This Music is not "Free"

The illegal downloading of music has been a topic of issue and concern in America for over a decade now. The music industries say that they are losing money because of how easy it is to download and share music through the Internet. The people who download the music for free argue that it’s not a problem because the people in the music industry have a lot of money already and that censoring the web for something like sharing music violates their Internet rights.

The categorical imperative asks people to consider what would be the result of everyone acting the same way they themselves wish to act. Applying this to the problem of illegally downloading music: If everyone downloaded music illegally, the artists and record labels would not be able to make money. This puts music as a whole in jeopardy because artists will not be getting paid by music companies to put out their music. In the long run, the consumer is hurt because the illegal downloading of music could lead to less and less of the music you like in the future.

If the Internet was a mall, iTunes, Amazon, and Rhapsody would all be places inside the mall where you can buy your music. Some people still buy their music, but some are essentially stealing it from stores in this “mall.” One person buys the song from one of these stores and distributes it across the Internet to thousands of people, but the store is only making money off of that one copy that was purchased. Unethical right? That’s like somebody walking in to Best Buy and buying one copy of the hottest album out and taking fifteen more copies along with them to give to their friends. It’s stealing in every sense of the word.

Will illegal downloading and sharing of music ever stop? Probably not anytime soon. The government is more concerned about other, bigger issues. Record lables and online stores like iTunes have not found an answer for the illegal downloading of music. As long as the Internet is fairly unrestricted, people will be sharing media through torrents, blogs, websites, and even through email. It’s just too convenient.

Blog Post 4

Saturday March 24, 2012: I awake at 7:45 am to prepare for my day. I turned on the television and started watching the morning edition of Sportcenter. Besides the commercials that consisted of new car ads, local car dealership ads, Scott’s turf builder ads, and various other ads intended for men, different companies sponsored a lot of the segments within the show. Home Depot, Kia, and E-Trade were a few that I remember off of the top of my head that actually sponsored segments of the show. It’s such an interesting way to get your business’ name out there. Many people change the channel during commercial breaks so by sponsoring a segment in a popular show or broadcast it will reach people who are actually paying attention to the show.

I arrive at work at 2:00 pm. I work at a shopping outlet center. As I am walking around attending to customers, I hear being broadcasted over the loudspeaker for specific stores in the outlet center. Music is normally playing on the loudspeaker, but it stops abruptly every 15 minutes or so to announce one of these ads. Stores take advantage of this method and submit an ad that includes deals and upcoming sales for the announcing voice to read over the loudspeaker. Since customers are already at the outlet center, this form of advertising is a great way to get more customers. Stores must pay the outlet center a fee to have their ad broadcasted across the center.

At 9:30 pm, my mother and I decide to go see “The Hunger Games” at the movie theatre around us. Upon entering the theatre, I noticed posters for movies that are either in theatre’s now, or going to be in theatres soon. Advertising on the outside. Once we entered the theatre, I notice the same thing only intensified. Life-sized cutouts of actors and more posters to advertise movies are waiting for us in the lobby of the theatre. We take our seats and the previews play one after the other. Again, there is some advertising. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any product placement or something of that sort in the movie. After the movie I was able to go home and fall asleep, ending my 24-hour advertising scavenger hunt.

Blog Post 3

The magazine that I went out and purchased was the March 2012 edition of Vogue. I have never picked up a Vogue magazine before, but I was drawn to it because it was a huge magazine and seemed like a great value at $4.99. This particular cover of Vogue has Adele featured on it, which draws me to the magazine because I usually read music magazine’s such as Rolling Stone. Looking at the headlines on the cover page, I find that the majority of them are probably aimed at women based on the content that they are advertising.

This particular edition of Vogue is so massive because they have “606 pages of spring looks.” These pages advertise clothing and different looks by many designers and include a lot more female models than male models. I did not notice any ads with only guys. Every ad that had a guy in it had at least one woman in it as well. As a guy, who happens to enjoy Adele, reading the cover article was really all that interested me. Looking at the clothing, smelling the perfume, it’s nice but that’s not what I buy a magazine for.

