Mock Exam - Rosie

Social networking and online media hugely affects the music industry, having different sites such as SoundCloud, YouTube and Facebook allows a worldwide audience to consume music wherever they are in the world.

Beck is a DIY artist that is known through the use of social networking, without the use of digital distribution he would not be known. Beck creates all of his music himself, he writes sheet music and them posts them online, in order to get a response from his fan base, they make versions of his music and share them online. Social networking is extremely usefull in beck's case as he would not exist without it, he has a niche audience that are dedicated to him, he gained this through creating a relationship with them. Beck gets many different responses to his sheet music as he has so many different versions of the same piece he has many to chose from this allows him to pick the best one and put it out there as his own. This firstly allows the audience to feel apart of what he is doing and it also allows Beck to keep all of the profit he makes. Social networking has allowed Beck's music to be promoted easily, without these online sites beck's music wouldn't be out there, digital media is a simple way to be promoted and exchanged between fans. Beck is purely based on the internet and although he is growing and has started to do tours, he was born form the internet and digital distribution has allowed him to be apart in the music industry.

Prosumers gather online in order to find and create music, again without the use of digital distribution they would not be able to o what they do, Prosumers are much like Beck in a way that they would not be known without the use of social networking, prosumers wouldn't even be able to create their music without the use of social networking sites, the same as beck. Starting off as a unknown artist would be impossible without the use of social networking, having a online community allows you to share your music and get known. Dj Claudio High was a prosumer artist that me and my team created, we put together a variety of different music genres and produced a mash up, with this mash up we crated many different promotion sources for him such as twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Insagram and many more. As a new artist such as a prosumer digital distribution is vital, it not only allows the artist to get known and promoted but it allows the other procumers in the community or even fans to connect with the artist and share their work, social networking also allows the fans to give feedback which helps the artist grow an develop. Having such a small fan base to start with can be easily fixed with the use of social media and online technologies, using the internet can allow you to expand your audience and share your work worldwide.

Domino is a indie record label that are mainly based in London, they are purely based on music however they started to publish books as another form of promotion, this is known as synergy which used to be a vital way in which companies would get known and become popular, however as media technologies has developed this is no longer necessary. Indie labels such as Domino use many different online medias in order to promote the music, for example the Arctic Monkeys are singed by Domino and use many different social medias such as YouTube, Twitter and Last FM, looking online i found that the Arctic Monkeys had around 10 million views on YouTube, this shows that the internet and online media is very important and useful when it comes to consuming music. As indie labels are much smaller than the large major labels, they have a much smaller budget when it comes to promotion and distribution, Inide Labels use social media in order to et the music across as it is free and such a large scare audience can see it. Domino are quite similar to Beck and the prosumer case study as all three of them have a particularly small dedicated audience, social media allows them to get the music across easily and in exchange getting feedback, likes, comments and even promotion in return.

Major labels are slightly different than the indie, DIY and prosumers. Major labels have enough money to promote and distribute the music however they feel like. Major labels used to use, CD'S, posters, billboards and much more physical objects however as digital distribution and media technologies has developed the major labels have had to take part in the online promoting business. Major labels now use social networking in order to sell and distribute their music, for example the x-factor is part of a chain reaction, Sony who own Syco who take part in the x-factor all earn money from a simple show, having a show on tele which is promoted through social networking, the radio, Itunes and much more is  the way forward in the music industry. Having all the little conglomerates taking part in shows such as the x-factor brings the larger companies, The Big 4, money, promotion and distribution. One direction who came off from the x-factor is a prime example of the way the major labels have changed their marketing ways, One Direction have been extremely popular over the social networking sites and have over 10 million followers, each. One direction have also created their own online game and create short clips of themselves and post them online to sites such as YouTube. This is how the major labels now have to operate as the digital medias have taken over the music industry.

Although the major labels still dominate the music industry they are being forced to act and run more like the indie and DIY artist, as digital distribution has taken over the music industry, all music is now promoted and listened to online in some way and this is something everyone in the music industry is going to have to adapted to.

Mock Exam- Hannah

The internet is one of the easiest ways to digitally distribute music world wide. Social networking has a huge impact on the music industry within the market research aspect as well as the PDE and the actual consumption of the music. 

Beck is a DIY artist, which means that he creates his songs him self, although he never records them. Beck releases sheet music to his fans and in exchange for the song he receives many different versions of that same song as it is up to the audience how they interpret it. This is why Beck relies strongly on social networking to become known, his niche community of fans are all musically talented as they play his songs themselves and upload them to sites like YouTube and Twitter to try and gain interest from other fans or Beck himself as he has his own Songreader website where he picks the best interpretations of the songs and adds them to an online album for the world to see. This way of working has lead Beck to have a relationship with his audience and create a dedicated fanbase. 

Although Beck writes his own music he doesn't ever make a visual for this piece leaving the music video side of things down to his fans, this means that Beck wouldn't be known without his fans creating videos to post on social networking sites. This shows that in order to consume Beck's music you wither have to play it yourself or listen to it through social networking sites such as YouTube, again showing that the internet has a huge impact on Beck's career more than anything else.

The way in which Beck works is completely different to any Major record label. For example Sony is a conglomerate company and owns multiple cross media institutions world wide. Syco is one of Sony's off spring of smaller record labels which is the label One Direction, the worlds biggest selling boy band, are signed to. One direction became famous through the xfactor and ended up with a Syco record deal. Unlike Beck, Xfactor focuses strongly on visualisation and every week will put on a different show to see whats popular, they use this as a marketing campaign as every week the artist will have a different look to see what image the audience like best, as every week people vote for their favourite act. Major labels have also taken advantage of the internet side of digital development as they use itunes to sell their music and make money from it, an example of this would again be Xfactor, the songs that the acts sing on the night are immediately released on itunes, so before that artist is even signed or become famous the audience is big enough that the Major label makes money through them from things like itunes and spotify. This shows that although Major labels dominate the music industry because of the amount of money that they make and the amount of business they own they still use the development of technology to spread their songs as the internet has become more popular and a part of every day life, this way although they already have a world wide audience spreading music across the internet and TV, this is an example of synergy and shows that they need this to reach other fans and create a wider community of people.

Similarly to Beck, prosumers are fans that create things like mashups and covers of songs by artists that they enjoy, they use apps and computer software to mashup songs to create a new song, sometimes the mashup will sound good as it uses old music in new ways, an example of translation; but can be considered bad as the music is usually illegally downloaded from sites such as YouTube converters and pirate sites, making it not pure. Prosumers would not be able to exist without the use of the internet, they rely on it to download their songs, create their sings and distribute it; similar to Beck. Prosumers are usually teenagers that enjoy music and therefore they believe that they have a right to get that music for free, this puts pressure on the music industry as a whole as people are no longer paying for songs so they are therefore loosing money, this could mean that the use of social networking sites to distribute music could be putting a strain on the industry as well as helping it. 

So to conclude I think that digital distribution is a huge part of the consumption and marketing of the music industry and many people would be unknown without it.