is evident throughout our music video as it is clearly split into two different sections, the performance part where we see the girls singing along to the song in a studio whilst playing instruments and then the narrative part where we see the girls each meeting up with the same boy on three different dates.

This is similar to the music video by The Saturdays which I researched called ‘Up’ as although it is a very heavily based performance video there is still elements of a narrative within it.

Music Video Similarities Another way I believe that our music video is similar to other media products is that within our video we included fast pace shots and a wide range of camera angles such as long shots, close ups and mid shots. We decided to include this because in our research we found nearly all dance-pop music videos did this in order to create the ‘fun’ and fast paced effect. Just like in the Nicole Scherzinger video I researched ‘Your Love’ she includes a large amount of close ups whilst singing therefore I decided we should include this in ours to for the performance section of the song.

Further developing from Nicole’s video she was seen wearing very provocative clothing therefore conforming to the ‘male gaze’ theory by Laura Mulvey. As our video included three girls I wanted to try and get this effect, therefore for one of the girls in the narrative section she was seen on a date with the male in the video. Here we saw her with her long blonde neat hair, nicely done makeup and wearing a very attractive black low cut dress. I specifically chose this outfit for her as our target audience is young teenage girls I did not think it would be right to have seen her lounging around in a small bikini just like Nicole did in her video. Therefore I felt she was dressed appropriately for the audience yet still conformed to the ‘male gaze’ theory developing on Nicole’s music video.

Ways Our Music Video Has Challenged Typical Conventions I believe that the way our music video has challenged typical conventions of a music video is that within the performance part of our video we see Demi playing an electric guitar and another girls in the background playing the keyboard. In my opinion this is different to any other music video as it is not typical to see women playing instruments whilst performing.

I have found this within my research, for example throughout the whole performance of The Saturdays ‘Up’ none of them are seen playing any instruments. In fact the only music video’s where people were playing instruments was both in male music videos, Green Day ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Maroon 5 Moves Like Jagger’ here the men are seen all playing the guitar and drums. Therefore my music video has challenged the idea that stereotypically only male performers are seen playing instruments when performing.