Task 2 : media texts and audience responses Alex O'Neill NDY1 

Introduction In this PowerPoint I am going to look at a music video of my choice and analysis the content of the video then explain how this could be interpreted by different audiences. The music video that I have chosen to analysis for this assignment is 'My Perfect Cousin' by The Undertones who are a band who originated in Derry. The song was released on March 1980 and two of the band members Damian O'Neill and Michael Bradley wrote the song. The music video was mostly filmed at the O'Neill brothers house in Derry and was directed by Julian Temple. 

Audience Reaction The music video currently has 975,549 views on YouTube although the video has probably been viewed a lot more times than this considering it was released in the 1980's  The video is very simple yet very creative considering the budget and time ago it was recorded. As the video was recorded in Derry during the 1980s which was a troublesome time I think it reached a big audience here as the video was funny and light-hearted. The song itself reached no.9 in the UK singles chart. The music video uses a lot of tracking and panning shots along with single camera techniques,

Uses And Gratification Theory The music video for 'My Perfect Cousin' quite often uses the uses and gratification theory. The reason for the video is entertainment and it lets the audience take an active role in interpreting what it means to them. The song lyrics are very straightforward in this song as it was written about one of the band members cousins. Its telling a story of how his cousin is viewed as being much better than him in all different aspects. If a member of the audience has a cousin they feel the same way about then they would be able to relate to the song. Although the lyrics of the song if read without the music could be classed as jealousy this is actually not the case for the song as it is very upbeat and catchy and rather funny.  The undertones are known for making upbeat and catchy songs as one of their biggest hits was 'Teenage Kicks' which is known worldwide and the time that these songs were released in their hometown was a lot of violence where these songs distracted people a bit to what was going on. 

Effects Debate The video does not deal with any effects debates as there are no exposure to explicit sexual or violent content. The song was released in the 80's so there was no internet or social media to advertise the single. However it was advertised in a newspaper clipping picturing a figure of a football figure on a football pitch  Along with having no sexual or violent content it also does not contain any health concerns or censorship debates.

Responses  There are several different responses a music video could fall under. However as this music video isn't to controversial and doesn't contain violence or sexual content it would fall under the preferred response which means the audience agrees with it and it would be classed as socially acceptable. Link To Music Video -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgqa3cVOxUc

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