Ignite Presentation - Music Industry

MEST3 PPE - Learner Response

1) Type up your feedback in full

• Many brilliant points and lots of critical anatomy 
• However, a little confused in places and drifts off question a couple of times 
• More revision needed? Lacked a few stats to show industry decline 

2) Did you succeed in meeting or exceeding your target grade for A2 Media? If not, how many additional marks do you need across Section A and Section B to achieve your target grade?

I did not meet my target grade, I was 9 marks off my target grade of an A*. 

3) Read through the mark scheme. Pay particular attention to pages 6-8 that have suggested content for each of the questions in Section A. How many of these potential points did you make? Did you successfully answer the questions?

Question 1 - 6 potential points made, successful overall answer

Question 2 - 2 potential points made, overall successful answer 

Question 3 - 2 potential points made, overall weakest answer, less successful than the rest

4) Which was your strongest question in Section A? Why did you do better in that particular question? Note the number of marks each question is worth.

My strongest question was question 1 and 2 as they were both 1 off full marks for the question. I fully developed my answer; the first question I had a very detailed response, whilst the 2nd question debated the question to a large extent.

5) Which was your weakest question in Section A? Again, try and identify why this happened. Did you misinterpret the question? Did you run out of time?

Question 3 was my weakest question as I didn't sustain an overall media debate to discuss the question. I lacked theory, where I could have debated about Marxism and hegemony and the role of institutions and elite conglomerates being in power and the controllers of audience values.

6) Now look at pages 11-12 of the mark scheme for Section B - New/Digital Media paying particular attention to the suggested essay content on page 12. How many of the broad areas suggested by AQA did you cover in your Section B essay? Did you successfully answer the question?

Historical role of media producers; Recent developments in new and digital media; Impact upon, and responses of, traditional media producers; Changing demands of audiences. I think I successfully answered the question, however I do think that I drifted away from the question focus and therefore missed out on some valuable marks. 

7) Read the Examiner's Report in full. For each question your answered, would you classify your response as one of the stronger answers or one of the weaker answers the Chief Examiner discusses? Why? What could you do differently next time? Write a reflection for EACH question in the paper: Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q6 OR Q7.

Q1- strong answer as I discussed both why the clips were 'authoritative' and 'trustworthy.' Exploring both between the texts.
Q2 - strong answer as I discussed and debated the question focus from a theoretical view point according to Marxism and hegemony
Q3 - I don't think this was necessarily strong but it was strong enough to explore the issues around identity and individuality but did not go into as much detail about debate
Q6 - This was a strong answer as it included a wide ranger of wider examples, a great range of media theory and media terminology; I think the only issue was sometimes the deviation from the actual question, making it lack consistency

8) Choose your weakest question in Section A and re-write an answer in full based on the suggested content from the Examiner's Report. This answer needs to be comprehensive and meet the criteria for Level 4 of the mark scheme. This will be somewhere between 3-6 well-developed paragraphs (depending on the question/number of marks available).

Q3 - Should the media provide accessible platforms for alternative or oppositional voices? You should refer to other media products to support your answer.

Social media prominently encourages new voices and opinions through user generated content and the idea of the blogosphere. Within social media, audiences are able to portray their own views and opinions and other people similarly share the same view, therefore I think by having alternative views on different accessible platforms would not necessarily benefit audiences as other individuals would not be exposed to new ideologies. In a society where the internet and social media is arguable seen as a democratic space, the range of ideologies amongst media platforms should become a rainbow. By specifically singling out a marginalised group, it would force them back into the dissociated position which this generation has pulled them from. For example, the idea of LGBT groups, by focusing on this in the media and on a mainstream platform it allows audiences to become accustomed to the idea and therefore be more likely to accept it and see it as 'unquestioned' and 'common sense' within society. Celebrities that come out as gay make this a more common and accepted issue, for example Gareth Thomas, who is a rugby player. He is an avid example of subverting the stereotypes of homosexuals as they are seen as feminine, however he contrasts this massively due to him being a rather masculine athlete. Furthermore, directors have also had a take on presenting homosexuality, for example the 1997 film 'Wilde', explores gay lovers in a society where the condemn gays; by revealing a sympathetic story to audiences, it allows a personal relationship between character and audience to be formed and therefore highers the chances of understanding the issue. As a rather famous film that gained recognition, it shows the importance of allowing alternative voices to be presented on mainstream and accessible platforms. 

