Case study research tasks
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150415-beyonc-voice-of-a-generation
- 7 Lessons From Beyonce's Social Media Guru
http://www.inc.com/rebecca-borison/beyonce-digital-media.html
But no Twitter. “Currently, we don’t use Twitter at all. It is a personal choice. I think as an artist, Beyoncé really prefers to communicate in images. It’s very hard to say what you want to say in 140 characters,” said Wirtzer-Seawood. “This is just a personal preference to her at this time. But also the Twitter channels are so crowded: it’s a different kind of experience that the fan has…”
“I would never open an account and not expect that we can continue to fill that channel forever: that it will continue to grow, and we’ll need to continue to fill it. That’s a huge responsibility,” she said.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/beyonce-new-album-tidal-exclusive/
- Beyoncé Shows How Social Media is Changing Marketing
The artist turned to Instagram and Twitter instead of traditional marketing methods
to spread the word about her album release.
http://www.inc.com/abigail-tracy/beyonce-shows-the-true-power-of-social-media.html
- How Beyoncé Keeps the Internet Obsessed With Her
The singer's social media presence combines faux intimacy and calculated messages that make events out of her most normal moments.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/how-beyonc-keeps-the-internet-obsessed-with-her/278681/
tackles real issues: drugs, absent
fathers, hypocritical politicians, friends who are
users.
Lily’s videos and lyrics all contain an element of
comedy. In ‘The Fear’ Allen exposes the empty-
headed world of the modern day pop princess
wannabe, product of the X-Factor generation. She
is wrapped up in a bow and everything is sugar
and spice.
I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
Coz everyone knows that’s how you get famous. Lilly Allen
Catchy skits and samples provide the basis
for Allen’s chatty discourse: she is the social
commentator of our age. The messages and values
that Allen promotes – through the role of cheeky
little girl who speaks more truth than politicians/
the media – need the element of comedy to
engage her target audience in the important issues,
the issues that really matter, rather than the latest
fashion fad. ‘If I buy those jeans I can look like Kate
Moss.’ (‘Everything’s Just Wonderful’) The clever
thing about Allen is that she manages to contrast a
sweet, childish voice with hard-hitting facts/social
images, making her an instant hit on radio.
Allen tackles real issues in an accessible way.
Humour draws us in and makes us listen more
closely. It is a tool vital to her success. She has an
opinion too – but she is less of the preacher, more
the sarcastic poet who has seen too much of life.
Artists like Allen scare the institution of the record
industry – freedom of speech is a dangerous thing
in terms of a vocal 24-year-old who will not just
shut up and be told what to sing. However, her
recent comments (in September 09) that she could
never make a profit making new records, that she
has ‘no plans’ to make another album and she is
not renewing her record contract, do lead one to
wonder how hard life was made for Allen in the
record industry, and how hard she had to fight to
claim her own voice. If Allen sticks to her intentions,
then British pop music will suffer.
page.47
Emma Clarke studied Media at A Level and is now a
Literature graduate working in Brighton.
George Ritzer (1996) suggested
that postmodernism usually refers to a cultural
movement – postmodernist cultural products
such as architecture, art, music, films, TV, adverts
page.42
BBC 6 Music and Asian
Network face closure
BBC Director General Mark Thompson, speaking
on the BBC News Channel, admitted 6 Music was
‘distinctive’ and had loyal fans, but said its closure
was necessary ‘from a value-for-money point of
view.’
However, some people claim the BBC is
motivated by fear of more severe cuts after the
election. Jonathan Freedland, writing at on the
Guardian’s Comment is Free website, said:
The BBC is caving to a Tory media policy
dictated by Rupert Murdoch.
page 8;mm33
• Music
–This is a topic area going through many
changes at the moment. You may be
interested in looking at the
ways the
different platforms are dealing with changing
technologies and
changing audience
behaviours. Traditional radio and music
televisions is a good starting point but
you might also want to consider how the
web is being used to access music and how
print media is responding to this. Social
networking is being used by
institutions
and musicians to help promote music
and offers a more interactive relationship
between musicians and audience. Twitter,
for example, is now a powerful tool for
communication between stars and fans,
some bands offer music free online, others
encourage audience members to get
involved in the production process, offering
tracks for mixing and so on.
-radio
-youtube
-sound cloud/online streaming
-music magazines
Finally, although vinyl was on the
way out, the music industry had a fairly stable
physical distribution system through tapes and
pg17:mm33
What is Networked
Feminism?
