In the Age of Media - 'power to the People'

In the last ten years, we have moved into a new age of participatory media. The advent of online social media - often referred to as Web 2.0 - has bought about a much broader media revolution. This includes blogs and online forums which provide opportunities for ordinary people to have their say, and to speak back to those in power. For example, it's a GREAT way for bands and their fans to interact, and allows their audience to express opinions about what they like and what they would like to see to improved.

Through social networking sites we can represent ourselves and connect with other people in new ways; while online sharing sites like Youtube allow people to distribute their own media content to global audiences. The most active participants in the creative world of Media 2.0 are the 'usual suspects' - people who are already privileged in other areas of their lives.

Age profile is another popular category of online participation. While younger people initially drove the uptake of social networking sites, for example , older people are not the fastest-growing group of subscribers. The same is true of mobile communications; while the micro-blogging service 'Twitter' is largely dominated by middle-aged people. Young people are sometimes the 'early adopters', but the idea that they are a uniquely 'digital generation' - and that there is a kind of technological generation gap - is rapidly becoming outdated.

Who's making Money?

Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite...now it's the people who are taking control!

The two richest and most profitable global media corporations are now Google and Facebook. Both are increasingly diversifying from their initial business - as a search engine and a social networking site - into a whole range of other media and branded products and services.

Who's doing the work?

Much of the marketing is itself 'user-generated' and 'interactive'. This is the most obvious case of viral marketing, where consumers are effectively recruited to distribute commercial messages on behalf of companies.

Fan Websites

Fan Websites which have been very much celebrated by enthusiasts for Media 2.0. Some argue that fan websites are about consumers taking back control of the media, making their own meanings from existing media texts, and leading towards a more democratic media environment.

Is it really liberating or empowering ordinary people to take control of the media?

I personally feel that the success of web 2.0 has definitely benefited small bands, much like GoldBloom, as ordinary people/obsessive fans have been over taken the power of being able to interact and to personally contact the bands though successful social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook. This has allowed the bands to interact with their fans, which is boosting the bands success as their fans are getting to know them as individuals as well as musicians, they are more likely to feel like they have to now go and see their live tours, visit their websites, buy their merchandise and buy their music.

Is Twitter a bigger selling point than Facebook?

Twitter is by far the most important social networking trend for 2009, and has the potential to be larger than Facebook in terms of numbers of users multiplied by numbers of messages read or sent.

Tweets and retweeets usually come from people who have chosen to follow a given individual, for example a famous celebrity or band, creating another way to get close and personal to fans. The referral is therefore much sharper, more targeted than the impulsive "throw-on-my-Facebook-wall" type. Using Twitter correctly can be a powerful tool to get the attention of music bloggers, radio DJs, and other "gatekeepers".

Twitter is becoming more and more important for the music industry. It's a great way to promote new realises, connect with fans and stay on top of the latest music and news.

Twitter allows you to build relationships and connect you to other people who are trying to accomplish the same thing. You can create a more personal interaction with your fans letting them hear from you, re tweeting what other people have written is a great thing, and bands should try it. Tweeting quotes that have caught your ear, e.g. song lyrics. It gives people an idea of who you are. Your words, stories and your life - people in general will respond more when they feel like they know you as a person/band.

GoldBloom currently do not have Twitter, but after researching Twitters popular success as a large population are using it more than Facebook, I feel it will be a great way for the band to show themselves as individuals as well as musicians.

How Graphic Design is killing the web? - The Networker

"Designers have turned webpages from simple sources of information into bloated showcases. The internet needs a simpler diet"

In the beginning, webpages were simple pages of text marked up with some tags that would enable a browser to display them correctly. But that meant that the browser, not the desinger, controlled how a page would look to the user, and there's nothing that infuriates designers more than having someone, or something determine the appearance of their work.