However it could also be argued that alternative voices are a negative thing, through the ideas revolving around alt-right opinions and extremist views on issues like terrorism and sexism to name a few. In terms of feminism, audiences are clearly aware of the issues surrounding sexism and how it is still a potential problem today; there is even evidence to suggest that we are now entering the fourth wave of feminism due to the development of new and digital media. Twitter is a brilliant tool for being able to voice opinions for the better but also for the worse; Laura Bates is a fantastic example of a way that the social network can be used advantageously. She started the Everyday Sexism campaign and was able to get several other women and men to join and be part of her campaign, following her and her opinions to prevent sexism in everyday life and not to ignore it. However, sexism is seen in everyday videos, most prominently within popular culture. Rap music videos are the main perpetrators of objectification of women and the idea of misogyny is clearly presented in far too many videos; 'Blurred Lines' by Pharrel Williams and Robin Thicke is a great example of the objectification of women. The video was extremely controversial due to the treatment of women as mere plastic figures, evidently being an object of the 'male gaze,' which is one of Mulvey's ideas. By allowing videos like these on accessible platforms it allows a large majority of audiences to be exposed to negative views rather than alternative, proving to be an issue. 

To further extend this to politics, take the recent occurring of Donald Trump and the news of him groping a woman. This harassment was carried out by the president of the United States, which evidently reveals a hugely negative impact on a society when a leader acts in this particular way. Twitter also banned alt-right accounts from Twitter, revealing how social networking sites are attempting to regulate this control. However, depsite this, it can still be argued that due to media platforms allowing a democratic space and therefore allowing a freedom of speech, where do we draw the line in terms of what you can and cannot ban? What is ethical and what is purely inhumane? The evident issue is the fact that every individual has different views, however these views are shared by at least a fair few others globally, be it extremist views or the mainstream view or even the alternative view; the biggest problem is the idea of the echo chamber that is created with social networking sites. For example, take Twitter for example, if an audience member agrees with the opinion and shares the same ideology, it is very difficult for them to not agree with it and therefore it becomes a matter of removing an opinion from a democratic space. It can be argued that there is a huge different between extremist views and alternative however due to lives being at potential risk with extremist views. 

The media should be able to provide accessible platforms for alternative views and they should also appear on mainstream media sites. I think by providing accessible platforms just for alternative views it also allows a group to be formed together and therefore enables a sort of community to be formed. In terms of liberalism, every user should be able to provide their opinion on any social networking platform and should be allowed to share their ideologies, however extremist views and alt-right views should be censored and removed due to the potential risk and the idea of creating a moral panic or even a techno-panic, within a society. The media as a whole provides a moral panic (Stanley Cohen) but to further exert this panic in a extreme way would make the platform an unsafe place in terms of sharing views. Thus, the importance of accessible platforms for alternative views is highly required in order to conform to societal liberation and to provide a safe space for democratic speech to be presented and discussed.  

MEST3 Section A: revision task

List 10 stories/debates/examples that you could use for the Identities and the Media question:

• London Riots 

- 40% of newspaper articles featuring young people focused on violence or crime or anti-social behaviour; and that 71% could be described as having a negative tone

- typical representation of young people are that they are 'yobs' or 'hoodlems' and most negative, anti-social behaviour is associated with those that are black, therefore racial discrimination is an issue that spurs from this

- The Women in Journalism study interviewed 1000 boys and found that 29% felt wary when they were around other teenage boys they did not know and 79% of adults are more wary around teenage boys

• Post-colonialism, Yasmin (2004)

- reveals positive representations of British Muslims through the traditional and devout family orientated values

- subverts Said's theory of Orientalism as she almost appropriates to become civilised

• No More Page 3 

- Lucy-Ann Holmes started the 'No More Page 3' campaign in August 2012; it reached 215,000 signatures by January 2015 - she is a feminist who did not want glamour models to pose for the newspaper

• Everyday Sexism Campaign 

- Bates started the project because she experienced sexism in day to day life, which became a routine for her. Bates didn't act on this because she thought this was normal until she realised that a lot of other women were in the same position and didn't act on the issue either

• Homosexuality - Wilde (1997) 

- Oscar Wilde reveals that he thinks "that the realisation of one's self is the prime aim of life." The idea of being yourself and being true to your identity is explored in this film, when a woman asks the lady why Wilde is famous, the woman replies "for being himself."

