Violence and consumption imagery in music videos

A content analysis of 191 music videos from New Zealand television examined three research questions: what levels and types of violence are evident? What products and brands are associated with violence? Do differences exist between different musical genres, and videos of New Zealand performers versus overseas artists? Results revealed that violence is evident in a significant proportion of music videos, and that particular products are associated with displays of people‐focused, object‐focused and combined types of violence. Furthermore, foreign heavy rock was not associated with people‐focused violence. Implications are discussed regarding perceptual context, encoding and marketing ethics.