Andrew Goodwin : Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992)

Andrew Goodwin is associate professor of communication arts at the University of San Francisco. He is a critic that appears regularly in many newspapers such as East Bay Express and the Chicago Reader. He is also known for his co-editing with Garry Whannel of 'Understanding Television' and a corresponding editor of the international communications journal 'Media, Culture and Society'.


Andrew Goodwin in 1992 wrote a theory book called 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' which was the first comprehensive, integrated analysis of MTV that provided new ways to understand television and popular music narrative. There were 5 main things he took under consideration:

1. Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either amplifying, contradicting)
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative , amplifying and contradicting)
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across the work (a visual style)
5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc..) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often inter textual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos, etc...)

Also, it is also worth consideration whether the video is primarily:

1. Performance Based - shows the bands or the artists performance their song
2. Narrative Based - Have a story-line for the majority or the whole of the song
3. Concept Based - No story line and are generally built around a random concept.

Key Terms:
Illustrative - severing as an example of explanation
Amplifying - increase of volume or enlarge upon or add detail to something
Contradicting - be in conflict/opposition with.
Motifs - a dominating or recurring idea
Voyeuristic - the please sought by looking at sexual objects or acts, especially secretively
Inter textual - the relationship between texts including influence, reflection and difference.

This is what I have used for how I analysed my videos of general music videos and genre music videos specific to what we wanted to do. I think it is very useful as I can understand different aspects to music videos without actually having either the lyrics or music with it. It helps me to know what the music video actually is trying to portray rather than just listening to the music that I like.