Uses of Music Videos

• They are a form of marketing, and prioritise entertainment over realism. 
• Promote both album and single sales
• Promote new artists to an audience and maintain an audiences focus on an existing artist.
• Promote an image of an artist or band that is exciting and dynamic
• Entertain the audience and encourage replays of the video.
• Create visual images that convey the meaning and story of the song
• Can illustrate, amplify or contradict lyrics 

However, musical artists often wish to make statements about the world we live in. 
Some use social realism techniques to make a claim of realism for their representations. 

For example, Massive Attacks 'Unfinished Sympathy' makes claims to social realism. This means that they represent social issues and social groups. They do this by using the following conventions:

• exploration of social issues
• use of real locations
• use of non-actors
• an authentic performance style
• use of continuity editing and naturalistic mise-en-scene 
• a realist narrative with consistent, identifiable character and plausible chain of cause and effect.