- Wilde's lover gets locked up and stopped from seeing him reveals the issues and debates around homosexuality and how it is not supported by all, encouraging audiences to sympathise and empathise with LGBT groups

• FOX News says Kendrick Lamar “has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism” - http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/06/fox-news-says-kendrick-lamar-has-done-more-damage-to-young-african-americans-than-racism/

- Conservative views of hip-hop music and the genre, turning something about hope into hatred

- 'Alright' is about BlackLivesMatter and police brutality, has been transformed into a statement that makes Lamar seem like an avid entertainer of misconduct rather that fortune 

• Caitlyn Jenner opens up about being transgender - Daily Mail 

- Transgender issues have become more vocal and public, identities have been accepted within societies and therefore allows more minority groups and the marginalised groups to be presented within the news

- by a celebrity coming out as transgender, it also allows others who are going through the same issue to be able to speak out and therefore encourages them to feel 'normal' rather than an outcast

• Tom Daley: 'I always knew I was attracted to guys' - The Guardian 

- athletes coming out and being comfortable telling their story of being gay influences audiences who share similar views; links to the Gareth Thomas who is a gay rugby player who came out 

- Rugby is a stereotypical masculine sport he appropriates this and changes it through the idea of being gay, revealing how being gay does not change you from doing anything

• Islamophobia - 'Why the British media is responsible for the rise in Islamophobia in Britain' - http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-the-british-media-is-responsible-for-the-rise-in-islamophobia-in-britain-a6967546.html

- Less than 0.5 per cent of journalists in the UK are Muslim. No wonders so many misleading stories make the cut

- “UK mosques fundraising for terror”, to be “significantly misleading” following a complaint lodged by myself

• We're The Superhumans - Rio Paralympics Advertisement 2016 

- disabilities seen as a positive thing, shows that you are able to do anything. motivates others with disabilities 

- Superhuman providing a positive stance, making them seem different but in a good way, capable of doing more than the average human too

List 10 stories/debates/examples that you could use for the New/Digital Media question:

• 'Why Facebook is public enemy number one for newspapers, and journalism' - https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/sep/20/why-facebook-is-public-enemy-number-one-for-newspapers-and-journalism

- Jemima Kiss, in her article, "A Giant May Eat Us," says she contends that the world’s leading social media site is exerting both an “increasing domination of internet advertising revenue and control of a significant part of a critical distribution platform.”

- Social media is killing all other traditional means of media and journalism

• 'Digital crisis looms as 'ruthless' fourth industrial revolution breeds startup fear' - http://www.cbronline.com/4th-revolution/digital-crisis-fourth-industrial-revolution-startup-fear/#

- 2/3 of UK businesses feel threatened by digital startups - they think that new startups pose significant threat to their organisation according to Dell Technologies

- 32% of UK businesses fear they may become obsolete in the next 3 to 5 years due to new digital born startups 

- 41% of business leaders have faced disruption with digital technologies and the Internet of Everything having a significant change

- 38% of businesses do not know what their business will be looking like in 3 years time

- Companies are finding it hard to transform and keep up with the changing technology 62% are expanding their software capabilities 

• Citizen Journalism 

- Rodney King, 1991 - event filmed by onlooker from apartment window. The home-video footage made prime-time news and became an international media sensation

- Asian Tsunami, 2004 - 'accidental journalists' tourists filming holiday, caught up in the natural disaster

- London bombings, 2005 - citizen journalism footage was raw and uncompromising: The first hand view is more emotive than professionally shot news footage 

- Seung-Hui Cho - mailed to NBC news his shootings - a student recorded the footage on his mobile revealing the events

