Exam question sentence

Social networking has a huge impact on the niche audience of Beck, as he wouldn't be known without it, he also wouldnt be able to promote his music without the use of online sites, however in some cases such as prosumers, like madion, making mashups which devalues music as it proves anyone can make a song in their own home.

Exam Essay - Beck Vs X-factor

Translating the exam questions;

Question 1
Social networking is increasingly expanding and growing worldwide. How is this important for the music industry and new artists? How does this affect the procumers?

Question 2
Major labels take up a large section of the music industry, these labels promote and distribute there music / image to a worldwide community. To what extent do you agree with this?

Question 3
Popular songs rely on social networking and visual aspects to a certain procumer as much as they do to the actual mash up / music. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Question 4

Talk about the different problems that record company’s and artists may comes across when producing and exchanging their music, what issues may need to be looked at within the ownership of the track? 

   Exam;

   Beck Vs X-Factor

   Beck is a DIY artist who has made it by himself, he writes sheet music and leaves it up to his fans to interoperate it, some fans also make music videos for their own interpretation. Beck as a artist doesn't try to reach a large audience, Beck is unique and doesn't try to please everyone. Beck has a niche audience that are dedicated to him, as beck doesn't try to please everyone the small section of people who do appreciate and are dedicated to him stick by him as they don't get lost and stray away, the fans also feel like they have a connection with Beck, being in such a small community the fans feel apart of something. One of the main reasons some of the fans have such a good relationship towards Beck is because he plays their versions of the music, the audience can get involved and be apart of Beck's music. X-factor on the other hand is a talent show where you follow the contestant from the very beginning, many fans say this is why they feel so connected to the artists that become famous as a result from being on the show. The fans give feedback as to what is popular which allows each to contestant to either go home or stay and go through to the next round, the power of deciding who stays allows the audience to feel important and involved. Although X-factor and Beck have two completely different audiences they both rely on their own individual audience in order to survive in the music industry. Beck wouldn't be known unless it was for his fans, Beck wouldn't have so many versions of each song as less he had a dedicated fan base like he does. X-Factor needs the fans in order to give feedback and vote, without the participation of the audience the show would be nothing.

   Beck produces sheet music which he then passes over to his fans, they then translate the music to how they understand and imagine it to sound, some fans also produce music videos to go with the sound that they have produced. This gives Beck an opportunity to then pick the best most interesting sound that he thinks will sell. All of this put together is the different stages in the music industry, production, distribution and marketing and exchange. The traditional way in the music industry is to do all three of these stages one after the other, Beck has actually blended all of these different stages into one. The production of the music itself is a result of the exchange from beck and his fans, the distribution and marketing is also done within the fans. Although X-factor is nothing like Beck and has completely different practices, it has actually done the same thing as Beck and blended all the the different stages of the music industry together. Producing music and an image for the artist, x-factor is a well known show that distributes music the whole time it is airing, not only do you listen to the music every week on the tele but as soon as a contestant has finished a song it is automatically placed on the internet, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and many other sites. The exchanging process takes part every week, not only do they contestants receive votes form their fans but they are constantly receiving feedback over social networking sites. This shows that although X-factor and Beck are different in their own ways, they both are blending up the music industry.

   X-factor is a well known show that that is popular for the costumes, light shows and dancers, the whole show is based around the visual aspects. People reply on the visuals in order to be entertained, this is where Beck and X-factor and extremely different. Beck writes sheet music and leaves it up to his fans to do the rest, Beck doesn't use any lights or fancy videos in order to get his audience's attention. 

   Visualisation has been argued to devalue the music, comparing Beck and X-factor i would agree with this. X-factor is purely based on the visuals, with out them there would be no show, when watching the program all the attention is on the show not the music, the judges even comment if the contestants cant dance or the show wasn't 'entertaining' enough, I personally feel this is taking the whole purpose out of the show. X-factor is all about the scandals, rumours and publicity, some of the people that get through on the x-factor cant even sing they are on there purely for the entertainment. X-factor devalues music and there is no arguing against it. Beck on the other hand is all about the music, you can see that the only reason Beck writes the music is because he is passionate about it, Beck doesn't use any fancy visuals or shock scandals in order to get liked, he simply writes music that he thinks is interesting and will be liked and played by his fans.

Exam question

Digital media technologies continue to develop. How is this significant to media institutions and audiences? 

Digital media technology would include a range of different things such as websites, mostly social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter being the main three, as these sites continue to develop it allows anyone to be able to become 'famous'. 

Many people are able to post videos of themselves singing to either a song they have written or a cover of someone else's, after posting this on a site like YouTube they can then promote it through other social networking sites which would allow people that they follow or are friends with to watch the video and gradually increase the views. As the views and hopefully likes on the video proceed to increase the video will become more popular and word will spread until people worldwide are viewing your video.  

