Proposal

Working title

The working title of my critical investigation is "To what extent can it be argued that contemporary hip hop music is a negative influence on its target audience?" I chose to research about this question as I am interested within the topic of the music industry and it allows me to show my passion for it; it is a different question as it targets many key factors of the media world such as race, gender, age.. etc. 

Angle

Has a both positive and negative impact upon the audience. Positive: if a song in particular talks about ending gun violence and to be peaceful, more people might be influenced not to use guns. Negatives: artists e.g. influence people to use guns for example phrases such as 'bang bang' are used to make people be influenced into using guns leading to increased violence.
Is this simply a moral panic of the 21st century or is further regulation required?
A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.^[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic
This issue can be seen as a moral panic as my question consists words such as 'negative' connoting the fact that this could be a threat towards society within the 21st century, I know that it is fairly recent due to the word 'contemporary' which means that there would be a lot of research for new hip hop music that I would have to carry out for my work. 

Hypothesis

Music is influencing would influence people to be more negative as in the current generation, references to sex, drugs and violence are made opposed to things such as peace or love as much. Artists such as Chief Keef, Lil Wayne, Kanye West influence violence within their songs such as 'No Church in Wild', 'I Don't Like' etc. And due to this, as the target audience of the young generation aged from 16-25 (http://tsmithchs.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/rbhip-hop-music-magazine-target-audience/) and as they may look up to some of these artists as to being their role models, people may try to be more like them and therefore be more violence, for example, or whatever more their artists talk about within their songs.

Linked production piece

http://musicmagic.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/music-in-society/ article showing how music has an impact upon society. 


MIGRAIN

Apply the Key Concepts to your texts/topic by using the questions from the Summer Research Project to help you. (Include at least five bullet point/key concept). Include as many media keywords as you can.

Media Representations: 


SHEP

Apply the Wider Contexts to your text/topic, including at least three bullet points on each one.

Issues/Debates

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using the Media A-Z to help you think about this:

• Representation and stereotyping - how black people influence violence, how white people are represented not to rap as much as black people, how women are portrayed in a lower way than men showing a sense of how men are more dominant.
• Media effects
• Reality TV - The lives of artists within the music industry e.g. chief keef at such a young age to achieve what he did or Eminem who started from nothing and ended up becoming one of the world's top selling artists.
• News Values - Paparazzi and how they feed off the artists' lives and what they do.
• Ownership and control...
• Regulation and censorship...
• Media technology and the digital revolution – changing technologies in the 21st century - Changing technology influences people to stream more videos on their iPads or their android phones  etc.
• The effect of globalisation on the media - How the US music industry has taken over the world compared to the UK who have made it big, but not as big as the artists who are located within the US.

Theories

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using keywords/specific theorists' names from the Media A-Z:

• Semiotics
• Structuralism and post-structuralism
• Postmodernism and its critiques
• Gender and ethnicity - Race e.g. black people vs white people, representation in music videos
• Marxism and hegemony
• Liberal Pluralism
• Colonialism and Post-colonialism -
• Audience theories - Different audiences for different genres e.g. classical = older generation vs Rap = younger, ghetto generation.
• Genre theories - Rap vs Pop
• Contemporary Media Landscape

Explain how your study fits into this.

Research plan (media texts, academic texts and websites)

Media texts
What your main focus will be, E.g.:
Hip-Hop vs Pop
Artists such as Chief Keef, Eminem, A$ap Rocky, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Beyonce.

Other media texts
(at least five related examples) such as the older generation artists, places the music is listened in e.g. the US vs the UK, Grime vs US rap, instituitions
TV documentaries
Research videos online, e.g.:
BBC One - Panorama, Addicted to Games? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlmj0

Academic texts/books
(a minimum of five, including author/full title/year, e.g.:)
Nancy Signorielli: Violence in the media: a reference handbook (2005)


Internet Links
www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog
http://www.theguardian.com/music/video/2013/oct/13/jay-z-london-underground-tube-o2-arena-video
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/oct/11/wiley-statue
http://www.capitalfm.com/artists/girls-aloud/news/nadine-coyle-jason-bell-father/
http://www.capitalfm.com/artists/rihanna/news/new-tattoo-chris-brown/


Newspaper articles
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KiHcllqdzl4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=how+does+music+influence+society%3F+&ots=C3Pp0ZGK-U&sig=OXAyltG1dgve4fkdpy6U8isphck#v=onepage&q=how%20does%20music%20influence%20society%3F&f=false
http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/black-african-music-and-society

Daily Mail Article

The atrocious article posted the day after the Olympics opening ceremony, attacked different gender roles and races being a very controversial article and by the man writing the article posting remarks such as 'This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England but it is likely to be a challenge for the organisers to find an educated white middle-aged mother and black father living together with a happy family in such a set-up.' showed a very one-sided argument upon society as an overall and the phrase 'set-up' made it seem as if a white mother and a black father would never be seen anywhere.

I believe that this man is very racist and biased and as bold as that statement is, it may be seen as very much true. Why would no one ever see a white, middle-aged mother and black father living together? I know I have; but due to this man's delusional mind from all the luxury that he may be living in, as he is living in his own world, he may not have seen the world through other people's lives. What I believe is that the Olympics presented a white woman, living with a black man as they may be promoting diversity within the UK which may connote that everyone is equal.

Furthermore, as said before, the article draws sympathy towards a boy's life and almost makes the audience feel responsible for his death; this may be a technique that the author uses in order to get more people to read the article, however, due to the death of that young child, I don't believe that the audience reading the news article should be held responsible and as this is a very controversial topic, it may get people to start riots. Whether this is what the author of the article, Rick Dewsbury was planning or not, I don't know for sure, however, a political war and disagreements against the NHS have already begun to take place. I believe that Rick is taking an almost 'cheap shot' to target racism upon society.

Word Count: 348 words.

WWW/EBI for the TEST - Mr Halsey

8/12 Level 3 - C+

WWW: Some excellent points and you have addressed the main debate well.

EBI: Theory is a weakness: surely the video would support Butler's theory even if she would object against the video itself. McRobbie's is also a little confused. 

LR: Look again at the Theorists:

 How would they respond to the video?

For McRobbie, it may depend upon how she would react to the Blurred Lines video as, as she believes that women have the right to flaunt what they have in magazines, television etc. Blurred Lines may make her struggle within her decision as the video is far too explicit including the naked version and may get her to change her views upon the women in society in general. 

For Butler, as she disagrees with women being represented in a less dominant way, she may also have mixed feelings towards this music video as the believes that gender roles are constructed and that if you are born a woman then in society you will be shown to be lower but as she disagrees with that, she may disagree with the music video due to the way the women are portrayed in the naked version. 

How does music influence society? - sources

http://openingband.hubpages.com/hub/Music-Influences-Society -

Music Influences Us
“Singing and music have always played an important role in learning and the communication of culture” (Shermon). Throughout the years music has changed the way it influences people. In earlier years music was used more for celebration and now music is used to voice your opinion and try to influence your audience to believe what you stand for. In time of war musicians tend to lead the way in protests and like to call out their government. Religion has always had music of some form and the songs that they sing influence people to believe in their god. Music influences how people act, what people do and our religion.

http://itstheskittlee.hubpages.com/hub/Music-and-the-Influence-on-Society

  Music can have an intrinsic  meaning or can have an extrinsic meaning. The meaning of music may be interpreted from the viewpoint of the formalist or from the viewpoint of an expressionist. Some people may listen to music just because they are bored or they like the beat; others listen to it for the lyrics and the expression the artist is trying to send out. The media says that rap should be blamed for the gang violence, drugs, devaluing women and male control; rock and metal is blamed for satanic rituals, suicides as an “alternative” or “solution,” sadism, and masochism.
    Rappers are blamed constantly for crimes across America. In 1988, Ice-T who was a well-known rapper was all over the media because of his song “Cop Killa”. Once he song was released numerous police were murdered; the media said they did it because of Ice-T’s song. Was it Ice-T’s fault for these crimes or was it the fault of the people committing the crime? The answer is no, cops were getting shot before the song came out, policemen know they have a dangerous job and the know the consequences. Rap music is growing rapidly, it has gotten many people out of poverty and out of the ghetto. Rap musicians donate thousands and thousands of dollars to charities all over America, but they don’t get any credit for that. Media only looks for the worse in all cases. Rap musicians rap about their life, the only way to fix what they rap about is to fix the society around you; they rap about what they see and hear. Rap music does not influence bad actions, but reflects it.

http://uk.ask.com/question/influence-of-music-on-culture

Music can have a big influence on culture. Often times a musician and things they sing about can have an influence on how people who listen to their songs act. When the actions of many people change, the culture begins to change. For instance, during the 60s, the musicians sang about peace and love and that was the start of the hippie culture in America.

http://musicmagic.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/music-in-society/

Music is a very powerful medium and in some societies there have been attempts to control its use. It is powerful at the level of the social group because it facilitates communication which goes beyond words, enables meanings to be shared, and promotes the development and maintenance of individual, group, cultural and national identities. It is powerful at the individual level because it can induce multiple responses – physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive and behavioural. Few other stimuli have effects on such a wide range of human functions. The brain’s multiple processing of music can make it difficult to predict the particular effects of any piece of music on any individual. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJbKwU3I3Kw&safe=active   - video answering my question

Presentation

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3bBvyHL2y_tdlkzeVI1LTVYVXc/edit?usp=sharing

Presentational feedback

• How your research contributed (or failed to contribute) to the presentation

As my question was 'How do artists in the music industry influence the youth and the society?' My research contributed to the presentation as I talked about a range of things such as target audience which was the youth in this case. For example, I talked about youngsters would look up to their role models such as Bruno Mars and how he talks positive within his music however, when it comes to his personal life, it was well known that he was a cocaine addict and this leads to binary opposition as it is a constant battle between good and bad. The society may argue about him being a good role model or not for the youth.

Some of my research that I failed to contribute was that I talked about the positive sides of some artists such as Eminem but I didn't talk about his negatives such as his alter-ego of Slim Shady and some of the things he's done in his past and some spiteful lyrics which would get society to see him in a negative way, however the target audience of the younger generation would still see him as 'badass' and still a good role model. 

• The delivery of the presentation

I believe that the delivery of my presentation was fluent and confident as I made direct eye contact with the audience and I faced them 

• The topic area chosen
• How you plan to develop the presentation into an extended academic essay

Www ebi

Www: well designed slides, both sides of argument, wide range of examples, good use of images, textual analysis, very fluent. 

Ebi: more terminology, more depth, include conclusion.