Feminism is often divided into ‘waves’ to explain the cultural context in which they began. Th
e ‘first wave of feminism’ began in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with a main focus on suffrage.
The ‘second wave’ began in the 1960s, campaigning for the growth of equal rights and leading to the Equal Pay Act of 1970, amongst other equality laws. Since the late 1990s, we are believed to have entered the
‘third wave’ (often identified as post-feminism).
The new fourth wave of feminism is also known as ‘networked feminism’. it aims to tackle social equality issues found both on, and using, modern technology. Thousands of campaigns, blogs and hashtags have been used to spur on the feminist upheaval. Ideologies and communities that were thought to have been extinct have been watered back to life through the roots of the internet.
User-generated content websites have seemed to flourish with the words of the feminists:
blogs, submission sites and
YouTube are all being utilised to set up, grow and oppose campaigns.
Twitter is a big player in representing modern feminism; people are now able to instantly engage with the ideologies, and hashtags such as #WomenAgainstFeminism and #YesAllWomen have trended Feminism is not about promoting matriarchy, but solidarity
McRobbie’s work on all aspects of youth
culture for young women, inc
luding pop music,
dance and magazines. No doubt he was pleased
by their academic success and the way in which
the Centre’s work, especially under the leadership
of
Stuart Hall, developed theoretical ideas that
overcame the problem of how to approach
popular culture in a productive way.
Mark Ashelford considers that:
There’s no doubt that the relationship
between musicians and record companies
needs to change. But let’s look at things from
the other perspective. People buying music
want to do so without any fuss – and they
only want to pay once for the same piece
of music. We can use the analogy of how
supermarkets managed to sell ice to their
customers. It’s not so much the content, it’s
the service. For music, we must make it easier
to legitimise the services, because the rights
of performing and composition must remain
central.
pg.27:mm.35
FACTSHEET 68
- The growth and popularity of the internet has challenged the power
of conglomerate control within the industry in a number of ways.
The music industry has had to respond to the advent of the digital
revolution due to its impact on production, distribution, artists and
audiences.
- The rapidly increasing trend of internet file-sharing has
resulted in both positive and negative outcomes for both artists
and fans. Artists are rewarded with free ‘viral marketing’ where
word of mouth spreads ‘like a virus’ amongst users, generating free
publicity and ‘buzz’ around an artist, video, album or single.
- However, this has the potential to increase music piracy and illegal
downloading of music which in turn can contribute to massive
financial losses for record labels as users are able to download or
stream music for free rather than purchase a physical copy.
- Contemporary ‘DIY’ culture within the music industry, shaped by
artists such as Lily Allen and The Arctic Monkeys, has led to the
role of the conglomerate becoming less pivotal. Artists have taken
ownership of key industry processes such as marketing and
distribution, processes usually carried out by the record labels
themselves. Artists are now able to take ownership of their own
marketing and distribution online using sites such as MySpace,
working independently of conglomerate support.
- As conglomerates
becomes less dominant, audiences gain more choice over the types
of music they want to hear and access, rather than being restricted
by the type of music distributed by record labels. If high levels of
interest for an artist are established online, indicated by the number
of ‘adds’ or ‘friends’ an artist has acquired, then a record deal may
be offered to an artist, putting them under conglomerate control.
- The digital revolution has enabled audiences to move from passive
to active, leading to a participatory culture as audiences get more
of a say in what music is produced and which music succeeds. The
fan-run ‘Rage Against the X Factor’ Campaign is an example of how
consumer power won in the battle to challenge conglomerate control.
- Audiences succeeded in using the social media site Facebook to
overturn Simon Cowell’s monopoly over the Christmas Number 1
spot. Collectively, fans put Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in
the Name Of at Number One, ahead of X Factor Winner Joe
McElderry’s cover version of The Climb.
- In an era where reality TV and manufactured talent dominate
primetime television and music chart platforms, the face of
mainstream popular music is often criticised for its lack of originality
and mediated nature. Within this musical landscape, Lady Gaga has
become a cultural figure of public interest, courting much controversy
amongst media commentators.
Example:
- Gaga exists across numerous media platforms, combining art, fashion,
music, film and technology through her creative brand ‘Haus of
Gaga’. This refers to the collaborative team who work with Gaga
on her videos, stage shows and creative vision. The Gaga ‘brand’ is
further promoted through her business activity off stage. She has
her own high street fashion range in shops such as River Island
and Topshop, a make-up range for MAC and is the face of many
product endorsements including Polaroid.
