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.

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