The black-and-white version of King Kong, made in 1933, is a typical Hollywood film. All aspects of the film have trademark Hollywood elements in them. The following passages will see an explication of this assertion. In many ways this is a ground-breaking film. It set a precedent for all the subsequent thriller/horror/animation films that have…
Category: Media Studies
Two African musical themes and their musical, social and cultural relations.
One of the predominant themes in African music is the close relationship between music and language. For instance, “African tone languages, with their inter-syllabic relational pitch structure, manifest a musical aspect that in turn constrains melodic contour. Second, the popular and popularizing phenomenon of talking drums, the idea that drums (and other speech surrogates) “speak”…
Groucho Marx and the progression from vaudeville to movies, to radio and to television in the history of popular culture.
The youngest of the Marx Brothers trio, Julius “Groucho” Marx, was also the most popular and versatile of the siblings. Groucho Marx’s place in the American comedy canon is undisputed and he is regarded second only to Charlie Chaplin in terms of his status in the comedian fraternity. While most comedians of his generation were…
Reggae does not simply describe an experience, but politicises it through creating symbols for listeners to identify with.
The most common themes of Reggae music include poverty, politics and Rastafarianism (which is a set of spiritual and cultural beliefs with wide ranging interpretations). Other subjects like love, sex and socializing also find mention in the lyrics although social criticism is the predominant theme. The music is also known for criticism of materialism, political…
The Negative Effects of Music Videos on our Youth
Abstract: Several studies indicate a correlation between music videos and violent behavior of adolescents. The findings also show a connection between the imagery displayed in the videos and inappropriate sexual attitudes and conduct. The lyrics tend to have a significant corrupting influence on the youth. Particular genres such as hip-hop, gangsta rap and heavy metal…
How are the terms ‘margin’ and ‘centre’ used to define cultural groups in the Postmodern age?
There is a widely held consensus that postmodernism is a reaction to modernism and hence concerns itself only with “otherness”, “difference” and “identity”. High modernism is rarely occupied with the experiences of the cultural minorities and nor does it involve critical analyses of their experiences. People in the margin regard the links between their sense…
The applicability of the term ‘mass media’ in light of John Thompson’s views on the subject.
John Thompson had stated that “messages transmitted by the mass media are received by specific individuals situated in definite social-historical contexts”. He was quite right in asserting that though the media messages are broadcast to a large audience, the messages are ultimately consumed at the level of the individual. The way the message would be…
Marshall McLuhan And His Ideas
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was a Canadian philosopher, linguist, literary critic, communications theorist and a professor of English literature. He is the founding father of the field of study now termed “media ecology”. In Marshall McLuhan’s pioneering work on print culture, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, he presents the view that communication technology…
Movie Review : ‘Bicentennial Man’
Synopsis: The film is a narration of various events in the life of an android – Andrew Martin (Robin Williams). Though the robot was programmed to perform menial household tasks, it soon starts to show signs of sentience. The Martins take note of this and allow Andrew to express his creativity. They make millions selling…