- Lady Gaga offers a new business model by successfully combining
traditional industry practices (being signed to and financed by a
major record label) with new media forms. She utilises the power of
a major conglomerate whilst embracing the development of digital
technology. Since the Gaga phenomenon began, her music has been
available to access for free via streaming on her many online profiles,
including those on Vevo and Myspace. Rather than reduce record
sales, this move has proved financially beneficial for the institution
as fans are also paying to download the music via iTunes.
- Audience in the Digital Era
‘Fandom’ is defined as the expression of a passion for something
and is a form of audience response. The rapid growth and popularity
of the internet and new technologies means that fans are becoming
more active consumers, able to interact with their subject in a variety
of new ways.
- By embracing social network media platforms, musicians and record
labels are able to utilise an interactive relationship with fans that is
beneficial to both producers and audiences. For example ‘groups’
or ‘pages’ on sites such as Facebook can invite subscribers or fans
to join and following a person, organisation or brand on Twitter
allows fans to build direct relationship with their subject.
- The rise in digital technology has seen an increase in online video
consumption. This can create free word of mouth for producers,
with the number of viewings per video providing a sign of audience
engagement with a product. Fans can view videos on YouTube and
share clips with other fans by embedding them into blogs, Facebook
or MySpace. Fans can leave video comments, post a video response
or spoof and upload music to their own social network profile. These
forms of user generated content illustrate the changing relationship
between producers and audiences in a move towards a ‘demand
led’ music industry where fans themselves have the power to
influence what is produced.
- Jackie Stacey (1994) presents a theory of spectatorship exploring the practices
surrounding fandom by looking at the pleasures fans can get from a star,
highlighting two key processes of spectatorship: escapism and aspiration. Richard
Dyer (1985) offers a definition of escapism stating that ‘entertainment offers the
image of ‘something better’ to escape into or something we want deeply that our
day to day lives don’t provide’.
- style and aspirational empowered female stance and behaviour. Stacey argues
that the confidence and independence of female stars is aspired to by spectators
who may see themselves as unable to possess such qualities, primarily due to the
entrapment of traditional gender stereotypes. By offering an empowered female
representation, both lyrically and visually, Gaga presents fans with a strong female
role model of aspiration. (MCROBBIE)
- Digital media platforms mobilise fans to emulate their icons and share their collective
appreciation of a star. The fan made Facebook event ‘National Lady Gaga Day’
has attracted over 100,000 followers and encourages fans to dress, sing and act
like Gaga by having themed parties, experimenting with fashion and displaying an
empowered attitude.
In summary, the digital revolution is both challenging the power of the music
industry as something that is conglomerate controlled, and transforming the role
of the audience by giving them more power over the way they consume and
respond to media products.
This Media Studies Factsheet was researched and written by Rebecca Ellis.
9FACTSHEET 122)
- However, this traditional model is changing. Developments in
technology and the emergence of the Internet mean that artists
have the potential to reach audiences without the need for a major
company and where once recording equipment was expensive it
was out of reach for the average person; it is now widely available
at a low cost. You can purchase sophisticated music production
software for a few pounds on your mobile device or tablet. Damon
Albarn, for example, recently produced a Gorillaz album in its entirety
using software on the iPad. In many cases artists are able to promote
and distribute their music digitally without the assistance of a record
label. Unsigned artists can sell their music on iTunes, have it
streamed on Spotify or Soundcloud and produce their own videos
for YouTube. But how far is this impacting on the dominance of the
big 4?
- In an era of fragmented platforms, file sharing, and non-traditional
routes to market, the music industry is facing various challenges. It
has had to react to change: new formats, new technology and new
business models mean an industry in a constant state of
transformation. This has been particularly obvious in the way that
audiences are dictating how they want to consume their music, but
having more ways you can listen to music is not necessarily the
same thing as having more choice.
- How audiences are purchasing and consuming music has changed
dramatically with the emergence of digital technology and the music
industry has struggled to keep up at times and this is especially
true when it comes to changing audience behaviours. One of the
most problematic issues that the industry is facing is the ‘culture of
free’. In recent years consumers are less willing to pay for their
music and as a consequence piracy and file-sharing have seen the
industry lose billions over the last decade.
