“Yes, We Can” by Will. I. Am. Music Video or Political Propaganda?

Abstract

The present article investigates the polysemic world of audiovisual digital objects of popular culture, using as a case study the video "Yes, We Can" which has been produced by the popular music producer and song writer will.i.am. "Yes, We Can" is a mashup music video which includes excerpts from Barack Obama's campaign speech (2008 pre-election campaign), featuring many celebrities. The analysis (decoding and interpretation) of "Yes, We Can" is based on a new synthetic multimodal model, following the premise that in every audiovisual object, language, image, sound and music interact dynamically, creating multiple levels of meaning. Our multimodal analysis focuses on the synergy of the video's semantic systems, its communication potential and aesthetic identity. According to our results, "Yes, We Can" differs from conventional music videos and can be considered as a special genre of music-political video which makes organic use of music video language in order to express social-political messages. Another conclusion is that our model is a functional one enabling the emergence of hidden meanings of a music video.