Webpages began to look more attractive and, in some cases, became more user-friendly. They had pictures, video components, animations and colourful type in attractive fonts, and were easier on the eye than the staid, unimaginative pages of the early web. They began to resemble in fact, pages in print magazines. Webpages ceased to be static text-objects fetched from a file store;instead the server assembled each page on the fly, collecting it's various graphic and other components from their various locations, and dispatching the whole caboodle in a stream to your browser which then assembled them for your delectation.

A downside: webpages began to put on weight. Over the last decade the size of webpages has more than septupled. From 2003 to 2011, the average web page grew from 93.7kb to over 679kb.

Futurists (and broadband suppliers) rejoice that this epidemic of obese webpages is driving a demand for faster (and more profitable) broadband contracts and point to the fact that communications bandwidth is increasing as a rate even faster than processing power.

Originally my website page was smaller than it's current Width: 1300 px and Length: 1000 px. The reason for my enlargement was through my research of current artist/band websites. I felt for my website to 'fit in' and look professional I had to stick with the 'norm' of creating an "Obese Website"

Representation

Female Representation in current Music Videos.

Male address music videos that draw fundamentally on the connection between male adolescent license and adult male rule by activating textual signs long common to patriarchal discourse. Reproducing coded images of the female body and conventionally positioning girls and women as objects of male voyeurism remain effective visual strategies for associating male adolescent desire with male dominance. Representations of females in music video become inflected in ways that facilitate their integration into the specific vision of male adolescent discourse. Girls, when they appear, are not represented as equal participants in the symbolic system, "the street," but function instead to delineate male adolescent fantasy. For example this is considerably noticeable in 2007 music video “Make it Rain” Women are being represented as sex objects and in a very derogatory manor. The male characters in this music video are shown to be very powerful. This contrast between the statuses of each sex has the affect on the audience that the men are further heightened in status and the women are further degrading. In retrospect it is unfair to suggest that women are all subject to the male gaze and that they are purely sex objects. As the hip hop industry is predominantly male, it is in a certain way a marketing tactic to increase the popularity of the record, therefore discarding the female controversy. However, there is some evidence of a male being degraded. In a shot of Fat Joe rapping, he has a member of his entourage holding an umbrella over his head. This job is associated with a low position, such as being a butler and therefore can be seen as quite degrading. The girls are showing as much skin as they possibly can with props of money raining down on them. All these factors combine to create a strong communication to the audience about how females are represented. These factors combine to make women seem inferior and as objects rather than people.

GoldBloom Representation in Promotional Video

imovie footage of Female Teen Fans...

BBC News -Do bands need the internet to make it big?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9422026.stm

The music industry has complained that the internet and piracy are killing music. But are they really? Or is the industry just having trouble adjusting to a changing digital landscape? The music industry is bigger than it ever has been - and that is excluding the 1.2 billion illegal downloads which occurred last year in the UK alone. 'David Reid' visited the Midem exhibition in Cannes to discover how bands are using new technology to break into the industry...

Small Indie Band's made it big through the use of digital technology are not really complaining... "If someone wants to rip off our album, do you know what, we are giving them away for free!" I feel that small band's in today's music industry obviously want to a make a profit, but they do not seem to be too bothered about piracy or scamming, they just want to make music and want people/fans to enjoy listening as much as they enjoy producing the music.

"Music is becoming like a digital photo, something you can't really own"

Current older artists believe that the internet is supposed to be like a radio, something to advertise where the bands are going to be, when they are going to play? However the internet has become the only source where fans can really interact with the band's and they WANT and NEED to know more nowadays to even consider listening to the bands, which is also FREE!

After watching this video clip, I felt that this quote "Internet can allow many more band's/artists through" really applied well to band's similar to GoldBloom. All through my research and planning the internet has been the reliable source for promoting, advertising and creating a fan base. Although the small bands will not be earning as much, they are doing what they love to do, which is to make music!

When it comes to the record industry, it's still a man's world – but how can this still be the case in the 21st century?

Why is it that Boy bands continue to pollute not just the musical industry, but also the entertainment industry as a whole? Statistics have proven that 47% of women in the music industry earn less than £10,000, compared with 35% of men. However female solo artists don’t seem to be struggling, it’s female band’s that are finding the jump to fame a little more difficult.