- According to the Institute
for Policy Innovation global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of
economic losses every year. In order to combat this music streaming
services such as Spotify have worked in conjunction with the
industry to try offer audiences the opportunity to listen to music
but not actually download it, which means it is not being shared
YouTube has also placed ID content censorship on videos to stop
music being downloaded. However, these are only temporary
measures and the industry has had to find more ways to prevent
this.
- Palmer already had an establish fan base which she
appealed to fund the production and distribution of her album
through the crowdsourcing site Kickstarter. In return she also
pledged to break down the barriers between artist and audience by
doing impromptu performances such as having fans come up to her
balloon-covered body and pop one. This way she could make the
music she wanted and also develop a more intimate relationship
between fan and artist. This close relationship was further cemented
with the emergence of Twitter.
- What is clear is that in a trans-media age where changes are brought
about by the developments in technology at a rapid pace the interrelationship
between the artist and consumer is evolving beyond
the traditional models, but whether they will ever challenge the
monopolies is yet to be seen.
- Para-social relationships – Psychologists use the term
“parasocial relationship” to describe the connection people
get from celebrities and other famous people but which an
illusion is.
The Guardian- Digital Media
Adele
tickets partner Songkick raises new $10m funding round
The British company that helped to
prevent 18,000 touts from buying tickets for Adele’s 2016 tour has raised $10m
of funding to continue developing its technology.
Songkick raised its latest funding round from
Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, the investor that owns Warner Music Group
and has a significant stake in music streaming service Deezer.
The company has now raised more
than $42.6m since its launch in 2007 as a website enabling fans to track upcoming
concerts from their favourite musicians.
Songkick has since expanded into
ticketing, including working with artists to sell tickets direct to their fans,
rather than through established ticket retailers.
“In 2015, we have continued to
expand our artist ticketing business, with more than three times growth across
Europe. We are now ticketing one out of every three concerts in London and have
helped artists sell tickets across 48 countries in 2015,” wrote co-chief executives
Ian Hogarth and Matt Jones in a blogpost. (Globalisation)
“It’s very much about the technology, we have been quietly been
building and testing some new proprietary technology that we feel could be
impactful for artists and fans around the scale of ticket touting that goes
on,” Hogarth told the Guardian. “We have a very exciting product map there.”
Security
will be a priority too: Songkick came under fire after the first day
of Adele ticket sales, after a privacy scare in which some fans reported being
able to see other people’s personal details when trying to check out of the
online store.
Songkick apologised at the time.
“At no time was anyone able to access another person’s password, nor their
payment or credit card details (which are not retained by Songkick),” said the
company in a statement blaming “extreme load” for the problem.
Jones said that the bug was fixed
on that first day. “A couple of people blew it out of proportion,” he said. “We
sold another round of European sales, so we want to put that to bed.”
Friday 18 December
2015 12.20 GMT
Will Tidal be the next music straeing service to
drown?
Yet it was another music streaming
service that has been generating the most negative headlines over the past
year: Tidal.
The star power of its co-owners – Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Madonna and more – hasn’t
spared it from criticism and derision.
Throw in an awkwardly public row with the world’s biggest record
label – “They are trying
to pass blame for their own incompetence,” said a spokesperson for Universal
Music after Tidal blamed the label for problems with Rihanna’s album launch –
and you get a sense of Tidal’s talent for leaping between frying pan and fire.
Yet this is a streaming service
that managed to bag those exclusives on the two hottest albums of 2016 so far.
It also claims to have grown from 500,000 paying customers in March 2015, to one million by October, and now reportedly 2.5 million in February 2016 after a Kanye-fuelled surge – even if
it is unclear how many of those new subscribers are on a free trial.
Tidal also has a recently
appointed CEO, Jeff
Toig, who has a good reputation within the music industry from his
past launching Muve Music, a US mobile operator-owned music service that
reached two million subscribers at its peak.
Tidal isn’t a complete basket
case, in other words. Why has it been so regularly written off, then? There are
two reasons: the media narrative of Tidal as gaffe-prone and doomed; and real
questions about its long-term survival prospects in the brutally competitive
streaming market.
That media narrative is partly of
Tidal’s own making. Before being acquired by Jay-Z and his co-owners, Tidal
(under its original name, WiMP) was a well-regarded streaming service based in
Norway, and available mainly in Scandinavia.
WiMP was no pushover when it came
to features: it was the first streaming service to wrap magazine-style music
journalism and music videos around streaming audio. It was also one of the
first to add higher-quality “lossless” streams – something still lacking from
Spotify and Apple Music.