This is exactly what happened in our with our case study in our prosumer groups with dj claudio high as we have uploaded music and a music video for our artist and got views and comments on our video which has helped us for a small fan community.

The use of social networking sites throughout this generation is increasing and finding new artists this way has become a great way to find people with talent from across the world as because they are becoming more popular they would have started to build a community of fans and maybe prosumers that view the video would start to make things such as music videos or covers of their songs. This would have an effect on the media music industry as  people no longer need a record deal to get their music out their as long as they put a good video up on YouTube people will start to watch and enjoy what they can do. But this could also make it easier on record labels as they can find what's trending and therefore know what people like and are maybe able to contact and sign that artist. 

Another way in which the media technologies developing effects the industry is the fact that free music is now so easy to eat hold of with sites that allow you to convert YouTube videos for free and sites where you can just download for free. This then means that people have stopped paying for songs on things such as iTunes or buying cd's this has stopped the income for them songs to the record label so they are loosing money meaning that ticket prices for that artist are on the rise as they need to make their money elsewhere. 

Therefore there are advantages and disadvantages of media technologies developing.

Dj Claudio High Case Study

Digital media technology continues to develop. How is this significant for media institutions and audiences?

Starting off as a new unsigned artist would be extremely hard without the use of digital media. Digital media had developed over time and is now popular with many different people all over the world. Having such a large community online allows audiences to find and connect with artists that they like or aspire to be like. Dj Claudio High was an artist that was created by my procumer group and me; in order to promote our artist and the mash-up we used social networking. As nobody knew our artist digital media was extremely significant to us here, as we had to market Dj Claudio High as best we could. Using Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, Instagram, Tumblr and MySpace we created a relationship with our audience; we followed people who we thought would have an interest in the artist, we also followed other artists and lastly we followed Dj Claudio High ourselves in order to get him connected with our friends and family. Posting regularly and sharing links to the video helped us get more views and likes; this helped our artist get better known and popular. Using the different sites we gained, 12 followers in the first 2 hours of creating the account, we received 252 views, 1 positive comment and 7 likes on the music itself and we achieved all of this using social networking. Social media has allowed us to get a new artist across to the worldwide web and this would not be possible without the digital media technologies!

Social media not only allows new artists to get known and promoted but it allows the audience to connect with the artist and get involved. Social networking is full of procumers re-creating and coving songs and dances that inspirer them, with the help of these procumers artist songs get known through out the world, this occurs by one simple song/video going vial. Digital media technology is not only good for media institutions, the audience benefit from social media developing as well, with all the different social networking sites that are now available audiences can always find something new and interesting that they can explore. Audiences that like to find their own music and look into new music rely on social media greatly, without all the different social networking sites and communication ways procumers wouldn’t be able to find these new artist. Social media then allows the audience to promote the artist themselves, by the use of ‘trending’ and other methods such as ‘following’ or ‘subscribing’.

Over all the fact that digital media technologies are developing is a huge help to not only the media institutions but the audiences as well. Digital media allows new artists to get known and popular, it allows audiences to get involved and find new artists.

“Global institutions dominate media production; these institutions sell their products and services to national audiences.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Major record labels dominant the media production, using their large institutions they can promote and market their music and artists worldwide. I agree that the major labels such as Universal, Warner and Sony dominate the media world, however with digital media technologies developing indie labels are given a chance to promote their media just as much.

The artist I create din my group was able to get promoted world wide, using social networking such as Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, Dj Claudio High can be seen and heard by any audience anywhere in the world. As it stands at the moment the major labels are dominate however I believe with this development occurring allows indie labels and independent artists to get themselves known and become known worldwide. Through out time I personally believe indie labels will rise and become dominate, my reason for this is looking at viral videos such as Gangman Style and Harlem Shake, these videos become popular worldwide just from the use of social networking. Applying for YouTube, Twitter and other social networking sites is so easy and its free, with the use of trending and popular sites there is hope that any independent artist, such as Dj Claudio High, can make it on there own to national audiences.

“Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Creating a good, interesting mash up is extremely important in order grab the audience that you are trying sell to, however from researching different examples and carrying out my own research into the artist I had created, Dj Claudio High, I think that the visual effects and the correct audience is just as important. Within our procumer team there was many different roles, the team divided into separate groups when creating the mash up. A large part of the group was focused on visuals; creating the image of the artist, creating the music video and creating the social networking sites in order to portray the image of Dj Claudio High. With out the use of the these different marketing techniques our artist wouldn’t if got as many views and likes, therefore I believe it is important to have a good image for the artist, as well as interesting music.

