World Wide Music Videos

In the title of my blog I have already indicated that I would like to examine the changes that have occurred to the music video with the appearance of the Internet. I have been reading a book written by Saul Austerlitz titled Money for nothing, about the history of the music video and how it has developed into one of the most representative forms for music and into an art form. And I started to realize that the new media enable an all new set of possibilities of not only music video production but its manipulation for different promotional purposes.
On the internet video share programs two very evident new types of music video have appeared in the past couple of years. The first is the parody to the original music video and the second is the appearance of political music videos. It is the ones with political content I am planning to focus on. In the past couple of years the political world has been getting more and more aware of the mobilizing power of the internet. It would not only permit the candidates and parties to present their views but also their voters to express their support in a creative way and trough music video.
I plan to look at the different music videos which support different political parties and candidates. I believe it is a very good time to do so as 2008 is the election year in the U.S. and a comparison will be able with the videos made for the candidate champagne that has already started in the past year. Also I intend to look for any similar music videos that would have been produced for the past presidential election in Slovenia.

Source:
Austerlitz, Saul (2007). Money for nothing: a history of the music video from the Beatles to the White Stripes. New York: The Continuum International Publishing group Inc.

I'm back on the Internet

After over two weeks of having no internet connection I was reconnected. What joy!

J

Is there anybody or anything out there?

Every day we use different web sites. Each of these has its own policies and its own rules that one needs to understand and respect to receive the optimal user experience.
Depending of the purpose and the site policy the interactivity of the site is also designed. In some cases the interactivity is promoted and supported, and in some not a lot of attention is given to it. I believe that Sally J. Mcmillan in her article "A four part model of cyber-interactivity" in which she present this new model and applies it to a research of site interactivity has designed a very good theoretical model. Feedback, Monologue, Mutual discourse and Responsive dialogue describe in my opinion in a very good way the different types of two way communication. The problematic part for me is that the author has a very idealistic ideal of what the ideal communication is supposed to look like. The fact is that Mutual discourse is difficult to achieve in any kind of communication and that the author of the sites are very aware of the power that they have on their sites and are not willing to give it up. The possibility to post comments for example may appear as a tool that enables interactivity, but the problem is that the author of the site and of the comment are not equal. These kind of equality can be found only between different article authors or between comment authors. The site editor has always the power to remove or ban a comment from the site or deny its publication. It is in this editing power inequality and the status between the publisher of tha article and the commentator where i see the problem with the site interactivity. In most cases even the users help mails would be responded to by a computer and not by a person, so just like we can leead virtual lives the interactivity in many cases is only virtual. So in my opinion the true way to messure interactivity is not only by mesuring the satisfaction of the user but if he had communicated with a person or a human beeing.

Jan Orsic

Two texts, two ways, one research

The Texts of David Gauntlett (2004) and David Silver (2006) are both summaries of issues and chalenges regarding the study of the Internet. They both are trying to present their views on what the role of internet is in the modern society and when compared two different approaches of dealing with the problen can be seen. David Silver tries to present us with a systematic overview on how internet research should be done and represents in his article a very organised and sistematic overwiev of the topics presenting other authors and their work. Even if he claimes that his aricle is not a blueprint for an investigation it is not far from it.
David Gauntlett's article on the other hand is a lot easier to read and is presenting us with the past work of the author and his more personal experience with the internet. His article is more apropriate for the general public and is allso written in such a way.

Personally I find that both articles deal with what the internet research should be focused on and how this should be done. But even if they are different in this aspects they have one crucial thing in commun and that is the percetion of time. Internet has made the world smaller and its research must be applied to that fact. In both articles I senced a feeling of despear as they both reflect on how a apparently small change can have great consequences in the world of internet and therefore in the internet research. I would say that the historic analisis that Gauntlett makes in his article confirms that and his somewhat more relaxed attitude should be applied to the world of e-science. Silver's article on the other hand is a offers a great overviev of the past research and is more important for the teoretical part.

The two articles are different in their approach as they are intendid for different use. One more theoretical and scientific, the other one more general and less complicated. If the two approaches would be combined I believe that they would form the perfect base for a research. So to say the two articles are like two sides of the same medal. Different but insuficient withouth the other.


Sources:
- Silver, D. (2006). Introduction: Where is Internet Studies? Critical Cyberculture Studies, 1-14. New York: New York University Press.
- Gauntlett, D. (2004). Introduction. D. Gauntlett, R. Horsley: Web.Studies, 2nd Edition. London: Hodder Arnold.

Trouble with the Internet

Due to tehnical problems I have not been able to post anything new. I hope the problem should be solved in the beginning of the folowing week.

In the mean while I believe that this link should ofer us the explication about what internet is really about (at least for the majority of users).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPFkmGRdwus

And perhaps provoke a comment...

Introduction

In the 1960's and 1970's music groups started to produce the first music videos. By the 1980 the music video has played a very significant role in the production of music and becoming a increasingly important element of the TV program. With the birth of Mtv the place of music and music video changed for ever. With the growth of popularity of internet and tools such as youtube and myspace it has become easier for new bands and directors to present their work. The new media has even proven itself to be easily capabe of creating it and now the new media has changed music and music videos. The new media has even proven itself to be easily capable of creating its own stars and bands as proven on the case of the Arctic Monkeys.

In the course of the seminar New Media and Society I am interested into finding out how the internet changed has the way music and music videos are produced, advertised and presented trough this new media and how this has infuenced the perception and role of the music videos in the society.