In global terms, WiMP was a niche
player but it was an interesting and inventive one. But then came its
acquisition by a company owned by Jay-Z, and aninfamous relaunch event in New York featuring its starry cast of new
co-owners.
Madonna stuck her leg up on the
table. Daft Punk and Deadmau5 were separated for fear of “helmet clash”. Calvin
Harris and Chris Martin grinned mutely on screens in the background; the
artists present signed a mysterious contract; and then everyone stood around
awkwardly at the end like wedding guests unwilling to be the first to storm the
buffet.
More seriously, nobody on the day
talked about why Tidal would work better for small artists who didn’t have
equity in the company, leaving it open to accusations of being just a
rich-stars-get-richer club.
The event set the tone for much of
the media coverage that followed: Tidal as a laughing stock, with its mistakes
covered much more widely than its successes.
That is not to say there haven’t
been mistakes. Rihanna’s ANTI appeared accidentally on Tidal before its official launch, and was
soon all over torrent sites, sparking the argument with Universal Music.
Exclusives on big albums such as
ANTI and The Life of Pablo were supposed to be one of Tidal’s biggest weapons
in its battle with bigger rivals, yet in quick succession these launches have
been co-opted into the narrative of Tidal troubles.
As fun as “Jay-Z has yet
another problem with
Tidal” intros are for journalists, the service’s past PR headaches aren’t the
reason why its future may be in doubt.
For all its co-owners’ personal
wealth, Tidal is a small fish in a sea of 900lb sharks. Talk to some of the
sharper minds in the music industry and they’ll fret about whether the biggest
independent streaming services – Spotify and Pandora – will survive long-term
competition with Apple, Google/YouTube and Amazon.
In 2014, Spotify grew from 36m users to 60m, including
15m paying subscribers. While its revenues that year were €1.08bn, its losses
were €162.3m, and while it has yet to publish its 2015 figures, they are likely
to show more heavy losses.
If Spotify’s secures the
up-to-$1bn funding round it is currently pitching, it will have taken $2bn of
investment to build a streaming service that reaches more than 100m people and
30m subscribers.
Pandora is a streaming-radio
service with the vast majority of its listeners in the US, but it has ambitions
to expand globally, with Spotify-style fully on-demand streaming.
Yet building its audience of 81.1m
listeners has taken more than $1bn of marketing spend since 2009; another $212m
of product development costs – with $120m more earmarked for its expansion
plans. Pandora’s net loss in 2015 was $169.7m, from
just under $300m total net losses since 2009.
Those are the medium fish in the
streaming pond, recording heavy losses but fuelling their growth with heavy
funding rounds – or to be more accurate from their latest rounds: debt – hoping
to compete with Apple, Google and Amazon’s financial might. Deezer has
ambitions to join them, having recently raised its own €100m funding round.
This is why, if Tidal isn’t around
in a year’s time – for example, if Samsung acquires it – it’s less likely to be about
misfiring press conferences or arguments with labels, and more about the
streaming-market dynamics.
Thursday 3 March
2016 13.30 GMT
No such
thing as bad PR: Is social media saving or damaging the music industry?
Rarely a day passes without
the words “online spat” or “Twitter tirade” passing the lips of any
entertainment reporter. The many terms to describe a litany of social-media
fallouts and fluff-ups have become a depressingly frequent part of the modern
journalistic vernacular: outrageous statements are made, passive-aggressive
missives are fired. In the case of Kanye
West, a drip-feed of every waking thought is bashed
out, and sometimes deleted, with worrying regularity. If you pulled out a tiny
violin for the entertainment reporter, however, perhaps upgrade your instrument
to something bigger, a cello perhaps, for the hard-grafting management and PR
teams, whose job it is to manage this very modern media storm. Or maybe not.
hammered with the talent and
more a reactive role in which “no comment” is dished out as frequently as
Stephen Fry deletes his Twitter account. The impact of social media has had a
profound effect on how the job is done; the way a news story is spread or a
song is shared is now defined by social media, with the tradition of securing
editorial coverage no longer being the end of the process but the beginning.
Now that many of the industry’s biggest stars decline interviews (Year of the Fanboy Profile: Writers Fawning
Over Subjects Because They Don’t Have a Choice is a must-read), their creative output and
their social media accounts are the only ways in which fans can learn about an
artist’s every move, every new tattoo orshade
of quiff. A week on the road with a
musician might not be something that the press have access to any more, but we
can see what they had for breakfast on Instagram.