Looking at Vogue’s Media Kit, located on their website, their total circulation is well over 1 million readers with their total audience being about 11 million. The median age for Vogue readers is 37.4, which surprises me a little bit. I was expecting something in the lower thirties, mainly because a lot of the fashion and content seemed like it was aimed at a younger generation. Vogue has been around for over 100 years, so it is understandable that it would have older readers, but the content inside the magazine looks like it is aimed at a younger generation.

Only 11% of Vogue’s readers are male. They are obviously targeting women and more specifically women who are into fashion. It is a good strategy to put pop stars such as Adele on the cover of your magazine because you can reach a whole other world. Adele fans will buy the magazine for Adele and the advertisers in your magazine will get their products out to a wider audience.

Mass Media Blog Post 2

A fire broke out on Wednesday, February 15 at a prison in Comayagua, Honduras. It is reported that at least 272 people have died in the fire and the number continues to rise. According to authorities, the fire started shortly after midnight. The prison, which was built to hold about 400 prisoners, but at the time of the fire there were over 900 inmates contained in the prison.

CNN’s video coverage of the fire on their website is two minutes and nineteen seconds long. The coverage of this event seems unbiased for the most part. Something that caught my attention at the end was when the anchor asked the correspondent if any of the prisoners escaped. Although it was a short segment, I thought it was a little harsh to include that question. There could have been more of an emphasis put on the damage or details of the fire than whether prisoners had escaped. I also felt like that question didn’t belong in the CNN coverage. After watching both the CNN and Al Jazeera coverage, I would have expected that more from Al Jazeera.

The video coverage from Al Jazeera is more of a recording than a live, on-air, video clip. There is a voice over accompanied with footage from the fire. Although the Al Jazeera clip lasts for only one minute and twenty-seven seconds, I feel that this is a more affective story of the fire. It seems as though Al Jazeera shares everything that they have collected as far as information goes, not worried about how their audience might take it. The say that the cause of the fire could have been from “rowdy prisoners or an electrical short circuit.” They also mentioned that there have been reports of rioting before and/or during the fire, but the prison staff has not confirmed that bit of information. Starting off the video with a quote sets the tone for the rest of the video, and including facts such as Honduras having the highest murder rate in the world, give the reader more of a background of the topic.

I have found that CNN’s coverage of this particular event is more conservative than Al Jazeera’s. CNN just scratches the surface and gives the viewer the rundown of what happened, but Al Jazeera’s coverage is more in your face and provokes the viewers thoughts and maybe skews their beliefs about the topic. Al Jazeera leaves the topic open for speculation.

Mass Media Blog Post 1

My favorite show is “The Office” without a doubt. The title of the show describes its main setting, but it is not your ordinary workplace. The main cast is made up of a sales department, an accounting department, a human resource department and a head manager of a paper supply company called Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. The show is part of a Thursday night lineup on NBC supported by other successful and similar shows such as 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation.

The realness of an office setting is there. There are phones ringing, there is a break room and water cooler talk. Everything that you would picture to be in an office is in the show. So what makes this show different from offices in real life? The work ethic displayed by the employees at Dunder-Mifflin is lacking and would not be acceptable in a real-life workplace. The show displays a perfect job where you can under-achieve, waste company time, and put your co-workers stapler in Jell-O. The most unrealistic thing is that the head manager of the Scranton branch is the most off-task person in the Office.

All of these things mentioned are what make the show interesting and funny to people. I think we are attracted to things that we can’t have. Why do you think Keeping up with the Kardashians is such a hit? People want that lifestyle. I always said to my friends that if I ever work in an office setting, I want it to be just like the show.

Overall, it is a very friendly and warm workplace environment. Sure some workplaces are like that, usually upbeat and alive. That would be an ideal situation for somebody that works in an office setting. That is one thing you can take away from the show and actually hope to have in your job. However, it is really easy for us to allow video representations to take over our view of something, especially if that is all of the information we are getting. If I get a job in an office and I have never worked in one before, “The Office” is the closest thing I can relate it to.