As a music-focused TV channel, MTV has been broadcasting music videos as its main content since its founding. It distributes these videos through its channels and creates playlists based on the audience’s preferences and popularity. Music videos on YouTube follow the logic of visual communication in the digital age, and the characteristics of the digital medium have made music videos a vast “media experiment” that is taking place on the modern Internet. 

Loneliness and anxiety are the main emotions of short video users in the process of socializing online. The short music videos spread on the Internet platform are characterized by social and interactive features, in which the music display function can facilitate connections between users who have different backgrounds and experiences, link through the interest in music, inspire users to produce short videos, encourage the conversion of strangers into acquaintances, and strengthen the bond between content producers and users. Whether it’s a video edited by the media or the work of Taylor Alison Swift or Kanye, it’s the “evangelization” of the audience by opinion leaders in the field of communication.

An open and dynamic online public space, utilizing the anonymity of the Internet to deconstruct and reconstruct the identity of users, allows the music video to break the boundaries of time and space and proliferate in all domains. It provides users with the ability to use and share short music videos in a spatial perspective, regardless of their geographical locations, cultural backgrounds, age groupings, and socioeconomic classes.

To achieve all-around music communication innovation, it is necessary to concentrate on a particular theme, produce imaginative, fresh and popular music short videos and expand music short videos into various media application scenarios. In the digital era, the audience’s demand for online social networking is growing, and decentralized algorithms and functions that satisfy the audience’s need for expression can better sustain user activity. However, the current interaction among users is still relatively simple, and there is a big difference in the information transmitted in the process of output and feedback. Additionally, the degree of socialization is still very low, which makes it even more crucial to pay attention to the “experiment” of the music video and further emphasis needs to be placed on this “experiment”. 

This is posted by Jing Li, BA Media and Communications.