It’s not always breakfast that’s
on the agenda, however, and when an artist has sole control over their own
social-media account, the outcome can be catastrophic. Just imagine the state
of John Lennon’s Snapchat during The Lost Weekend.
So can it do more harm than good?
“I think social media has to be
looked at by artists in two different ways: first, as a way they can reach
their fans directly, and second – just as important – as a means that a lot of
the media use to write stories,” says one PR, who wishes to remain anonymous.
“Ultimately, if an artist still does have an outburst, no strategy can really
be applied without their involvement.”
While the
backlash often peters out as quickly as it began, there are some instances in
which the outburst rightfully ends a career: DJ Ten Walls got
dropped by his label after publishing a shocking Facebook post that labelled
homosexuals as “another breed” and compared them to paedophiles. A number of
former reality TV singers – James Arthur and Steve Brookstein, for example – have also made
headlines after posting incredibly problematic opinions online. Sam Smith’slate-night, poorly phrased tweets regarding racist abuse saw the singer
receiving a barrage of criticism from those who considered his comments the
height of ignorance. Whether or not he will have to address these comments in
future interviews is yet to be seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if his social
media accounts, just like the rest of his career, follows in the path of
Adele’s.
I mean I’m not a
drinker any more, but when Twitter first came out I was, like, drunk tweeting,
and nearly put my foot in it quite a few times,” Adele told the BBC last year.
“So my management decided that you have to go through two people and then it
has to be signed off by someone, but they’re all my tweets. No one writes my
tweets. They just post them for me.”
Although artists
are increasingly stripped of their social-media passwords, explains one PR,
this kind of blocking doesn’t work for someone of West’s stature. “Artists hold
all the power. Labels don’t have the control they once did and plenty of
managers live in fear that when their artist gets successful, they won’t
hesitate to drop them when they go against their wishes. So you get a culture
of yes men, even when an artist’s behaviour veers from the erratic to downright
alarming.”
Cultivating an
audience on social media does, of course, have its benefits. Artists can
hotwire ideas and newly recorded material to fans who give real-time feedback,
and others can gradually expose a curated version of themselves that quashes
any tabloid rumours. It’s a simple way to introduce a new side of a star:
barely an hour goes past without Miley Cyrus posting an image of herself
adorned with a spliff; Rihanna, meanwhile, now routinely shows images of
herself smoking weed, when a few years ago she was attacked by the press when
she was papped rolling what appeared to be a joint on the shoulders
of a bodyguard. Being
high is just part of who she is now, and, as one PR tells me, “people like it
because it’s not this vision of perfect”.
While West has caused outrage with some
of his recent comments, many believe his outbursts are a provocative part of
the promotional process – PR, not for The Life of Pablo, but for his role as an
entrepreneur. In the age of the artist as a
celebrity brand, attention is everything. He has the world captive
with the release of his new album; why not voice some other concerns, thoughts,
controversial statements, while he is at it?
“In some situations I have seen
artists – not who I work with – do it on purpose for the publicity, which I
find entirely bizarre. But some people still believe in the old-school ‘all
publicity is good publicity’ saying,” says one PR.
“I think
for 99.9% of artists, it would be terrible PR and would damage perception and
make them a laughing stock and thus damage their career,” one PR explains.
“However, part of Kanye’s charm is that we consider him a bananas genius, so in
the long line of bananas things that Kanye has done, wouldn’t we just file this
under that?”
Whether or
not the relentless streams of consciousness from West are knowing outbursts or
a genuine concern for his team, the leaked audio of his Saturday Night Live breakdown – in which he calls Taylor Swift a
“fake ass” and compares himself to “Stanley Kubrick, Picasso, Apostle Paul,
fucking Picasso and Escobar” – seems like a kind of cruel bate. By feeding
publications with constant news lines, the press has grown hungry, and now
wants to add to the noise. Where will it end? It is a constant tugging of
control. Hopefully, in the case of Kanye West, the outrage and confusion he has
caused on Twitter in the past few weeks is all part of the plan. And if not, it
is at least being considered by the people who orbit around him, to keep him
present, keep him safe. After all, who else are we going to write about?
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/24/youtube-star-connor-franta-music-compilation
The basics
Your chosen industry: music
Your chosen case study (i.e. text/institution etc.): beyonce
Have you received approval for this case study from your teacher? Yes
Research and answer the following tasks on your MEST3 exam blog:
