Ideology

What is ideology? 
The ideas and beliefs behind a media text. These sets of beliefs are those held by groups within society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups. Individuals/Groups hold these to be important. 

Dominant Ideologies
It is apparent that the accepted and agreed beliefs, that are repeatedly shown through the 'ruling class' and those with 'ruling intellectual'. Such as the government. 
Generally, these are the ideas such as gender roles, and those about society and what is socially acceptable and not; that we have become accustomed to and believe to be right and normal. Similar to this is a Hegemony, which is not an idea forced by political movements, but are taken hold by many and used to 'fit in' with the cultural values of their time. An example of this is football, which is extremely popular among many... but no one is forced to watch/listen/play.  In the media and music related business  at this moment in time the pop/r&b artists appear to be the hegemony, and are hugely advertised and popular. However recently it has become apparent that people enjoy listening to music outside of this, and the term 'main-stream' defines music that 'everyone listens to', and some people enjoy finding artists undiscovered and that are not 'mainstream.'

Ideology of the Indie Genre
The term indie used to be a term used for unsigned bands who got into the industry without a label and weren't particularly well known. It has since evolved into a music style, and is a very natural way of performing the song that may appear rough and improvised, but this seems to be one of the attractions to it. The music is narrative and tells a story of particular emotions. In the particular subdivision of indie music that I worked with, which is indie pop/folk with the use of guitars and fairly up beat tempo. Fans enjoy the ideology that the indie music is still almost of the unsigned nature and produced not as a part of the global industry, but for the 'fans'

Effecting our representation...
Our music video is influenced by dominant ideologies and those of the indie genre. Dominant ideologies include the use of a heterosexual couple, not that a homosexual one is not 'normal', but it just so happens that in the videos studied, when a male artist sings a song about love, a girl is featured in the lyrics and also in the video... and the same goes for the opposite sex.  Having said this, gay couples is becoming a lot more 'normal' in society so this dominant ideology could perhaps fade in years to come. 
Our target audience are both genders, so we did our best to convey equality with the sexes. The male in this music video is showing his emotions and how it is normal for a boy to show feelings. This is important as the male sex of are target audience are not stereotypically harsh, strong and with no emotion! They are just regular young people, who are often at the stage in their life where they experience different relationships and break-ups. Similarly, the female is not objectified in a negative way. In keeping with this theme of 'normality' is the mise en scene. Props such as the guitar, are associated with the indie genre and reinforce the musical interest of the audience and artists. The people and location were fairly basic , as this is meant to be a story of two people who the audience can relate to. 
Our genre would drink alcohol, but socially. In our video we showed the main character to have the beer cans pile around him in quite a comical way. We wanted to make sure that we were not promoting drinking in any way, and therefore showed him alone, implying that this is not something that he does normally. We ensure not to feature them again, so people do not associate the success of them getting back together at the end, as anything to do with being a benefit of drinking alcohol! 


Audience Pleasures

-Diversion: Escape from routine and problems; an emotional release; entertainment

-Personal Relationships: being part of a group; conversation about media; substitution of media for companionship

-Personal Identity: Value reinforcement or reassurance; self-understanding; role models

-Surveillance: Information about the world around us

The pleasures used in our text are Diversion and Personal Identity. This is because our text tells a story, and is a form of escapism. When watching and familiarizing with the characters in the video, this is what the viewer focuses on instead of anything in their own world. The narrative nature keeps them entertained and interested, and the happy ending would typically reinforce a positive message, linking in with Personal Identity, because in seeing the eventual success of this relationship in the video, it could convey a happy message to them leaving the audience feeling positive reassuring that if they were perhaps experiencing a similar breakup, they could also have this 'happy ending' that is featured in some existing music videos. Although this sounds slightly cheesy, it is still reassuring  and entertaining.  


Memes & Tropes
Those that occur in our media text include;
-non aggressive
-artistic
-instruments featured
-no sexism
-fairly well dressed, but appearance is not the main focus.