Representation of Violence in Music Videos (Special Reference to Most Viewed Ten Sinhala Music Videos in 2016)

Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development Journal. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0) ABSTRACT This research seeks to find out representation of violence in Sri Lankan music videos. The purposive sampling method was used to select the sample and content analysis method performed to collect data. This research has found out that, Sri Lankan music videos have represented violence related content. Every music video has been portrayed at least one out of the nine violence. Majority of the music videos have been represented physical violence, emotional and psychological violence, sexual violence and verbal violence rather than other types such as spiritual, financial, neglect etc. more time has given to represent emotional violence, physical, cultural and verbal violence and less amount of time has given for spiritual violence, financial violence, neglect and other.


INTRODUCTION
Music videos are played fashionable role in contemporary society and have always made a huge part of human culture. It has changed and evolved over the years, and today it is hard to find a top music hit without being accompanied by a music video (Lauriea, 2013). The main cause of that is viewership tend to watch music videos rather than listening songs. Today music videos may even place an emphasis on promoting singers themselves, as revenue models evolve.
Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques in including animation, live action filming, documentaries and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film (Costello etal, nd). Some music videos blend different styles such as animation and live action. Other music videos may be without a set concept being merely a filmed version of the song's live performance.
The first proto-music video was likely created in early 1890's when George Thomas was hired to promote sales of song of Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern. He combined music and images on glass slides. (WGBH, 2004). Over the coming decades, various forms of "musical short films" and "promotional clips" were produced for a number of different media, primarily capitalizing on the popularity of and inspired by musical feature films (Keazor & Wübbena, 2009).
Music videos have been criticized for its violent content and for provoking violent behavior. Violence/violent behavior is aggressive behavior where the actor or perpetrator uses his or her own body as an object (including a weapon) to inflict (relatively serious) injury or discomfort upon an individual (Olweus, 1999). He confines violence to the use of physical force. The Concise Oxford Dictionary also defines violence as unlawful exercise of physical force. Violence and other forms of abuse are most commonly understood as a pattern of behavior intended to establish and maintain control over family, household members, intimate partners, colleagues, individuals or groups. According to the English dictionary violence means behavior involving physical force intended do hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, or deprivation (2015).
Violent media are media depictions of actions intended to cause extreme physical harm to other characters. For better or worse the mass media are having an enormous impact on common people's belief, values, behaviors and time.
Media violence has been a public concern ever since the 1920s when researchers sought to understand the effects of motion pictures on children (Blumer & Hauser, 1933;Charters, 1933). With the growth of television in the 1950s, interest in the effects of media violence increased (Liebert & Sprafkin, 1988). Media violence is driven by preexisting moral values, and result in exaggerated and unfounded public fears. Importantly, sensationalistic news reporting could be the fan that flames these moral panics (Ferguson, 2013). For many years media violence has been a hot topic concerning the influence over children and their aggressive behavior.
This research is sought to find out how Sri Lankan music videos have represented the violence in its content. Sri Lankan music video industry of it has not got a long history. The initial music video in Sri Lanka was content with only two shots. It was produced by Mr. Sunil Siriwardhana for Millon Mallawarachchi's 'Orwaka pawena' song (History of music video, 2015). Sebalaneni, a musical tribute to the war heroes of our country premiered on MTV World, New York on May 7 the first time a Sri Lankan song which composed and sung by Ranidu Lankage, was aired on the popular international channel. (Sunday times 2010). The first 3D music video in Sri Lanka is "Ranwan patata" by Devashri (You tube, 2012).

General objective
1. To find out the representation of violence in music videos in Sri Lanka

Specific Objectives
1. To find out the types of violence represented in music videos. 2. To find out the way of representing violence in music videos. 3. To find out time allocation for violence in music videos. Tropeano, (2006) has done a research on Does Rap or Rock Music Provoke Violent Behavior? He found that watching the violent music video containing violent lyrics, aggressive behavior, and degrading behaviors toward women did make an individual feel and react more violently with regards to responses to questions about fictitious scenarios.

Huesmann and Taylor, (2006) have done a research on The
Role of Media Violence in Violent Behavior. Media violence poses a threat to public health inasmuch as it leads to an increase in real-world violence and aggression. Research clearly shows that, fictional television and film violence contribute to an increase in aggression and violence, both in the short term and across the lifespan. Television news violence also contributes to increased violence, principally in the form of imitative suicides and acts of aggression. Video games are clearly capable of producing an increase in aggression and violence in the short term, although no longterm longitudinal studies capable of demonstrating longterm effects have been conducted. The relationship between media violence and real-world violence and aggression is moderated by the nature of the media content and characteristics of and social influences on the individual exposed to that content. Still, the average overall size of the effect is large enough to place it in the category of known threats to public health.

III.
METHODOLOGY In order to carry out the objective of the research, the researcher used quantitative and qualitative methodology. Primary data were collected through content analysis and data were collected using a coding sheet. The focus of this research is representation of violence in music videos, special reference to most viewed Sinhala music video in 2016. The unit of analysis in this study is the scene by scene of music video. The researcher has used purposive sampling method for this study as follows.

IV.
RESULTS According to the findings, it is revealed that Sri Lankan music videos have represented violence related content. Every ten music video has been used at least one type of violence. It is found that physical, sexual, emotional and psychological, structural, verbal, spiritual, cultural, neglect, financial violence are represented in the music videos. Majority of the music videos have been represented physical violence, and emotional and psychological violence, sexual violence and verbal violence rather than other types such as spiritual, financial, neglect etc.

Violent content included
Each and every music video has diffesrent time allocation and has portrayed different kind of violence. It is found that 35 percentage of time has been allocated for emotional violence (Figure 01). For physical, cultural and verbal violence, it has been allocated 18%, 13% and 13% respectively. Less amount of time has been allocated for spiritual violence, financial violence, neglect and other. V. CONCLUSION At present, music hits accompany music video and viewership also tends to watch music videos rather than listening songs. Music videos are criticized for its violent related content and have been influential on audience. This research has found out that, Sri Lankan music videos have represented violence related content. Majority of the music videos have been represented physical violence, emotional and psychological violence, sexual violence and verbal violence rather than other types such as spiritual, financial, neglect etc. more time has given to represent emotional violence, physical, cultural and verbal violence and less amount of time has given for spiritual violence, financial violence, neglect and other.

VI.
RECOMMENDATIONS Media representations shape understandings of the audience. In fact, there is significant relationship between violent behavior of the people and violence content in the mass media messages. Therefore, it is recommended to conduct a study on audience perception on mass media or new media violence representation in future. A comparative study on representation of violence in music videos in Sri Lanka and other Asian or Europe Countries also is recommended. Furthermore, this research can make sense of media ethics while using violence in music videos or media content for the producers so that they can be more careful while using crimes in media content.