Obj: examine the impact of new music technology and big retail on the independent record store
Music Technology
•What does ‘file sharing’ mean?
•Which online programs are available to us for file sharing?
•Which of these offer free file sharing and which of these online services have to be paid for?
•What are the main advantages of music downloads?
•What are the disadvantages?
Case Study 3.9: Selectadisc
Read through the case study and answer the following (OCR Media Studies pp163):
1)What has contributed to the ‘destabilising trend’ experienced by independent record stores?
2)How has the demographic of Indie music stores changed? What explanations can be offered for this trend?
3)What effects have music chain stores and the supermarkets had on independent record stores?
4)How have record companies attempted to counter these problems? What are the problems with this approach?
5)What is the overall impact of new music technology and cut price retail prices offered by the large chains / supermarkets on independent record shops?
Glossary
•Advanced media literacy – the interpretation and production of media. Critical viewing and critical analysis of media.
•Media institutions – the people, companies and organisations who make, distribute or regulate media
•Media audiences – people making use of media in various ways
•Media language – written, verbal, non-verbal, aural and aesthetic communication and usually a combination of these (see pp 3 of handout for examples)
•Form – the shape and structure of a media text e.g.soap opera
•Style – the way the text (e.g. Eastenders) uses this form
•Convention – the ingredients of a particular form or genre e.g. the crime film genre would feature a significant crime / murder etc. to centre the narrative upon
•Semiotics – the study of signs (everything we see is a ‘sign’ and carries meaning) e.g. your pen is a sign that is used to create written / drawn communication. This basic meaning of the pen / sign is known as a signifier
•Signifiers – the meaning of the signs can have several different meanings to different people e.g. a Man Utd top will have different meanings to the wearer compared to perhaps a Chelsea fan! This means that meaning is polysemic (signifiers being given different meanings by different people)
•Representation – the ways in which people, ideas, places, themes, time periods etc. are shown or constructed through media texts
•Micro and Macro – micro elements of a text are the technical of symbolic features which you need to identify, recognise and describe the function of e.g. the lighting in a TV Drama is a micro that contributes a range of meanings whilst the editing is another example of a micro. The macro then is the combination of micros that contribute to create the whole text and therefore help us make sense of the text or the ‘representational world’.
•Verisimilitude – the macro sum of the micro parts
