Film industry: Piracy

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/may/04/avengers-theaters-midnight-mania-piracy

"In 2009, X-Men Origins: Wolverine leaked to torrent sites a full month before the film's release, with one source estimating hundreds of thousands of downloads within the first 24 hours of its availability."

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/17/digital-piracy-film-online-counterfeit-dvds

"Almost 30% of Britons are now watching movies illegally online or buying counterfeit DVDs, costing the industry £500m a year "

"This, says Batey, can be particularly detrimental to the independent film-maker who may have spent years raising money for the film and may have had to remortgage their house."

"Phil Clapp, chief executive of trade organisation the Cinema Exhibitors' Association, says that cinemas are losing about £220m a year at the UK box office due to piracy, representing about two months' income in an average year."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/10/hollywood-director-piracy-is-necessary-and-doesnt-hurt-revenues

“You know what statistics are bullshit? The ones stated by the MPAA about lossesdue to piracy,” she said emphatically. “Piracy has NOT been proven to hurt box-office numbers - on the contrary, several studies say it may have boosted the bottom line.” Hollywood Lexi Alexander

http://www.raindance.org/piracy-a-help-or-a-hindrance-for-indie-filmmakers-2/

When you choose not to pirate an indie film, you are contributing towards its worth. In turn, you are giving it value and demand. This will generate exposure which will equal profit which will equal more interesting films. Let's support the independent film industry, not participate in its many obstacles to success.

Deadpool fandom and Jenkins

1. Clip from the deviant art page http://deadpoolfans.deviantart.com/ 
2. Founded 6 years ago and features an introduction clearly illustrates a hierarchy (there is someone in control) and so shows collective thinking (sets or rules) and cultural convergence (have their own culture) 
3. Has 3,725 members- shows web 2.0 has made fandom more accessible. This is an example of a knowledge community
4. The fan-art produced by these fans is an example of trans-media and cultural production 

Netflix distribution

Netflix: Distribution

Agreement with DreamWorks Entertainment for exclusive rights to broadcast its films, as of 2013. January 2016 Netflix has expanded its multi-year distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation, scooping up global rights, outside China, to several new DWA original series.
On January 14, 2013, Netflix signed an agreement with Time Warner subsidiaries Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros.
Universal, Paramount and Lionsgate have all ended their former deals with the company.

Theorists revision

Kickstarter

Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland

-          What was it? The film idea came about after the TV show (Blue Mountain State) was cancelled in 2012 after just three series. One of the creators, Eric Falconer, felt the story wasn’t complete and so decided to make a film to continue the story.

-          2016 American comedy film

-          23,999 backers

-          Pledge total $1,911,827 to help bring this project to life.

-          $1,500,000 goal

-          Offered a range of rewards:

o   Pledge $10 or more- PDF OF THE SHOOTING SCRIPT PLUS A THANK YOU TWEET AND FOLLOW FROM THE OFFICIAL 'BMS: THE MOVIE' TWITTER ACCOUNT.

o   Pledge $10,000 - A SPEAKING ROLE IN THE MOVIE. You will speak at least one line in the movie.
As an added bonus, you will receive two tickets to the premiere of your choice plus access to the exclusive after party with the cast and creators. You'll also receive a signed BMS Jersey, a "Special Thanks", an autographed poster, a personalized Vine, a T-shirt, a digital download of the movie, Mascot's doorknob sign, a PDF of the script, a tweet/follow from the official BMS: The Movie twitter.

-          Distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment Corporation

o   As of November 2013, it is the most commercially successful mini major film and television distribution company in North America and the seventh most profitable movie studio.

o   Lionsgate distributed The Hunger Games and The Insurgent film franchises

-          Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland was released on Netflix on March 1, 2016.

Does social media have the power to change the world?

The Long Tail and Streaming

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/david-bowie-s-predictions-about-the-future-of-the-music-industry-were-right-a6813321.html

"But streaming doesn’t seem to be delivering much of a financial return to small artists. That is hardly surprising given that Spotify’s average “per stream” royalty payout is between $0.006 and $0.0084. You would need to have had a lot of songs streamed before you could even cover the costs of a recording session. "

The future

The film industry:
- http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/worlds-first-virtual-reality-theater-amsterdam
 World's first virtual reality theater opened in Amsterdam, viewers sit in a room on swivelling seats and are given Samsung Gear VR to watch the movie.
- 360 degree movies allows you to watch a cinema size screen in your own home--> dip in cinema going and box office?

The music industry:
- http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/streaming-music-industry-apple-google
- Less physical copies of music... "Digital revenues overtook sales of physical items such as CDs for the first time in 2014"

Social Networking:
- Instagram is hoping to introduce live video streaming to increase interactivity and compete with Periscope
- http://www.parentherald.com/articles/29790/20160318/future-social-networks-linked-virtual-reality.htm (acquisition of Oculus by Facebook for $2billion suggests future could be in virtual reality

History of social media

Deadpool (extra info)

- Marvel franchise
- Reboot of the character (appeared in X men)
- Not like stereotypical superheroes --> unique/unconventional but also poses a risk to distributor
- Partly due to the 'risk' that budget was only $58million (blockbuster = $150million)
- Distributed by 20th Century Fox
- Rated a 15 in UK and R in America (17+), so not family friendly 
- the biggest opening ever for an R-rated movie with $130million in opening weekend
- Opened at the cinemas on 12th Feb 2016 in America (valentine's)
- In total has made: $620million at the box-office

Deadpool marketing

http://www.wired.com/2016/02/deadpool-marketing/

The official Deadpool Instagram page

- 659 thousand followers

-115 posts

- Stills from the movie

- Promotionals for the film

- reposts from Ryan Reynolds

-Re-post fanart 

 Benefit to audience: 

re-posting of fanart from fans makes the fans feel more involved in the film and special because they feel like they are valued and being recognised.

Benefit to institution: 

People like and share posts from the official instagram on their own personal accounts which means more people hear about the film and hence are more likely to watch it.  

Theory:

In some ways this example supports Mihailidids because it shows people are using media literacy in order to interact with the film, by liking, re-posting and commenting on posts. In other ways Mihailidis' theory isn't supported because fans are interacting with the film for pleasure and because they like it, not for any citizenship reasons or to better their community.

Viral Marketing Campaign- 12 days of Deadpool

- Another marketing strategy that was used by the film was viral marketing

- In the countdown to Christmas a website was released which would be updated each day and culminating in a new trailer for the film on Christmas day. 

- Examples included: 

a page from the script annotated by the character himself

 

- The release of Deadpool emojis (so many people rushed to download them, the servers broke!)

- The final trailer on 25th December (which has 1.3 million views):

Benefit to audience:The idea of exclusive content, e.g. the script page, makes the film seem more personal because they are getting 'more' from it. The Deadpool emojis create a way for fans to express their love of the film.

Benefit to institution: the creation of a count-down to the main trailer creates more buzz and hype around the film, meaning there are more likes and shares on social media, meaning more publicity and hopefully box office.

Theory:
This goes against Gauntlett's ideas of more people making things, as the fans are instead watching and reacting to professionally made content, not making it themselves. It also goes against Keen's cult of the amateur.

Twitter https://mobile.twitter.com/deadpoolmovie?p=s
- 400 thousand followers
-Posts as of they were the character, making the film 'come to life' also causing a bit of a stir and causing controversy because some of the posts are quite rude (hilarious). This would cause hype and get people talking about the movie--> the shock factor

- Interact with fans of the film, again making them feel more a part of the film and special.  

Henry Jenkins and fandom

Jenkins' key ideas:

Fans/fandom- group of people showing their love for a particular thing,e.g. a film. Fandom = community (more active)
Knowledge communities- places where fans can meet online and share their knowledge of their subject also brings into play the idea of cultural capital to understand the 'knowledge', e.g. forums, fan-sites.
Collective thinking- the sets of rules; what can and can't be said on fan-sites, how they often have a hierarchy but are still self-governed.
Transmedia- different forms of the film produced by fans, e.g. fanfiction, parodies, fanart
Social and cultural convergence- when fans come together socially and form their own culture. Web 2.0 has facilitated this and made it happen on a large scale.
Cultural production-When fans make fan-made products to share online, i.e. the end product.

Film industry- fandom

Past student work on Wesch

You tube wesch and vloggers from lou80

Promotion using social networking (Sasha)

Taylor swift promotion on social networking from smiley2014

Piracy in the music industry

Created with Padlet

The impact of YouTube on the music industry

Charlie Puth

•  In 2009 Puth set up his own YouTube channel. Here he used YouTube as a platform to initially record comedy videos and parodies, but then later to showcase more serious covers. 
• "That’s when I was making funny music and I thought it would be pretty funny to make comedy videos, which is the reason why I have a huge chunk of my fan base” (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/07/charlie-puth-on-his-geeky-youtube-beginnings-and-chart-topping-paul-walker-tribute-anthem.html)
• In 2010 he released his first music video for the song "These Are My Sexy Shades" and later that year his first independent album "The otto-tunes"
• In 2011, Puth won an online video competition with his joint cover of Adele's "Someone Like You" which he performed with Emily Luther
•  After seeing the video on YouTube Ellen Degeneres announced that the pair had been signed to her record label eleveneleven in 2011
• In 2012 Puth left eleveneleven
• He then continued to produce his own videos including original songs as well as covers on YouTube and continued to grow his fan-base. In October 2013 he released his second independent album "Ego"
• He also produced and wrote songs for several YouTube stars during this time. 
• In early 2015 Puth signed with Atlantic and his previous songs were removed from iTunes and YouTube
• “I still want to maintain the fans that have been with me since the beginning, but at the same time I don’t want to confuse the new fans I’m getting that I see popping up on my Instagram and everything,” he explained. “I don’t want to turn them off by them seeing stuff that I did five years ago.
• Feb 2015 released his debut single Marvin Gaye ft. Meghan Trainor , topping the charts in  New Zealand, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It reached 21 in the US. 
• In March of the same year Puth featured in Wiz Khalifa's song "See you again" which he wrote the lyrics too. 
• The song, released for the film Fast and Furious Seven, topped the US billboard charts for 12 weeks. The track is the most streamed track on Spotify in the US during one day, as well as being the most streamed track world-wide during a week. 
• The hit was nominated for three Grammys and the first Hip-hop video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube and is currently the second most watched video of all time (1.5 billion)

• 478 thousand followers on twitter and 2 million subscribers on his official YouTube

Major record label- Universal (Sasha and Matt)

Major Record Labels- Sony

iTunes and the long tail

• iTunes was the first digital distributor of songs to have sold over 25billion tracks. 
• Anderson “With no shelf space to pay for and, in the case of purely digital services like iTunes, no manufacturing costs and hardly any distribution fees, a miss sold is just another sale, with the same margins as a hit. A hit and a miss are on equal economic footing, both just entries in a database called up on demand, both equally worthy of being carried.”
• To dispute Anderson's theory- ' The top 1 per cent of artists – the likes of Rihanna and Adele accounted for a whopping 77 per cent of recorded music income in 2013, according to research by Mark Mulligan of Midia Consulting' (http://blogs.ft.com/tech-blog/2014/03/why-the-music-industrys-fat-head-is-eating-its-long-tail/) 

Past student long tail summary

The long tail from Media Studies

Music in the past (pre-internet)

Civic engagement in the online age- meningitis b

Meningitis b vaccine from smiley2014

Civic engagement in the online age- Viola Beach

civic engagement from katiess07

Paul mihailidis and Citizenship

Paul Mihailidis' central ideas...

1. Young people are empowered by digital media technology because they are media savvy and so know how to use it. He also argues digital media gives them a voice within their community, facilitating them to be better citizens. 
2. Emerging citizens use these digital media tools in a positive way and enabling good citizenship
3. Media literacy is important because you need to understand and be able to use the tools in order to be an emerging citizen. 

Keywords...

Citizenship: certain qualities individuals are expected to have as a responsible member of a community. 

Civic Engagement: interacting with your community and being informed about it. This was originally reading newspapers, attending meetings, but since the internet it now also includes online petitions and sharing content via social media. 

Emerging Citizen: gradually becoming a part of the community.

Media Literate: being able to understand, read, create and interact with the media. 

Key quotes...

digital media has provided "new opportunities for connectivity"

"digital tools and social media platforms has stimulated a rich and active debate" 

"citizens now have the digital tools to become active and engaged story tellers"

"digitally savvy young citizens are capitalisin in social tools to engage with public bodies"

How do I consume music on the internet?

• The main way I consume music would be through YouTube. While doing work I will listen to specific songs by searching the title or artist. Sometimes I will also use the playlist function on YouTube to just listen to a number of songs without having to search.
• Another way I consume music is through online YouTube converters. This allows you to paste the url of any music video/lyric video on YouTube and then converts it to an MP3 file, which can then be downloaded onto your computer. 
• Sometimes I will use http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles in order to keep up-to-date with current songs in the charts. And then I search them on YouTube to listen to the full songs. 
• Another way I is if I hear a song somewhere but can't remember the name or artist then I will search the lyrics using Google to try and find the song. 

