Conclusions drawn from Ideology, Representation, Star image and Power

When our group made the project schedule for our A2 media coursework it was decided and agreed that Star image and Power would be written up by myself and Ideology and Representation to be written up by Janay from our group and I would also draw the final conclusions about what we had found.
Firstly, representation can be defined as “a creation that is a visual or tangible rendering of someone or something”. This in turn means that something is created and is made to represent something. For example, glasses which make you think specsavers. The conclusions I can draw about representation is that music videos in this case has vast material to analyse as the concept and ideas behind music videos has changed vastly over the previous years and it can now be said music videos have changed into a “scandalous late-night after watershed hours screenplay”. Conclusions can also be drawn from the fact that music videos represent many different such as nationality, culture, religion and race. Certain music videos sometimes can be very controversial. For example, The Prodigy- Smack my bitch up. This certain music video caused masses of controversy and it lead to the video only being able to be shown after watershed due to its explicit nature as shown in the youtube video link below.




Ideology can be defined as “body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group; the study of the origin and nature of ideas”. This in turn means that someone’s belief actually belongs to an individual group. For example, a Buddhist belongs to a monastery. The conclusions that come from Janay’s description on ideology are that it is a very important idea that can be controversial. For example, you can have political and religious ideologies that can be offensive and racist like the BNP. The ideologies behind music videos are quite somewhat different. For example, women from this research in music videos are made to be erotic in the roles they play in music videos. For example, in the music video by Madonna- Justify my love. Madonna plays the role of a prostitute/escort and is wearing barely any clothing. The ideology and representation behind this is very stereotypical when a woman is involved in music videos.
The research I attained from star image and power was very interesting. From my research I now fully understand how star image and power actually works in the film/music industry. Nowadays agents for film/music stars are a massive part of the star image and power the individual receives. For example, Lady Gaga who has a massive fan base and reputation now for her singing and her weird choices of outfits as shown below.
She has gone right to the top of ladder for star image and power as she has so many fans and has a record label with a major company. Sean Connery who is a man that has so much star image and power mainly because of the fact that he was James Bond for several years and did several movies.




In conclusion to this whole research that has been attained on star image, power, ideology and representation they are all interlinked and are all very similar. This is due to the fact that any industry but the music industry in particular these 4 qualities are to be desired. I say this as many famous singers/actors have all these attributes because of the media and the mass market. The reputation you can gain from the media is unbelievable. For example, Madonna was given a very different reputation by the media after her controversial music video “Justify my love”. After this video Madonna gained so much star image and power that people in media had a new ideology for her and how they were going to represent this for Madonna. In the youtube video link below you can see the ideology and representation in Madonna's video.