Doing Media Research on the Music Industry
JOUR 4871
Spring 2004
Tues, Thurs 12:30 - 1:45
Museum Collections Building E 155
What's new on the class web page?
5/1/04 Due to snow (snow? On May 1?!), we will be meeting in our regular place for our final session: MCOL 155. Remember, be there at 10:30 so as to get the full credit for the paper. I'll bring the coffee and bagels.
4/26/04 Notes on the paper, including citations, are added here . I also updated the schedule for the last time. Final quiz will be this Thursday! Final paper due Saturday, 10:30 AM, Eben G. Fine park!
4/7/04 Today I finalized the last few weeks of our schedule. There are some awesome guest speakers and some reading review scheduling changes involved, so please check it. If you prefer a printed syllabus, please print out the last page. Also, as a reminder, I have posted a more detailed description of the final paper.
If you'd like to see Shamako Noble and Donal Scannell again, or meet others in music and media, it couldn't be more convenient this week. Be sure to check the Conference on World Affairs web site!
3/17/04 On Thursday we will welcome a SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: Dr. Michael Curtin, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, who is author of Media Capital: The Cultural Geography of Global TV, The American Television Industry(with Jane Shattuc), and the forthcoming Playing to the World's Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV. He will talk with us about music and globalization. There may be other faculty members from the School who attend our class to hear him speak. I look forward to having him with us!
I've posted yesterday's discussion about the Data Analysis paper due on Thursday. Please note that you must come to class and be on time to receive the full credit. I've also posted a few more transcripts.
3/11/04 More TRANSCRIPTS!. Also, Paper topics are now listed; please check to see who else is doing a paper similar to yours, and for whom your transcripts might be useful (you can send this info to the class list serve). I modified a few paper topics so they'd fit the assignment and data, but let me know if you see a problem. If you didn't get an email from Ben about the class list serve, please send an email to him at bassist@hyperfiction.net. If you don't see your transcript up and would like credit for it, please email me ASAP.
3/10/04: Here are the TRANSCRIPTS. I have more to upload. Please email me your interview w/changed names if you haven't already.
3/3/04 DON'T FORGET! Quiz on Thursday on Tuesday's copyright readings and presentations! Also: here are my notes on Data Analysis for your paper, which is DUE MARCH 18. All Transcripts are DUE March 11.
2/23/04 New contacts for phone interviews w/major players in NYC are now on the interviewees page. Now there are more transcripts available online. If yours isn't there and you've finished it, please email it to me as soon as possible. The class schedule has been updated; readings are changed for this coming Thursday (to be handed out in class Tuesday). Also, check the announcements about a new award for student journalists. I updated the annotated bibliography (the Readings Reviews) too.
2/20/04 The transcripts presented in yesterday's class are now up. If yours isn't there, please send me a version w/names and places changed. Thanks! you will also be receiving info via email about the class discussion list.
2/19/04 The correct guide to writing up transcripts. Also, please subscribe to the NEW class discussion list. Click the link to get directions.
2/11/04 Check out the links at assignments, where you'll find the transcript style guide, a phone script, and an updated interview guide. Also, there are new links on the resources page, including links to Who Owns What, up-to-date news reports on downloading, and relevant web sites
2/4/04 Class Announcements
Asst. Research Prof: Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark
Office: Armory 102B
Office Hours: T 2:00-3:00; Thurs 11:30-12:15. Other times available
by appt.
Office Phone: 303-735-5632
E-mail: Lynn.Clark@Colorado.edu
TA s:
Jeremy.Caplan@Colorado.edu,
Andrew.Matranga@Colorado.edu, Libby.Niemi@Colorado.edu
Music plays an important role in our everyday lives. It can change our moods, bring back memories, reinforce positive associations, and bond us with like-minded friends. It can also cement our commitment to causes and people, give voice to political dissent or personal sentiment, and become a rallying cry for outrage and alienation. In addition to our CDs, MP3s, and radios, we encounter music in the shopping mall, on film and television soundtracks, in advertisements, at political gatherings, on the web: in essence; everywhere that it is profitable or desirable for someone to establish a mood or influence an outlook.
In recent years, the music industry has undergone a significant transformation with the availability of peer-to-peer file sharing and music downloading from the Internet. Now that the Recording Industry Association of America is issuing warrants for the arrests of persons engaged in egregious downloading and file sharing, people have begun to pay renewed attention to practices of music downloading and its impact on the music industry, audiences, and the musicians themselves. Part of the goal of the course is to examine the implications of these current challenges to the music and media industries. Each student will therefore participate in a collaborative, interview-based research project that will involve meeting and interviewing professionals in the music industry in the Boulder/Denver area and/or young people (high school and junior high school age) who are a primary audience for popular music. These research projects have been submitted for approval from the Human Subjects Research Committee in the Office for Research Integrity at the University of Colorado.
This focus on how (or whether) practices of downloading have impacted the professional lives of persons in the music industries and the leisure activities of young persons targeted by those industries will enable the class to explore several more general questions over the course of the semester. We will consider the tensions between the role of music in public and private expression, the relationship of music production to the need for profit in the music and related entertainment industries, and alternative outlets to the music industry that are inadvertently shaping the directions in which media industries must go. Undergraduates (and MA students, through special arrangement) will address the research question of the class through readings that engage in political/economic, historical, legal/policy, effects, critical/cultural studies, and critical (feminist, racial/ethnic, and gay/lesbian) perspectives.
Music is a medium of mass communication. Future mass communication professionals therefore need to examine this often taken-for-granted yet influential form that threads its way through various aspects of public communication.