Justin Bieber
A narrative analysis of a teenage phenomenon and his representation
Introduction:
I have chosen to focus on the American teenage music phenomenon Justin Bieber whose career has exploded within the last two years. From being a 14 year old boy singing to his mother's camera in their living room to being a mega start with so much hype around him that it makes you dizzy.
Media around the world are talking about “Bieber Fever” and I would like to investigate how he uses media (ICT, television and social networks) to promote his music and especially himself.
Furthermore I would like to look into what kind of culture he represents (the American dream), what narrative he wants to tell and if at all possible find out how it affects the young teenagers (especially girls) today and their ideas of a happy life and view on gender roles.
Research question:
The American music phenomenon Justin Bieber – how may we read him? Semiotics, signifiers and signified (signs and what they mean) in his videos. His use of Facebook and Twitter to promote himself.
Teaching session:
My lesson plan for the 20 minutes of teaching culture and semiotics will include
· showing the music video by Justin Bieber “Baby feat. Ludacris”
· a pre-teaching activity where the “pupils” will be asked to focus their attention on the representation of gender roles in the video
· an after viewing activity where we discuss what they have found
· and finally they will be asked to compare representation of gender roles exposed in the video with representation of gender roles as we know them in the Scandinavian countries
Why is he so big in the English speaking countries and not in the Nordic countries? The cultural differences and expectations to relationships and life.
Theory:
John Fiske and the Madonna articles - to get inspiration.
Gillespie - for the narrative analysis of the phenomenon.
Gauntlett and Longhurst - for representaion of gender in his videos.
Key words / sentences for inspiration:
What culture does he represent?
What is the representation of gender roles in his videos?
Why does he appeal more to the English speaking audience than to the Nordic?
His use of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook
The launch af his first movie ”Never say never” in Europe. Live streaming of the event (U2 were to my knowledge the first to live stream a major event)
It's a traditional homodiegetic (1st person is telling/singing the story, Lennart Højbjerg, 2000) narrative music video. A performance video where the subject (the star) integrates sound and picture. The viewer will always try to construct some kind of meaning in the narrative told.
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I might twist this essay a bit and write my article about using music videos in teaching text, culture, gender roles and language in the TEFL classroom....unless Lilian tells me otherwise :o))
Interesting, relevant - I would suggest you might also wish to make use of theory from last year on culture and film.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I'd better take a look at this guy.
Right - that's who he is. Well, I will be interested in your analysis. Slightly worrying, perhaps, or were there always young boys like that? Seem to remember a few from my own youth and they looked, behaved and sang much the same...
ReplyDeleteYes that's who he is :o)
ReplyDeleteI find the whole scene around him very fascinating and hope to do my assignment article on the use of music videos in EFL teaching. With a special focus on semiotics and narrative observation and the representation of gender in music videos.
The children use music videos as entertainment and I would like to take that into the classroom and teach the children to be aware of what they unconciously learn from music videos and how the media is part of the forming of their own identities (e.g. the gender roles represented in the videos). I would like to teach them to be aware of semiotics in text, whether it be the news, the newpapers, film or teaching materials, and all on the basis of music videos....to make teaching authentic.
Well - more about that later...