Research - Carol Vernallis about media language

In her study of music videos, Carol Vernallis noticed that editing used in music videos is much more evident than in films and it often connects to the rhythm of the song. Here follows some of the techniques she noticed:

The extracts I used to exemplify Vernallis' theory were taken from the music video "Starz in Their Eyes" by Just Jack. Here follows the entire music video:

There are many other examples of music videos that apply to her theory. Another video that I believe follows Vernallis' theory is 'Gangnam Style' by PSY.

* This music video has no coherence or structured narrative at all. It is all about promoting the artist through his funny performance and dancing song, using a huge variety of locations and shots, dancers, coreography, and really obvious editing that breaks the rule of continuity.

* Example: In the very beginning of the music video we switch from the artist in the beach to the artist with the horses, which has completely no link to each other.

* At 1:05 you can see the very obvious use of fast cuts between two different shots that works together with the beat of the song. This type of editing is repeated at 2:26 dramatising the meeting between the artist and the girl.

Lady Gaga is an artist that often makes music video that also have no logical narrative and include a variety of scenes that have no link with each other. 

*At 0:05 we also get a similar editing to 'Gangnam Style' of really fast cuts between two shots, which goes together with the beat.

*At 0:11 we get effective jump cuts, and soon after (at 0:16) we get several really fast blackouts, all going along with the beat. 

*At 0:22 we get the screen split in several parts in which all show the same shot of Lady Gaga's face but different pieces of it. 

*This type of editing I mentioned above is kept throughout the whole music video and works very well with the dancing rhythm of the song as well as it does a good job in making the music video look a bit dodgy with a kind of 'dysfunctional' effect, which perfectly fits Lady Gaga's bizarre brand.