Gunther Kress

Gunter Kress- Born on the 26th November 1940
He is a professor of semiotics and education at the Institute of education of the University of London.

"Genre evolves with society"
Kress believes that genres change and new genres are developed when situations in society change and situations begin to reocur.
He believes that the sequencing to staging (Metz theory) is relevant. If genre entirely overlaps in other social processes, it means that unless we view society itself as static then neither social structures, social processes nor therefore genre are static. He argues that genre only exists in so far as a social group declares.


The basic Triangular model:  Interpreter
                                               Producer
                                               Text  
Genres first and foremost provide frameworks within which texts are produced and interpreted.He believes that texts are embedded with assumptions about ideal reader including their attitudes towards the subject matter (often class,age,gender and ethnic and political matters)


Think of two ways in which societal beliefs have changed in the last two decades. Find videos which exemplify the shifts in beliefs.

Portrayal of women:

 

2005: In this music video; the artist 50 cent portrays women to be inferior to men as they are extremely sexualised. We are taken into “Candy Shop Lane”, which is a mansion filled with large-breasted women in lingerie, analogous to the playboy mansion. 50 Cent, the only man in the video, is constantly surrounded by partially naked women. The camera switches back and forth between close-ups of the women in the mansion as they make seductive facial expressions and 50 Cent rapping outside of the mansion.
 

 2011: Six years later Nicki Minaj music video shows the complete opposite as she is the dominant one in the video and is surrounded my semi naked men. She is also rapping which something that is common with men. It can be considered as the female version of the 50cents "Candy shop".

Voilence:

This song is very disturbing as it Eminem talking about his hatred for women in particular his ex wife. The lyrics promote him planning to murder her and overall the domestic violence women suffer from their husbands/partners. In this song its about the man causing suffering to the women.

However Rihanna's music video "Man down" portrays how music videos have shifted with time, as it is about a women shooting a man who raped her the night before. The video shows casuing suffering to the male instead of the female.