Other Issues in Media and Society

In the past couple of days I came across those couple of blogs that investigate other issues in media and society and are worth looking into: 

Violence and Video Games

blog by Brian Connolly

http://brianconnollymedia.wordpress.com

This blog, focusing on finding a link between video games and violence, points out the key ideas concerning the issue. There indeed is a link between children playing video games and their engagement in violence. The fact that a child is exposed to gaming for many hours each day is an important factor in their reality perception, even though, they are able to distinguish between reality and the virtual world. On the other hand, video games do have their advantages such as mental improvement, education, exercise and others. The blog further explains the connection between gaming and real-life violence and provides a much deeper understanding of the topic, while considering many different points of view. 

Reality TV, Really? 

by Nick Downing

http://xdowningn.wordpress.com

Nick's blog with a main concern in TV and its distortion of how reality is perceived, focuses on women's body shape and the definition of perfect and also on gender roles and stereotypes assigned by TV. Television (certain shows or broadcasted events) can have a drastic impact on how people perceive women, forcing them to stick to a certain body type in order to look perfect and therefore meet the social standards. Regarding gender roles, Nick points out that for example advertising is showing boys play with cars and girls with dolls, which can be easily perceived as role modeling for children. The blog is clearly explaining a very complicated media issue and makes it more understandable. 

The effects of sexism in the computer entertainment industry

by Michael Hašek

http://mikehasunyp.wordpress.com

Michael's blog covers a very interesting topic of women's involvement in mostly gaming industry and how they are discriminated against. The blog covers both female developers and game characters and looks into the problem of female characters being portrayed as helpless or as sex objects. The issue has not been talked about much, that is however changing, as there are many more people concerned about the issue. Recently, there has also been an increase in the number of female characters in video games, which suggest a step forward. In his blog, Michael is looking into a rather interesting problem that has only recently started to be taken seriously and explains why it should be seen as such. 

Are You Sure That You Eat What You Want? 

by Natalia Khozyainova

http://negativeinfluenceofmediaonfood.blogspot.cz

This blog investigates the impacts of media on what we eat. Natalia focuses on how certain types of advertising, such as the "sex sells" type, influence and manipulate what we want to eat. It also focuses on media's effects on eating disorders, such as anorexia. On the other end of the spectrum, she looks at obesity as a medical condition and that a possible cause is fast food advertising. Another interesting area Natalia mentions, is children being confused by fast food commercials, as they can be promoting their food as healthy which is not the case. The blog foreshadows an interesting topic, which in reality is much broader, but provides a good starting point for further research. 

How I See It

From my point of view it is hard to decide on a certain standpoint in the issue of music piracy and online piracy in general. There are strong arguments for both sides but it is difficult to identify with one of them, as the statistics, surveys, estimations etc. may easily be manipulated to favor the side presenting them.

I do agree that one hand music pirating is viewed as stealing and misusing intellectual property of everybody involved in the creative process. Pirating music may even in some cases cause the artist to stop making music for insufficient financial resources (Miller 2012). There is also the potential to destroy the music industry for future, as there again might not be sufficient finance to support new and unknown artists. On the other hand, online music sharing, whether it is called “sharing” or “pirating” does not really matter, provides music producers with free, worldwide and self-maintaining advertising. Such advertising then leads to demand of touring, concerting and also merchandise, which naturally leads to increase of popularity of the artist as well as increase in sales.

The proponents of music piracy also manage to present a range of argument supporting their standpoint. One of those being the fact that music has always been passed around and made copies of, for example making audiocassette copies in the 70s, 80s and 90s, an that online “sharing” is just another more widespread way to do so (Miller 2012). Another reason for music sharing is increasing the popularity of new and unknown artists, even though the survey carried out by Bhattacharjee, Gopal and Sanders suggest that it is not the case (2003). The fact that many new artists do share their music online for free suggests that they are actually in favor of music sharing, seeing it again as advertising of their music itself. One of the recent arguments proposed by Thom Yorke (Radiohead) is the fact that music played on the radio is low quality music and is rather repetitive: “I think a lot of the time the reason people pirate, is they want access to good music. And they don't get it because the radio is so shit.” (2009).

Taking all the arguments into consideration, I am inclining more to the proponents’ point of view while still understanding the financial and legal issues of the situation. I consider music to be art and I think that art exists to be enjoyed and appreciated. I believe that music should be made in order to self-express and to evoke certain feelings in people. The artist should be looking forward to seeing a sold out stadium and putting on a show instead of looking forward to receiving a check afterwards.

We may worry about the future of music industry but without sharing and spreading music there would be none in the first place. And if the cost of having an access to quality music and having a free choice in music I want to listen to, is lowering the income of music production companies through music pirating then I am in favor of music piracy.

Bhattacharjee, Sudip, Ram D. Gopal, and Lawrence Sanders. "Digital Music and Online Sharing: Software Piracy 2.0?" Communications Of The ACM 46.7 (n.d.): 107-11. Web. 03 May 2014.

Miller, Michael. "Downloading Pirated Music: Pros and Cons." Que: Computing & Technology Books, Video, Articles for Home & Business. N.p., 19 Sept. 2012. Web. 02 May 2014.

Terr. "Musicians Speak Out On Music Piracy." UpVenue. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2014.

For Further Research

RIAA Website

The official Recording Industry Association of America’s website offers an explanation of what music piracy is and describes it as “real, ongoing and evolving challenge” (2014). The website also explains who is hurt by music piracy, what its scope is and how are they fighting it.

http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=What-is-Online-Piracy

Digital Music Consumption on the Internet by Luis Aguiar and Bertin Martens

A report by Luis Aguiar and Bertin Martens focuses on how is music consumed online and the effects on the music industry. It also studies the relationship between legal and illegal music purchases and their evolution.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/131005609/JRC79605

UpVenue Artists’ Opinions Compilation

The UpVenue website offers a compilation of a number of artists from a variety of different music genres and their opinions on music piracy. Mostly, the opinions are in favor of music piracy, as the artists view it as a tool for spreading quality music, free advertising and advertising of music as a form of art.

http://www.upvenue.com/article/1590-musician-stances-on-music-piracy.html

What the Experts Say II - Digital Music And Online Sharing: Software Piracy 2.0?

This article published in Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) by  Sudip Bhattacharjee, Ram D. Gopal, G. Lawrence Sanders, takes a look at some of the similarities between music and software piracy. It focuses mainly on the demographic groups involved in music pirating and their reasons for music pirating. One of the topics discussed in the article is the effects of price of music and Internet speed on music pirating; it concludes that increase in either leads to increase in music pirating. The most commonly used argument of proponents (those in favor of music pirating) is them “sampling” the music they download for later purchase in case they enjoy it. This argument, according to the article, is false, as those who took part in the survey, carried out by the authors, hardly ever search for “unknown” music and download music they already know from other sources instead. It also touches the issue of the music industry future, in case music pirating keeps growing at the same rate as it has been so far.

The link: 

http://utopia.csis.pace.edu/dps/2007/jkile/DCS891A/2004-10-08%20Assignment/Digital%20Music%20and%20Online%20Sharing%20-%20Software%20Piracy%202.0.pdf