Lady Gaga: Mistress of convergence -
"She campaigned very successfully on the issue of homosexuals in the U.S. military having to lie about their sexuality, resulting in the repeal of the Bill. "
"In other words, convergence culture meets somewhere between the media platform and the consumer platform. The emergence of a Gagapedia reflects the collaborative nature of the Gaga brand, using fans creativity to create interest and appeal. "
"Lady Gaga has clearly mastered the new social network phenomenon that drives global consumerism."
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/mm28_e-media_wikis.html
Free culture: e-media comes of age -
" On social networking sites, on YouTube and other sites which rely on UGC and on wikis this vision is finally coming true. Here, the divide between institution and audience is slowly being broken down."
"The ‘free culture’ movement seeks to distribute knowledge more freely and widely, and overlaps with wikis’ anti-centralisation ethos wherein we can all be experts. In a small way, all UGC is part of this."
"While this is likely to perpetuate existing privileges and biases, there is certainly a shift in terms of the generational bias, with knowledge lying in the hands of the younger generation, and increasingly accessible to those for whom the great libraries and built infrastructure are not available, or are culturally unapproachable."
'
Cohen quotes Ahmad Belal, a 23-year-old medical student who came from Cairo to attend the ‘Wikimania’ conference, saying:
"For Egyptians the visa procedure for any country is very difficult. You need a visa to visit any country in the world. Facebook and Wikipedia connect us to the outside." '
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/mm28_diploma_freemusic.html
Diploma - freedom of music:
"Despite so called Freedom of Speech legislation, our more controversial spoken comments still get us into trouble; however it often seems that the same opinions in song are perfectly acceptable."
"For decades artists from Bob Dylan to U2 to Rage Against The Machine have been angered by different troubles and inspired to write songs about them, some to draw attention to the problem and some to prompt direct action against political wrongdoings."
"To me this shows that it is not only multimillion pound recording artists who can protest about these things freely; even bands trying to break into the market have the confidence and drive to express themselves without limit."
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/MM36_Collab_Music_Politics.html
Music and Politics:
"Pop music is often seen as a disposable product which has a limited lifespan, with no more cultural meaning than that created by the audience member. In today’s digital media age, pop music’s commodification has been at the centre of debates around copyright, ownership and distribution. "
"The X Factor can be seen to epitomise the more commercial side of the music industry. Contestants are selected and judged on their ability to replicate the sounds of already successful artists – those that have already proved popular with the buying audience."
"At the heart of the protest though was the idea that, whilst pop music is often cynically manufactured to create a popular product with mass appeal, it has also been a voice for the non-mainstream audience and being a source of cultural resistance."
" Music on the street level is often created as a direct response to social inequalities and offers a voice to people who traditionally have limited social and/or political power. "
" The Conservative government of the time introduced a range of social and economic changes which were resisted by a large number of people including musicians. They challenged public sector cuts, privatisation of nationalised industries and the social changes (and mass unemployment) created by the closure of manufacturing and production industries."
"Facebook and YouTube offer technologies that allow voices from outside the mainstream access to audiences bypassing the traditional music industry gatekeepers"
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/mm25_anarchy.html
Anarchy? Where? When sub-versive sub-cultures hit the mainstream:
"For most, music is little more than entertainment and individuals identify themselves as fans of certain genres, such as indie, hip hop or heavy rock. For others, music is the defining aspect of the sub-cultural group to which they belong, such as goths or, 30 years ago, punks."
" It was during the 1960s that music was most obviously countercultural; that is, in opposition to the status quo. The counterculture of the 1960s broadly encapsulated:
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/mm28_diploma_freemusic.html
Diploma - freedom of music:
"Despite so called Freedom of Speech legislation, our more controversial spoken comments still get us into trouble; however it often seems that the same opinions in song are perfectly acceptable."
"For decades artists from Bob Dylan to U2 to Rage Against The Machine have been angered by different troubles and inspired to write songs about them, some to draw attention to the problem and some to prompt direct action against political wrongdoings."
"To me this shows that it is not only multimillion pound recording artists who can protest about these things freely; even bands trying to break into the market have the confidence and drive to express themselves without limit."
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/MM36_Collab_Music_Politics.html
Music and Politics:
"Pop music is often seen as a disposable product which has a limited lifespan, with no more cultural meaning than that created by the audience member. In today’s digital media age, pop music’s commodification has been at the centre of debates around copyright, ownership and distribution. "
"The X Factor can be seen to epitomise the more commercial side of the music industry. Contestants are selected and judged on their ability to replicate the sounds of already successful artists – those that have already proved popular with the buying audience."
"At the heart of the protest though was the idea that, whilst pop music is often cynically manufactured to create a popular product with mass appeal, it has also been a voice for the non-mainstream audience and being a source of cultural resistance."
" Music on the street level is often created as a direct response to social inequalities and offers a voice to people who traditionally have limited social and/or political power. "
" The Conservative government of the time introduced a range of social and economic changes which were resisted by a large number of people including musicians. They challenged public sector cuts, privatisation of nationalised industries and the social changes (and mass unemployment) created by the closure of manufacturing and production industries."
"Facebook and YouTube offer technologies that allow voices from outside the mainstream access to audiences bypassing the traditional music industry gatekeepers"
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/mm25_anarchy.html
Anarchy? Where? When sub-versive sub-cultures hit the mainstream:
"For most, music is little more than entertainment and individuals identify themselves as fans of certain genres, such as indie, hip hop or heavy rock. For others, music is the defining aspect of the sub-cultural group to which they belong, such as goths or, 30 years ago, punks."
" It was during the 1960s that music was most obviously countercultural; that is, in opposition to the status quo. The counterculture of the 1960s broadly encapsulated:
• the Civil Rights movement
• the growth of feminism
• the anti-war movement
• the Gay rights movements amongst others."
(Rock) "So music was not really treated as a (capitalist) business but as something belonged to the bands and their fans."
"Genres such as grime continue to appear from the underground to challenge the status quo and to be vilified by politicians and the press. "
"He argues that we can all be ‘pirates’ forcing Big Business to respond to youth culture or go out of business. As the Chinese proverb has it, ‘we live in interesting times.’"
