MUSC1507: Sounds, Screens, Speakers: Music and Media

1. Making and Selling Music Through Media

You will write a 1000 word analysis of one of three 'early' forms of musical media (sheet music, sound recording, or radio) You will provide an analysis based on the Production-Distribution-Consumption model provided in class. Your goal is to explain how music was was produced in one medium in the late 19th and early 20th century in an economic system that incentivised entertainment companies to try to capture audience attention and engagement in a profitable and sustained way. Your analysis will be based on the readings from Weeks 1-4. These are listed in the Course Outline and available on Canvas.

2. Represent! Musical Fame in the 20th Century

Throughout this semester we will examine how musicians are represented in different forms of media. As we will see, this core concept, 'representation,' is crucial to any critical understanding of the meanings produced through our experience of music and musical celebrity in the media. You will write a 500 word analysis about how one musician or one band is represented in the media. You will be required to do research about both the artist or artists you have chosen to study and the broader concepts such as celebrity, representation, and understanding that inform the collective meanings produced by the mediation of musicians. The goal is to try to explain the ways in which this musician is made appealing to the public for the purposes of attracting and profiting from their audience.

3. Represent! Musical Fame in the 21st Century

The goals of this assessment is to explain how the economic exploitation of musical celebrity is different in the 21st century than it was in the 20th. You will write a 500 word analysis about how one musician or one band is represented in the media. You will be required to do research about both the artist or artists you have chosen to study and the broader concepts such as celebrity, representation, and understanding that inform the collective meanings produced by the mediation of musicians. The goal is to try to explain the ways in which this musician is made appealing to the public for the purposes of attracting and profiting from their audience.

4. Final Project Including Proposal and Source List

By Week 12, you will need to have decided on the topic for your Final Project. You need to submit one paragraph explaining what your topic is and include at least three sources you have consulted in making your decision. These two things are just the first step in writing your final essay. You will have several choices for your final project:

• Pay Attention! The core idea of this class is that the entertainment industry profits through their ability of manufacturing and harvesting an audience's ability to notice things and consume them. This means that any quality of any sort that might prove appealing is used to do this. This means that a musician's appearance, musical skills, expressive qualities, personal biography, personality, or any other attribute can be used to do this. The purpose of this assessment is to analyse some music-centred product of the entertainment industry and make a seet of claims for these ways in which profit is extracted from this product.
• New Toys, New Tools. As we have seen throughout the semester, when a new technology for making or experiencing music appears, many other things about music change as well. Choose a new tool for making or experiencing music and use a range of sources to analyse what effects this new tool might have on one how people make or experience music. Use the term ‘toy’ very widely. Think of it as something that facilitates a new way is listening to music. You can choose something like the iPod, the Walkman (ask your parents what that is), the iPhone, Spotify, Pro Tools, multi-track recording, the 45, the LP, or something similar. Examine how that new technology was sold. How were people supposed to think and feel about it? What benefits were people told it had? You will need to develop an interpretation of the kinds of ideas that were used to explain the new technology to the public.
• Connecting People To Music. This semester we have looked at how a wide range of different forms of media work (sheet music, sound recording, radio, film, television, social media). For this topic area, you will choose a medium and a time period and explain how the crucial social and economic relationships that link audiences to musicians in specific ways worked. How did the forces of production, distribution, and consumption are link people to music and to each other? You will trace the specific types of connections formed by specific forms of media in a lot of detail. The goal is to explain how these connection work and are made profitable.
• The Digital Age. The transition from analogue to digital technology has probably been the biggest change to happen to the music industry in the last fifty years. Analyse one aspect of this transition. Focus on the years 1995 to 2015. Examine one of the major types of social relationships we have examined in this class: between musicians and the music industry; between the music industry and consumers; between musicians and fans. Using clear examples, explain how these relationships have changed during the time period noted here.

5. Weekly Q&As and Class Participation

Every week, you will be required to answer a series of multiple choice questions about the lecture and the tutorial readings. You are also required to attend weekly lectures and tutorials. A ‘satisfactory’ record of attendance’ is an absolute pre-requisite for passing this unit of study. ‘Satisfactory’ requires you to attend a minimum of 10 lectures and 10 tutorials. Unless written evidence of illness or misadventure is supplied, students who attend less than this will lose marks.