- Mumbai bombings, 2008 - reports were posted on Twitter and Flickr, by broadcasting these tweets people believed that they may have been putting their lives at risk

- Hudson River Plane Crash, 2009 - dramatic picture available on Twitpic -While national news organisations quickly swung into action, it was the citizen journalist, empowered by social networking sites, that first broke the story

• 'Crime-reporting app Vigilante kicked off App Store over Apple's content concerns' - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/01/vigilante-app-removed-apple-store

- Vigilante is a crime-reporting app which reports crimes within the area for citizens to be aware of - Apple refused to have this app in it's app store as they believed this was a way to empower citizens rather than help prevent crimes

- launched in New York and created by Sp0n. It is designed to alert nearby users whenever a crime is reported to 911

- "The developers believe that opening up crime reporting in this way empowers people. 'The closed system excludes the community while the open system informs and empowers citizens,' it says."

• The New Day newspaper 

- launched to tap into a new market, not specifically to take readers from other newspapers

- designed to essentially embody modern lifestyles and meet the demands that audiences want from a newspaper

- trying to modernise newspapers

- About 6million people buy a newspaper everyday

- Over a million people have stopped buying newspapers in the last two years

- There was a failure to invest in promotion and the cost of the paper rose from 25p to 50p making it more expensive than the 'i.' 

- no political stance caused failure of paper 

• 'I'm with you on the digital revolution, it's the lack of journalism I can't face' - https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/11/im-with-you-on-the-digital-revolution-its-the-lack-of-journalism-i-cant-face

- A local newspaper called The Citizen that had been published for 90 years has stopped being published - it was a paid for title based in Laconia 

- Arlinghaus says that "no one gets their news from twitter, even if they think they do, they don't

- “none of the local stories would have been covered, printed or rebroadcast. No one would have tweeted the story.”

- Social media reacts to news, it doesn’t find it

• Rupert Murdoch and Paywalls 

- From the figures shown on the blog, it reveals how the number of digital subscriptions has increased and how putting news content behind a paywall has actually helped The Times and The Sunday Times

- The Times got 13,000 new subscribers in the first half of 2013

- despite this The Times is still losing money, however due to the company getting their profits from News Corp too, they have tolerated their losses

- shows that even though putting the content behind a paywall allows a short-term profitable income it does not allow for a sustainable income

• Facebook + Facebook Live 

- 'Arrests after 'gang rape livestreamed on Facebook' - http://news.sky.com/story/arrests-after-gang-rape-livestreamed-on-facebook-10740640

- Police have arrested three men in Sweden suspected of a gang rape that was livestreamed on Facebook

- The closed Facebook group the alleged attack was streamed through has 60,000 members

- 'Facebook video gunman Steve Stephens kills himself after chase' - http://news.sky.com/story/facebook-video-gunman-steve-stephens-kills-himself-after-chase-10842411

- man who filmed himself killing a 74-year-old man before putting the video on Facebook

- in the footage Stephens pulls over in a car on a street in Cleveland as he says "find me somebody to kill, gonna kill this guy right here. He's an old dude"

- 'Met investigates filmed confrontation between driver and police officer' - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/17/filmed-confrontation-between-driver-and-police-officer-goes-viral

- Clip was shared on social media and viewed over 40,000 times

- footage was shared by a former member of So Solid Crew

- footage has now become evidence 

• 'Fake news and a 400-year-old problem: we need to resolve the ‘post-truth’ crisis' - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/29/fake-news-echo-chamber-ethics-infosphere-internet-digital

- appetite for populism is not a new problem. There is now the same problem with online misinformation

- Humans have always been prejudiced and intolerant of different views

- 'The difference is that the internet allows that appetite to be fed a bottomless supply of semantic junk, transforming Bacon’s caves into echo chambers. In that way, we have always been “post-truth”'

• 'Porn videos streamed 'via YouTube loophole' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38652906

- YouTube told the BBC its policies "prohibit sexually explicit content like pornography"

- TorrentFreak reported that some websites had found a way to play secretly uploaded videos on their own external services, by streaming the raw data from googlevideo.com - a domain operated by Google

- "Copyright infringers take advantage of a private-video-share setting," Dreamroom Productions told TorrentFreak. "They upload and store videos, and freely use them on third party websites to earn profits."