Advertising to a specific audience is important as it allows the audience to be directly linked to an artist they have an interest in. Although we uploaded the music video late, we found from our other sources that the audience like the visuals aspects, our Instagram images gathered more likes than the mash-up music itself. Using different social networking sites, like Instagram, is very important in order to get the music across to the procumer group that relates to the music we are putting across, with out the use of different social sites the music we created wouldn’t get across to the audience. Linking the music directly to its audience is a quick, easy and fast way in order to get the product out there, social media allowed us to do this.

Although we uploaded the music video late to YouTube we still advertised it in the same way, within a hour our music video got 20 likes and the music itself only received 10. Overall the music itself has more views as it stands however this is because we uploaded the video late, so based on a period of time the music video received the most interest from the audience. Looking into the statistics this shows that the music could be any old mash up as long as there is some visuals to go along with it, our music video is a young girl dancing around in different locations, it has the comedy factor more than anything, this proves that the audience need to be amused and entertained from something other than the music itself, within out group this brought up the argument, is the music being devalued. After spending such a long time creating the mush-up we believed it had been spoilt by the demeaning video of a young Asian girl dancing around creating her own wild dance moves.

Discuss the issues raised by Media Ownership in the production and exchange of texts.

The mash-up we have created is in no way pure; we have downloaded a variety of different songs and placed them all together in order to create something new. When creating the mash-up of old songs, we have to think about the ownership of the original songs, as we are using more than 1 song and putting them all together we need to think about the final outcome, as the songs we are using are all from different labels, the ownership of the final mash-up would need to be thought about. After posting the mash-up online we have n o yet received any issues regarding the ownership of the songs, we believe this is because it is free advertising for the original artist themselves, hearing a small section of a song may get them to want to hear the rest and this may encourage them to buy, download or just simple follow the artist. Mash-ups have created a problem in the past, EMI didn’t want any of there songs to be used in a mash-up they requested to be paid for the use of any of their music, this resulted in them going under and they have now been brought by Universal for 1.2 billion! Mash-ups are now being created by many different procumers, the mash-up we created and placed online is still there and receiving likes, views and most importantly helping old, unheard and in some cases unknown music become popular and listed to.

Presentation

Beck Score & Song Reader

Beck is a composer and song writer who has written an entire album "Song Reader" as sheet music so that you are only about to listen to his songs if you get involved and play them yourself. He provides the sheet music and lyrics and it is then up to the audience how they think that the song should sound, this is why there are so many versions of his different songs in many different styles and genres of music. If you YouTube a Beck songs such a variety of versions of that song will arise form fans of him, his album is available to buy on Amazon and on various different websites across the net dedicated to him.

4. Distribution and Marketing
The album is distributed through the fans and the sheet music, Beck distributes the songs and the fans then distribute their version of the song. It is also marketed to a certain audience, anyone who can play an instrument can learn Beck's song and can listen to it, this shows his target audience. The music has been distributed to companies such as amazon and different websites.

5. Exchange
The songs are exchanged between Beck's fans as they make videos of how they have interpreted the song. This creates a bond between the fans and the music as they can hear the song however they wish as they have to play it.

6. Visualisation
The album is only visual in sheet music, people around the world then make it visual on sites such as youtube in video format to show their interpretation of the song.


Different versions of Beck's song Don't act like your heart isn't hard.









Here are some different versions of the song don't act like your heart isn't hard, although they are pretty similar there all have their own style towards them.

These photos are from various social networking sites that becks fans are using to exchange their versions of the songs, from looking through his followers I have found that there is a mixed age and gender group of his audience they are mostly aged between 21-30 and have musical talent to actually be able to play the music.

Exam Case study

Task 2 

Question 2:

Research One Direction & their releases: Have they used any songs on Sony's back catalogue to re-image/brand and release (look at their weekly releases over the show on iTunes - who owns the rights to this song, are they subsidiaries of Sony Records?)

One direction have writers that write their songs for them, although the boy band sing the songs they do not legally own them. The boys have done a cover of teenage kicks, this was for charity and this song was not owned by the boys or sony records. 

Question 3:
How are One Direction is promoted & distributed (after and including Xfactor), how successful they are (sales, downloads, news articles, online games, advertising, Brit awards). How can do they create relationship with their audience?

X-factor was a massive part of One Directions courier; to start with One Direction never entered The X Factor! The five members of the band actually entered the competition as solo artists. However, the Simon Cowell, who created the show, put the guys together into a group. All of this happened in 2010 when Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson appeared on the seventh season of x-factor. One direction became very famous during the duration of the show. During the x-factor they built a good fan base, throughout the show they appeared in many different magazines and newspapers, the band also appeared on you tube with some of their live performances. Although they did well throughout the competition, the boys did not win the show, finishing third to winner Matt Cardle and runner-up Rebecca Ferguson. Although they      boy band came third, for some reason the boys are doing better than Rebecca and matt.

After the x-factor the boy band was signed to Syco Records, which is Simon Cowell’s label in the UK and Columbia Records in the US. After this the boy band grew as a group and slowly become more and more popular. The show also helped them progress as a group as they appeared again the next year as guest performers, the show also allowed them to gain more fans at the x-factor UK tour.