Is the Internet to blame?

Girls aged under 16 are properly the most powerful fans you will ever get. The female population tend to thrive on ‘BoyBands’ more than the Male population to female bands. Female fans tend to attach themselves to a specific band and follow that band through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and buying concert tickets to see them live to the point where they will become near hysteria! For example ‘One Direction’ a band found through singing contest show ‘The X-Factor’ recently one a Britz award for the best British Single. Now is this because of their ‘raw talent’ or because of their large hormone-crazed fan base? The recent boy group are a bunch of good looking lads who have an on screen personality that has captured thousands of girls hearts, furthermore they make songs which are cheesy enough for their fans to listen to on repeat everyday. We begin to believe that the music industry nowadays is not much about the talent anymore, and it has become all a popularity contest, which these boys luckily enough have fans that will not give up on them. Maybe the problem is that boy bands speak to their audience, whereas girl bands speak for their audience.

Recent Media - Britz 2012

The Britz stands for the British Phonographic Industry’s annual pop music awards, which is the British equivalent of the American Grammy awards.

I wanted to research information about the recent truth behind gender power within the charts in today’s music society. This information will back up the factual statement that Boy bands hold the dominant power over Girl Bands in today’s music industry, but do not necessarily hold the power over female solo artists.

British Album - Adele 21

British Female solo artist - Adele

British Male solo artist - Ed Sheerun

British breakthrough act - Ed Sheerun

British Group - Cold Play

British Single - One Direction

British Producer - Ethan Johns

International Female Artist - Rihanna

International Male artist - Bruno Mars

International Group - Foo Fighters

International Break Through - Lana del Ray

Critiques Choice - Emilie Sandez

Outstanding Contribution to Music - Blur

Theroetical Studies that I had considered throughout my research - The Interplay between Music, Audience and Media

Music is an integral part of most media. Movies, radio, video-games and television all depend on music as the core or the enhancement of their products. The music industry on the other hand is completely dependent on the media, as a promoter, user and distributer of it’s products. Most professional musical Artists/Bands communicate with their audience primarily via some kind of electronic medium and only a fraction of the audience is able to experience the Artists/Band’s live performance. The dynamics of this interplay between the audience, the music and the media can be illustrated by the ‘Audience - Media - Engine’ model. The model is constituted by four variables: Media Presence, Audience Reach, Audience Approval and Audience Action. Media presence represents the number of media outlets (television shows, radio shows, websites, video-games etc) where the Artist/Band appears during a specific period of time. A music firm may try to improve its media presence through various marketing and licensing activities. Audience reach represents the percentage of the total audience which the firm is able to reach through it’s media presence. For example, an appearance in a high-profile media event is able to reach a greater share of total audience than an appearance on a media event of less significant.

Audience approval is defined as the fraction of the entire audience who respond positively when they encounter the works of a musical Artist/Band. This variable is of course affected by several other factors, but the audience-media engine focuses entirely on how the audience approval is driven by the Artist/Band’s presence in the media.

Audience approval is important in both the old and new music economy, but it’s not able to pay the firms bills. Rather, it is various kids of audience actions that are traditionally supposed to generate the majority of the firms revenues. The actions spurred by the audience’s approval might for instance be the purchase of a song, music merchandise, concert tickets or some other music related product.

There are many kinds of audience action, which have the similar interplay with the media presence. The structure is currently manifested all over the Cloud, for example on social network services such as MySpace, Lala, Twitter or Facebook.

The links which connect media presence, audience reach, audience approval and audience action constitute a reinforcing feedback loop which plays a crucial role in the music industry dynamics. The loop may serve as an engine which gives rise to fads, brands, acts or genres. If the audience - media engine works against an artist or a music firm, it will be difficult to reach any kind of success.

The ability to control the audience-media engine has been at the core of music business strategy since the very beginning of the industry.