• 2015 Ofcom Report 

- 67% of adults use television as a source of news

- 59% 16-24 year olds news online; 23% over 55 news online

- Internet = 50% AB

- Most used newspapers are The Sun and The Daily Mail both at 6%

- 59% of 16-24 year olds use internet or apps for news

- 43% of 16-24 year olds access news mostly from social media

Week 26 - 'How Kendrick Lamar Used Damn to Fight Fox News and Donald Trump'

'How Kendrick Lamar Used Damn to Fight Fox News and Donald Trump'
http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a54506/kendrick-lamar-damn-fox-news-trump/

• Kendrick Lamar gave the most stunning Grammys performance of the decade - performed atop a police car 
• After the Grammys, Fox News' Geraldo Rivera said messages like Lamar's do nothing but incite violence. "This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years"
• DNA - opening verse samples Rivera's Fox News rant
• On the next song, "Yah," Lamar raps, "Fox News wanna use my name for percentage / My latest news is my niece, she's worth living / See me on the TV and scream that's uncle Kendrick / Yeah, that's the business / Somebody tell Geraldo this nigga got some ambition."
• Fox News returns later in the album album on the U2-featuring "XXX," Lamar mentions Donald Trump, then says, "You overnight the big rifles then tell Fox to be scared of us / Gang members or terrorists..."
• His most stunning political verse on the album, though, is his story of election night and what comes after on "Lust"
• Here, he ties together the news cycle, Trump, and the fundamental changes to our country and our democracy has undergone since he last released an album

The fact that rappers are able to socially and politically comment on world news and issues in today's society makes them such important and fundamental role models for young people. This album was able to politically comment on the issues that America are facing today and comments on FOX news for slating his actions for revealing hope rather than hatred. This album blew up increasingly fast, through social media, and therefore shows that music is a powerful tool when coupled with social media as his message was able to clearly be addressed and spread much quicker. This also reveals how music is arguable a source of news that provides truth, through particular artists, their commentary is able to provide audiences with the truth rather than a blurred reality that is actually broadcast.

Week 26 - 'Facebook video gunman Steve Stephens kills himself after chase'

'Facebook video gunman Steve Stephens kills himself after chase'
http://news.sky.com/story/facebook-video-gunman-steve-stephens-kills-himself-after-chase-10842411

• man who filmed himself killing a 74-year-old man before putting the video on Facebook
• posted the video of the killing to Facebook, where it remained for more than two hours before the social network removed it
• In the footage Stephens pulls over in a car on a street in Cleveland as he says "find me somebody to kill, gonna kill this guy right here. He's an old dude"
• The shooting raised questions about the way Facebook moderates graphic content, with the social network promising to review how it handles violent videos after the incident
• peaking after the death of Stephens, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said his company would "keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening"

This story reveals the issues of Facebook live and the difficulty of removing graphic content on user generated social media platforms. The clear problem is the fact that this video was uploaded for 2 hours until it was removed and this highlights the ethical concerns of content and how videos are able to be streamed and shared globally in the matter of seconds. 

Week 25 - 'Facebook team working on brain-powered technology'

'Facebook team working on brain-powered technology'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39648788

• Facebook says it is working on technology to allow us to control computers directly with our brains
• It is developing “silent speech” software to allow people to type at a rate of 100 words per minute, it says
• With these announcements, Facebook is envisioning technology that is far in advance of anything currently possible

With the rise of fake news and other important aspects involving Facebook as a core source of many of today's problems, it's interesting to see that they are trying to ignite the purpose of the social media by trying to attempt new technology. This technology is extremely futuristic and is almost scary to even consider that our brains and our computers can be fully compatible; this not only sounds like a terrible idea but also raises so many issues from our initial thoughts to not being able to even think for ourselves. 

Week 25 - 'Should we worry the general election will be hacked?'

'Should we worry the general election will be hacked?'
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/20/uk-general-election-2017-hacking-ddos-attacks-bots-fake-news

• The public administration and constitutional affairs committee (Pacac) said that the failure of the voter registration website, “had indications of being a DDoS ‘attack’”
•  it mentioned Russia and China
• Labour MP Paul Flynn, who sits on the Pacac, certainly thinks we should be worried – although closer inspection of the report finds that, beyond the headlines, there’s a startling lack of evidence for those particular fears
• Not only is it not actually hacking at all, but it also looks rather similar to when a lot of people at once try to use a server that doesn’t have the capacity
•  The University of Oxford’s Internet Institute, found a huge number of Twitter bots posting pro-Leave propaganda in the run up to the EU referendum
• The actual report reveals the researchers can’t directly identify bots – they just assume accounts that tweet a lot are automated – and admit “not all of these users or even the majority of them are bots

The main issue here is the lack of clarity shown within this article. The article is clearly addressing the issues that we may face with the upcoming general election, however it also suggests that there is a lack of evidence to suggest that this is even an issue. This highlights a clear sense of moral panic as reports make accusations about Twitter bots swaying votes and also blaming countries such as Russia and China. The issue here is of course the rise of fake news which could manipulate audiences and aid their response to the elections, however the reports to suggest that the research published is inaccurate highlights how moral panics are simply being created and are becoming out of hand in today's media saturated society.

Case Study Research Tasks

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NDM independent case study: Media Magazine research

Music industry

Top Dawg Entertainment/Virgin Records 

Media Magazines

• ·         In the last decade the music industry faced the most complex set of changes in its history. The conventional industry models have been challenged, largely due to the emergence of new technologies and new ways for music lovers to listen to, and own, the music they love. 
• ·         In the old days, working musicians would hope (ultimately) to be signed to a record label.
• ·         Record company would pay the artist a sum of money as an ‘advance’, to record some material, and specify how much the artist would have to sell before that advance would be paid off – then the artist would start to get a cut of the profits (usually about 15%).
• ·        In the meantime, the label would arrange tours, with all the accompanying merchandising, as another revenue stream, and the publishing arm of the label (or an independent publisher) would collect royalties from all the airplay and other usage of the artist’s materials, taking a cut themselves.
• ·         In them modern digital world, much of this can actually be done on a smaller scale and we may even be able to circumvent the record companies entirely.
• ·         Emergence of Napster and other file-sharing sites more than ten years ago, it became obvious that the internet offers a perfect way for artists to distribute music.
• ·         Music rights organisation PRS for Music reported this year that CD and DVD revenues fell by £8.7 million in 2009, but digital revenues grew by £12.8 million
• ·         The ubiquitous MySpace emerged as a platform for artists to host, promote and distribute music.
• ·         Lilly Allen was actually signed to a record label at the time her massive popularity on MySpace broke - first high-profile artist successfully to promote themselves via the site, highlighting the importance of the medium. Allen’s story is a good example of how early- adopters can use the free technology available at their fingertips. 
• ·         By combining elements of social networking with music downloads, the site is maximising the impact of a variety of Web 2.0 technologies, and this combined model of ad-funded distribution and networking might be one to watch as it develops.
• ·         How did the record companies lose control – was it solely a case of new technology revolutionising music output? Charlie Barrett argues: Initially, I think yes. The first technological change came in the methods of recording in 1986/7 ... Getting techie about it, drum machines came to dominate, along with the Fairlight and Synklavier. Next followed digital processing with AMS delay, which enabled people to use pre samplers. And this all added up to cheaper studios being needed which was bad news for us [Terminal also owned a recording studio at the time].
• ·         Harvey Birrel, Alien Sex Fiends, says “basically, it facilitated what I call the rise of the faceless technoproducts.
• ·         All parties agree that downloads have had a game-changing effect on the industry.
• ·         the fallout from technological change has left the music business here akin to a vaguely connected patchwork of cottage industries.
• ·         The music industry has turned 180 degrees,  and gone back to how it was in the 70’s. Live music is key to a band’s success,
• ·         Apple has devoured the open space with its digital offering, iTunes. Most majors have rushed to own shares in the digital provisions, such as Spotify. There is no development of artists from record companies, and independents are quite as guilty as the majors in this regard.