Once signed to the record label the boy band promoted themselves in many different ways, they have grown and developed and now have a twitter page with 11,179,160 follows and a Facebook page with 14,627,859 likes. One direction also have many videos on you tube with an average of 78,497,941 views per video! The boy band also use other social networking sites such as pintrest, tumblr, sound cloud and Get Glue. One direction also have a official website that allows you to see all of their new music and videos. Their website allows you to navigate to many different pages including, news, music, events, photos, videos and many more! The website also has links to other pages that the boy band have created, such as their Facebook page.

As well as creating their own web pages and posting their own videos, one direction’s fans do a lot of promoting and distributing. Many fans create Facebook pages and websites around the band themselves, this allows one direction’s music to be seen and heard without the band actually doing anything. Fans of one direction also distribute the bands music world wide without even knowing it, when fans that post music videos or songs that they like on you tube it allows a world wide audience to view the music, this promotes One Direction globally.

The bands loyal fan base kept the boys profile high, however their record company made it all possible with the release of their first single "What Makes You Beautiful’’. The band released their first album, ‘’up all night’’ in November of 2011. The album was the fastest selling debut album of 2011 in the UK and hit number 2 in the UK charts.

The boys won a Brit Award in Feb 2012 for "What Makes You Beautiful" this promoted them even more and helped them along their way. After they had won the award they went to the US to begin a new relationship with the fans out there. The album One Direction's "Up All Night" made history by becoming the first UK group to have a debut album enter the US Billboard chart at Number One.

The band announced a tour date at New York's famous Madison Square Garden, it sold out in 30 seconds. The boy band added more dates and was playing venues all over the world including the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. This helped promote the music even more as a worldwide audience was hearing the music. One direction have now begun work on their second album, the band have more tour dates planned through 2012 and 2013. As of August 2012 the boys had sold 12 million records worldwide. To add to the promotion of the boy band Syco Film are planning a movie featuring the band, with a planned release date of October 2013.

The band has won many different awards through out their time in the business, looking into I found over 20 different awards! I have emended a picture of all the awards they have gained! The band are very successful now after appearing on the scene in August  2012. Since this time the band have had 3 albums. "Up All Night" and "Take Me Home" are two albums that sold over 1 million copies. Both albums reached the top of the best selling albums of 2012, "Up all Night" making it to number 3 and "Take Me Home" Reaching number 8. "Live While Your Young" wasn't as successful as the first two albums but still reached the charts. The Boys released four singles, with "what makes you beautiful" being the first one to be released and this one went straight to number 1 in the charts.

Through all of their success, One direction still create a relationship with their audience. After looking through many different social networking sites i can see that the majority of their fans are females between the age of 10 and 15. 

Using social media allows the band to build a relationship with their fans, many young girls on twitter tweet members of the band in hope of a reply, in order to build a relationship the band to tweet certain fans back. On a regular basis the band tweet about their music, the band also post on Facebook and you tube.

The band also puts on many tours and go to different music festivals in order to connect with their fans.

Question 4:

 How does X-Factor Produce, Market, Distribute & Exchange music and & how does this relate to Sony's back catalogue? 

X-factor is a very popular program that many people watch on the television every year. What people don’t realize is that the program is producing, marketing, distributing and exchanging music all the time it is on the tele. Simon Cowell, the A&R for Sony Entertainment, has the rights to x-factor.

 The show auditions millions of new artists who want to make it as a singer, as Simon owns his own label he is constantly looking for a new artist that he thinks he will be able to sign. Through out the production process they eliminate the terrible singers and the artists who are not going to make it in the industry. The show also turns the hopefuls into the stars the show expects them to be, costume designers, make up artists and mentors turn the artist into a new person who they believe will be more successful in the industry.

Through out the series of x-factor the new artist are getting promoted and marketed, as the x-factor is such a popular show the new artist are getting watched on the tele every Saturday night, they are also getting noticed by the press and getting put into magazines and newspapers. The contestants on the show also get marketed through different radio stations, the show also gets shown using You Tube, and this means the contestant already has a worldwide audience. As the show is so popular due to its own marketing the contestants is most likely defiantly going to be noticed. The show has its own sponsors (coke and talk talk), the show also has its own website, it is also shown on the tele, through magazine and newspapers and social networking.

The winner of x-factor then has a single distributed through out the country; the single is put on iTunes, sold in stores such as HMV and placed on social networking sites. The new single is also played on a variety of different radio stations; this helps the winner become even better known.

X-factor is linked to Sony’s back catalogue as Simon is free to use these songs, the artists that wins the show can produce a copy of an old song in order to promote themselves. For example, James Arthur released the song impossible, which was originally sung by Shontelle.