Claude Levi-Strauss argued that all meaning is constructed through binary oppositions. Conflict forms meaning. What conflict is encoded through media language in Formation?

• Beyonce is clearly a wealthy celebrity. Much of the lyrics focus on the immense wealth, for example ‘If he hit it right, I might take him for a ride on my chopper’. However, she also self-represents as working class black woman, with the MES of a generic 70’s style dress and hair tied up loosely. This complex and sophisticated set of representations allow her to target a range of audiences. 
• A conflict between the police and protest. A young black boy in a black hoodie is constructed through a mid shot of him holding his arms out, symbolically connoting aggression and intimidation. In contrast, each and every police officer holds their hands up in surrender, encoding a representation of the police being scared to action and ineffective. Furthermore, the police are white, a symbolic code of power and elite status, yet here are represented as powerless and pathetic
• The US police has a long history of systemic racism especially against black people. The police car sinking in to the water is connotative of disaster, and reinforces the status of the police as a threat. This is further anchored through the MES of the graffiti ‘stop shooting us’, which reinforces themes of victimisation and racism 
• There is a conflict between happy and empowering movement vs standing still and imprisonment. For example, in the dance routine in the car park, a sense of excitement and playfulness  is encoded. However, in the master shot of B on top of the police car, a sense of stillness and imprisonment is encoded. 
• The swimming pool is completely dry and empty: a binary opposition. It conflicts with the documentary footage of houses submerged in water. Yet both shots symbolise the same thing: dysfunction, poverty, and neglect. 
• The MES of ruined houses is featured throughout the video. Here the conflict is political, as the significant damage still remains many years later. The master shot of Beyonce drowning on top of the police car symbolised the system and the state not being effective in helping black people 
• A music video is an advert for a song. Yet this video goes beyond being a marketing tool. The shot of Beyonce and her family wearing pure white lacey costumes is a reference to antebellum era dresses, typically worn by slave owners in the deep south of America. Yet this family is black. This highly controversial mode of address is symbolic of power being taken back
• The primary situation of conflict within the video to Formation by Beyonce is constructed through the opposition between the police and black people. 
• The opening sample “Bitch I’m back”, swears directly at the audience and constructs a hostile mode of address
• A long shot of a black youth in a black hoodie with the MES of a line of surrendering white police officers in front of him constructs a conflict between the police and black. In this situation, we see the single black child seemingly overpower the police. This is anchored through the MES of a graffiti reading ‘stop shooting us’, constructing a binary opposition between ‘us (black people’ and ‘them’ (the police)
• The repetition of New Orleans in the lyrics constructs New Orleans as important. However, a sense of conflict is constructed through the shot of the submerged house in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Following this natural disaster, a number of predominantly black citizens had to abandon their houses with very little help from the government. This constructs a binary opposition between the importance of NO in the video, and the way in which it has been treated by the American Government. 
• One of the master shots features Beyonce in an elaborate white historical dress, which has connotations of wealth, luxury, and potentially slave ownership. This highly controversial mode of address is laughing at the plantation owners of the late 19th century, and constructs a complex and difficult mode of address.
• A powerful binary opposition is constructed between Beyonce, who represents working class black women, and the police car, which represents a useless and impotent force