Mike Wesch- summary (other student's)

You tube wesch and vloggers from lou80

Opposition to Wesch

Andrew Keen suggests the rise of web 2.0 threatens the traditional media because less people will care about professionals with expertise and will instead turn to amateurs.

An example to illustrate Keen's point is the British vlogger star Zoella.

• Currently has over 10 million subscribers
•  She primarily vlogs about hair and beauty, including tutorials, hauls and advice. As well as other videos, such as challenges and DIYs. 
• However, she does not have any qualifications in beauty and is very much an amateur and not a professional.
• Therefore, it could be suggested vloggers like Zoella are taking away the audience from professional beauticians and highlights Keen's idea of "cult of the amateur"
• However, I don't think this is necessarily the case. YouTube can instead be a platform for professionals to show-case their expertise to a greater audience. 
• This is evident by the channel pixiwoo which was created by professional make-up artists Samantha Chapman and Nicola Haste. 
• Their channel has 1,960,815 subscribers, showing their is still a place for professionals in society. 

The audience as creators and collaborators- Jim Chapman

Created with Padlet

YouTube infographic

Mike Wesch- An anthropological introduction to YouTube

Identity and Social Networking

In today's lesson we have looked at two different social theories

1. Erving Goffman- The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

• The idea that we manage our behaviour in regards to our situation to achieve our aims. 
• He distinguishes between:
• Front stage- in public places, with people we don't know that well, we are more likely to conform to what is expected of us, e.g. being polite to your boss
• Back stage- more private places, with people we are close to, we are more likely to be ourselves. This behaviour Goffman suggests is more authentic
• This can be used in terms of social media interaction. Because people feel like they are in a 'back stage' environment whilst online (being alone) they fall into the trap of not acting how they would in public, this can lead to bullying or lack of etiquette. 
• Goffman's theory can also be used to highlight behaviour on social networking sites as being 'front-stage' behaviour when people conform to the site's rules. For example users having a profile picture of themselves on Facebook.

Here is a visual summary of Goffman's theory

2. Anthony Giddens- Modernity and Self-Identity 

• He suggests that our identity is a conscious activity and as a result is malleable, which allows us to be more playful.
• Giddens says people have to be constantly self-reflexive (make decisions about who they want to be), e.g. their clothing or beliefs. 
• He also proposes the idea of the self as a project, meaning we are always working on ourselves and making changes to the biographical narrative we want to show people. 
• Unlike Goffman he does not state anything about honesty, but merely we are constantly changing due to external factors like the media, other people and experiences. 
• In regards to social networking...
• Gives us greater opportunities to construct and develop our own identities (self as a project). 
• Social networking also gives us more creative and diverse ways to do this, e.g. Tumblr

Social Media Research

Today, we researched one version of social media using the internet. I chose Tumblr and used the following sites for my research:

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-tumblr-blogs-2013-5?IR=T

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr#Self-harm_and_suicide

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-of-tumblr-2013-5?IR=T

http://www.dailydot.com/business/origin-tumblr-anarchaia-projectionist-david-karp/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/founder-stories-why-david-karp-started-tumblr-blogs-dont-work-for-most-people/

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/29/tumblr-david-karp-interview

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/tumblr-user-stats-fact/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/the-most-popular-tumblrs#.damr3pElo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Yahoo!

Social media in my everyday life (fb)

Social networking in my everyday life (facebook) from katiess07

The Great Levelling- class prezi

The Great Levelling

BBC.The.Virtual.Revolution.1of4.The.Great... by turdlok

David Gauntlett's Ideas

In Gauntlett's video lecture "Media and Everyday Life" he suggests 'maybe we're entering an era where the pleasure of making things is having a resurgence?"


This means there was a time in the past when people enjoyed making things and actively did so, e.g. baking and making clothes. But then as the age of consumerism took effect people became more passive and didn't make things as much as in the past. But then Gauntlett suggests that thanks to the creation of web 2.0 making things has become more popular again in the modern age. An example to illustrate this point is the thousand of Frozen parodies people have made and put on YouTube. As the screenshot below shows there are over 12 million results!!

Here's one example, supporting Gauntlett's hypothesis that more people are now making things thanks to web 2.0: