Body norms, signs and codes in popular music videos in Turkey

Abstract

Music videos do more than just text to listen to music with the effect of the image. Especially since the 1980s, popular music videos, which have been spread through mass media, have the potential to include suggestions for social and cultural life or show specific images and be a marketing tool. On the other hand, the semantic dimension of music videos gradually creates an interactive space where messages, signs, and codes are intertwined. Thus, individuals can make a body image that they constantly construct between themselves and the norms and signs conveyed by the mass media. This study aims to analyze and interpret how and in what form images, signs, codes, and norms associated with the body in the selected music videos between 2007-2017 are displayed through the query items created. Thus, how the criteria associated or created with the body are reflected in the music videos. This study’s scope, based on data provided Turkish Phonographic Industry Society, between the years 2007-2017, constitutes popular music TOP lists published under license in Turkey. Sample selection in the study is determined by the homogeneous sampling method, a subtype of purposive/purposeful sampling. Since there are no official music videos of 57 songs in the project sample consisting of 400 units, the official videos of 343 songs are analyzed. By observing the sex of the main vocalist, the person positioned in the video’s focus was determined. Then the same-sex emphasis was associated with each other, considering their relationship with the character. In music videos, based on the assumption that the audience is the organizer of the social and cultural sphere, body appearances in these texts were analyzed through determined codes and signs. First, by observing the sex of the main vocal, the person positioned in the video’s focus was determined; then, considering their relationship with the character, the emphasis on same-sex between each other was associated. Secondly, it was created by marking repetitive and semiotic visual motifs in music videos by determining the preferences made over men’s and women’s clothing. Finally, sign and code categories were determined through 8 query items created to interpret the whole analysis: Sex of main vocal/vocals, the person in focus, emphasis on same-sex, men’s clothing, women’s clothing, recurring visual motives, signs, and codes. In the music videos reviewed, the artist is mostly the focal person and primary character in the music video’s narrative. Within the sample, male-female (7.7%) and male-male (2.1%) duets have a low ratio; there are no femalefemale duets. On the other hand, the themes covered in music videos are mainly shaped around topics such as separation (41.4%), love (28.3%), and longing (5.4%). Although visual motifs have symbolic values, the body is determined as the carrier of clothing, conveyor of emotion, and reflector of violence, love, separation, and sexuality in the processing of codes and signs. Thus, within the scope of the promotional function of music videos, the music gains visuality and meaning above or beyond its use-value. © 2021, Fikri Soysal. All rights reserved.