The Employment of Music Videos as Teaching Material

This is what I suddenly thought of when I was thinking about signs, symbols, connotations, denotations, & what we've learnt about the DUSTY programme in our previous lessons of Multiliteracy.

As you watch this MTV, you'll see how some words are being emphasised by having them spelt out & shown in the MTV itself, like, "enjoy", "trust me", "race", & "stretch", amongst others. This actually creates salience for the point the persona is trying to make.

Besides that, we also see connotations in the MTV, such as the employment of flowers to connote "The power of beauty of your youth" as said by the persona, in this case, Baz Luhrmann. Also, the image of someone cutting up a picture of a heart shape is shown as Luhrmann says, "Don't be reckless with other people's heart."

In terms of dennotation, there is the depiction of someone standing on a weighing machine with the scale pointing at 20kg, as the persona says, "you're not as fat as you imagine". These are just some of the images utilised to symbolised some of the points the persona tries to make.

Additionally, note how colours are used at various stages of the song/rap, as there are times the images are black & white, while in others, the images are colourful.

In teaching, I think this resource can be considered when we want students to think about how certain concepts are represented through the various aspects of images & sound. Students can be asked why certain ideas are represented by certain images/sounds, & what would happened if the music is taken off. Teachers can also get students to think about the impact of the conveyance of message if the lines are not read, & sung instead.

Students can actually be divided into mini groups to work on different aspects, so that, we have them as "specialised groups" - one group will work on the usage of colours in the music video; the 2nd group can work on the images used; while the 3rd group can work on the audio aspect; and so on. Then there can be a "Gallery Walk" in which each mini-group will showcase their "specialisation".

Thereafter, teachers can get students to come together to discuss whether each of these elements work independently or interdependently. This will allow all groups to think critically & analytically on the functions of each element vis-a-vis the others. This can be done by getting students to remove one of the elements & see if the impact & conveyance of message is still apparent & effective to viewers of the music video.