Spotify

• ·         Spotify satiates music lovers who want to listen to, then purchase, music – their 4 million song database is available to any listener who doesn’t mind putting up with occasional adverts, and it’s this advertising revenue that funds the venture.
• ·         Spotify explains, the free tier that 75% of users are experiencing contains adverts, all of which advertisers have paid to place there. This revenue all goes into Spotify’s coffers, as do the subscription fees for the paid tier, and it pays 70% of the overall revenue they collect to rights holders – in other words, to the artists.
• ·         According to its figures, the amount of royalties that Spotify pays to artists doubled from 2013 to 2014, from half a billion to a billion US dollars.

Sellaband/Slicethepie

• ·         SellaBand is an online platform where music fans can financially support the recording, touring or promotional activities of their favourite artists - Public Enemy are using Sellaband to finance their next album
• ·         Slicethepie offers a slightly more complex model, where the fans are paid a modest fee to listen to and review uploaded music
• ·         Marillion used a similar model in 2001 when they asked fans to pre-order their new album directly from them. The 12,000 orders were enough to fund entirely the recording process.
• ·         The system is a meritocracy: artists with talent, a big enough fan base and a good demo can get funding without contracting to record companies.
• ·         Unsigned artists aided. No longer do you need labels to provide recording, promotion, production or distribution, new ways to raise money towards your recordings and other activities. All of this has been made possible by technical innovations in the last decade, so artists have no excuse not to embrace the change and take ownership of their own careers.

Virgin Records

• ·         Virgin Records was emblematic of a new breed of record company.
• ·          Originally a mail order company, and then a stall in Portobello Market, Richard Branson’s entrepreneurial spirit enabled it to make the transition from retailer to record label in the early 1970s (funded in part by the extraordinary success of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells).
• ·         By 1985 it was at the very top of the tree.
• ·         The prevailing culture in the company then was somewhat unorthodox by current standards. Stories of excess at the company away days and weekends were legion.
• ·         Branson moved onto Virgin Airlines – record company sold
• ·         As the company became ever more absorbed into EMI, so the spirit started to die
• ·         Scale of the final downward plunge was not guessed at until one fateful evening. Scarr recalls: One of the IT guys came into our office flourishing an MP3 player and announced with nervous pride: ‘The nerds are taking over the asylum.’ We didn’t know it then but he was dead right.

Independent Music

• ·         Independent music is flourishing in the digital age, with the democratisation of production and distribution brought about by the internet.
• ·         Most of this infrastructure for circulating information and opinion on non- mainstream music has now disappeared; HMV is no more and NME is a shadow of its former self and bear little relationship to the way it looked back then. All have been replaced, to some extent or another, by the internet.
• ·         Since the end of the 1990s, the mainstream music industry has struggled to cope with the huge changes to its business model bought by the rise of peer-to-peer sharing, downloading and internet piracy. 

Adorno

• ·         Theodor Adorno was a Marxist Media theorist, part of the ‘Frankfurt School’ of intellectuals
• ·         Was a stern critic of capitalism, and the role played by the ‘culture industries’ in helping maintain the capitalist system.
• He believed that media texts were used to keep us distracted and uninterested in political thought
• ·         The Culture Industries – music, TV, film, magazine publishing, etc – produce ‘formulaic, simplistic, emotional products’ which avoid any complexity and possibility of questioning the powers that control or oppress us in daily life.
• ·         Their products are also filled with images of goods produced by the capitalist system, represented in a glamorous, aspirational way; this creates false needs in the audience.
• ·         Adorno describes this sense of willingly enslaving ourselves to the demands of the system as living in a ‘euphoria of unhappiness’.
• ·         Standardisation/Homogenisation- He believed that this uniformity of culture brought about a uniformity of needs, thought and behaviour, and ‘the end of the individual’.
• ·         Cultural production was taken away from artistic individuals, and placed in the control of big corporations, with the products therefore serving the needs of those corporations.
• ·         This pseudo-individuation in music can be seen in the repetitive structures, instrumentation and technology used to produce popular music. – take that and one direction
•  Adorno built his theory of the culture industries on Marxist principles. He was a critic of the capitalist system and argued that popular culture or the culture industries maintained capitalism. They achieve this by offering audiences generic products and consumer goods that act as diversions, making them disinterested in politics and change. Adorno argued that the products produced by the culture industries are: Formulaic, Simplistic, Emotive

• ·         Neilsen SoundScan’s global figures reveal that 70% of the music consumed in the first half of 2014 was streamed or downloaded– with streaming up a staggering 52% from the previous year. Other players in the streaming field include Pandora, who came early to the internet radio game and has an enormous user base, and Apple’s Beats Music with its unique human-curation element. Even Amazon is trying to carve out a bit of this new territory with Amazon Prime Music.
• ·         50 million songs were streamed in January 2015 (double the previous January’s)

Examples

• ·         Views, was released as an Apple exclusive in April - Music, a two-week period of exclusivity before they are made available to rival services.
• ·         Chance the Rapper isn’t signed to a record label and has never released music that can be purchased. His is a new model of being an artist, where sponsorships, merchandise, collaborations with other artists, and live performance take the place of album sales.
• ·         Immortal Technique has aims to retain control over his production, and has stated in his music that record companies, not artists themselves, profit the most from mass production and marketing of music

Top Dawg Entertainment

• an American independent record label

Media Factsheets 

• The five major record labels; Sony, Universal, BMG, EMI and Time Warner monopolize the market
• Although independent record companies make up a small percentage of the music market, the British Music Rights Education Factsheet calculated that as many as 3,000 record companies in the UK were responsible for 14,000 record labels.
• Peterson and Berger believe that because the music industries are primarily concerned with generating a profit, they choose to invest in musical forms that offer the least resistance to the culture and they take resistant musical forms and sanitize them (removing ideological challenges) to make them attractive to a mainstream audience
• According to www.songrights.com music companies give between 9% and 12% to the artist and the rest is profit for their company.
• Adele's demo on MySpace 2006 
• In recent years consumers are less willing to pay for their music and as a consequence piracy and file-sharing have seen the industry lose billions over the last decade. According to the Institute for Policy Innovation global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year. In order to combat this music streaming services such as Spotify have worked in conjunction with the industry to try offer audiences the opportunity to listen to music but not actually download it, which means it is not being shared YouTube has also placed ID content censorship on videos to stop music being downloaded. However, these are only temporary measures and the industry has had to find more ways to prevent this 
• The Internet was meant to weaken the dominance of superstar artists in the music industry and enrich the smaller, niche music creators. But new research suggests that this “long tail” theory is wrong: superstars are capturing the vast majority of music revenues and their share is increasing – not decreasing – because of the rise of digital services like iTunes and Spotify top 1 per cent of artists the likes of
• Rihanna and Adele accounted for 77 per cent of recorded music income in 2013.
• Artists like Amanda Palmer are trying to circumvent the big labels and do things differently by using the idea of crowdsourcing. 
• This is where an artist asks their fans or anyone who may be interested to fund their project and be given something special in return. 
• Palmer already had an establish fan base which she appealed to fund the production and distribution of her album through the crowdsourcing site Kickstarter.
• In return she also pledged to break down the barriers between artist and audience
• "‘And then Twitter came along, and made things even more magic, because I could ask instantly for anything anywhere."
• Para-social relationships – Psychologists use the term “parasocial relationship” to describe the connection people get from celebrities and other famous people but which an illusion is
• in a trans-media age where changes are brought about by the developments in technology at a rapid pace the interrelationship between the artist and consumer is evolving beyond the traditional models, but whether they will ever challenge the monopolies is yet to be seen

The Independent Newspaper 

• http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/vinyl-streaming-music-industry-spotify-ed-sheeran-2017-deezer-mr-bongo-formats-digital-downloads-a7635131.html
• Vinyl vs streaming: What music industry experts predict for the two platforms in 2017
• Jorge Rincon, VP of Deezer North America, explained to Billboard: “Our music democratises the way music is available. It’s also very important to us that new artists are visible and accessible to the audience.