Reflecting Knowledge from TCF 155

This past spring semester, I decided to take the TCF 155 freshmen seminar with Dr. Raimist at the last minute to total 15 hours of credit. I thought it would be a good class because it involved aspects of my major and covered several relatable topics. The class covered personal identity on social networking sites and video sharing websites. Entering class on the first day, I didn’t have any expectations. I went in very opened minded and looked forward to learning different forms of media. But I didn’t think that in 2 hours and a half, each week with a small group of students and a well qualified professor that I would learn about myself as a person, about how my peers view the word, and about how influential the forms of media have on our thoughts and decisions in life. This class was out of the box, full of energy, and allowed me to think far and beyond. I explored knowledge far and beyond through readings both academic and unscholarly, watched mindboggling movies that ignited intense discussions and even sat down with popular underground music artists from Detroit.  After each class, we were able to further express ourselves on our personal blogs we created at the beginning of the year. Every week, I looked forward to coming class and expanding my knowledge along with great, intelligent people. I thank Dr, Raimist and each of my classmates for allowing me to join them on this media journey. This class was by far my best class all semester.

Final Project: Media Movement

Reflection "We Live in Public"

This week in class, we watched a documentary called “We Live in Public”. This documentary allowed the viewers to enter into the life of one of the greatest Internet pioneers, Josh Harris. Josh Harris moved to New York at a young age with only 900 dollars in his pocket and a vision that would soon turn him into a millionaire. Mr. Harris was simply a brilliant man in every way possible but his genius was so overwhelming that it drove him crazy.  He went from his company Jupiter to Pseudo.com to his masterpiece, Quiet. Quiet was an underground bunker that Harris created for a social and media experiment. The bunker was apart of his experiment to test how people would react as cameras watched them 24/7. In the bunker, there was a church, bar, gun shooting range, kitchen, dining room, showers, and a hotel. There were cameras surrounding the bunker that captured every move the participants of the experiment made. As days went by, the participants became mentally unstable and annoyed with each other and the cameras. On January 1^st, the bunker was shut down by police officers and participants were told to go home. After the bunker experiment, Harris was not quite finished yet. He began an intimate relationship with one of his co-workers, Tonya and they made a mutual decision to live in public. They lived in public by putting cameras throughout their apartment and streaming it online for everyone to see. Viewers were able to watch the couple eat dinner, use the restroom, have sexual intercourse, and get dressed for their day. The viewers were also able to comment on the activities the couple did throughout the day.  In the beginning, living in public was a fun event for the couple but it slowly pulled them apart until one day Tonya left the apartment, the relationship with josh and her life in public.  With only Josh living in public, the viewers became very bored and uninterested. Josh lost multiple viewers everyday until he barely had any at all. Soon Mr. Harris realized that he had lost his girlfriend, the significance of living in public, and his whole fortune. Mr. Harris finally shut down the cameras in his apartment and instead of living in public, he lived in private. He left New York and never returned again.

From the documentary, I felt that Josh Harris had too much knowledge for one human being to handle. He is a very strange man with odd visions that he calls art. He called himself an artist in the film because of his underground bunker creation and it was indeed a masterpiece. Although it was a masterpiece, it was an absolutely insane idea and I am very surprised Josh Harris was not arrested. But overall I really enjoyed the documentary and felt it was the perfect movie to watch for our class.

A Sample of History

In 2010, Copyright Criminals was produced by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew Mcleod. The film provided in depth information about sampling from artists and well needed terminology. It also explained the benefits and troubles of music sampling and its collision with copyright laws.  Music sampling becomes a record and a record is apart of history.

After watching the film, I had several opinions to emerge in my mind. These opinions were both positive and negative. I explained my opinions as I answered the following questions.

1.      In your opinion, is sampling a form of copyright infringement? Explain your position.

       

      In my opinion, I believe sampling music is not copyright infringement if the artists received permission from the artists who made the original track.

     

2.      Do you agree that, as we stated in the film, Hip Hop’s sampling is no different from other artistic work? Why or why not?

      

      Yes, I completely agree that sampling is no different from other artistic work because as the artists said a D.J. to the instrumental is the painter to the photographer. A turntable has become an instrument by the way it samples other songs to create a new song.

3.      Do legal actions against sampling limit the exposure of artists whose work is sampled or do these artists protect the artists’ interests? Explain why you feel that way.

I think that sampling can either help or hurt the artists’ exposure because in some cases artist sales increase dramatically especially if being sampled on another popular artists’ song or a hit television shows like Glee. But on the other hand, sales can decrease if the other artists’ song receives more attention than the original. I feel like when this happens, the original artists should receive some of the profit from the song. There should be a written agreement or contract among the artists to eliminate any dram that may occur.

Underground But Known

Invincible

Waajeed

To reflect on the class session on March 23^rd, I felt so privileged to be in the same room as Invincible and Waajeed. As I entered class and saw that we had guests, I was immediately confused and excited. I was confused and excited because I knew Dr. Raimist had something special in store for us, I just didn’t know what exactly. The guests that were in the classroom were Detroit natives, Invincible and Waajeed. They are very successful independent music artists. They were on our campus to shoot a music video with students from one of Dr. Raimist’s classes and wanted stop by and speak with us. They discussed several topics in our class time from the development of music and music video to the significance of social networking. The discussion was very informational and educational.

As Invincible and Waajeed played their music for the class, I realized how much meaning was in each lyric of the song. It is full of emotions and feelings that tackled hard topics that no one wants to discuss but should. The music was high quality and unique from music we hear on the radio everyday. To hear music with so much feeling and soul, reminded me of old school real music. I even thought about deleting half of the songs off of my iPod. They also showed us some of their music videos and the making of one video. I really enjoyed the music video and felt like the video fit well with the lyrics of each song.

Invincible and Waajeed discussed the significance of social networking like Facebook, Twitter. They even have their own individual websites. They told the class that they preferred not to use social networking but they had to for job purposes. I found this very odd because I love social networking and use it for everything as a college student. Waajeed explain that he uses Twitter to communicate with other artists to collaborate on songs. From this discussion, we realized how important social networking is to the music world.

It was an honor to sit and talk with musical and social networking experts. It was even more of an honor for the artists, Invincible and Waajeed to be successful artists even though they are independent. I applaud the fact that they refused to let record labels and money compromise themselves as individuals and their act because their art is absolutely beautiful.

Sources for Final Project

Works Cited Page for Final Project

Choi, V.Y. "Anthropology 2.0: Building Communities and Bridging Worlds Using Digital Technology." Www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086.523618. The University of Chicago Press. Web.

Snickars, Pelle, and Patrick Vonderau. The YouTube Reader. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden, 2009. Print.

Wallflower Press. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.wallflowerpress.co.uk/product/film-media/youtube_reader>.

"Who Tube? How YouTube’s News and Politics Space Is Going Mainstream." The International Journal of Press/Politics. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://hij.sagepub.com/content/15/4/499>.

"YouTube - An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU>.

"YouTube - Reasons "Why We Tube?"" YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmnZaSIulZU>.

"YouTube - The History of YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2NQiVcdZRY>.

""The YouTube Reader" | MetaFilter." MetaFilter | Community Weblog. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.metafilter.com/84493/The-YouTube-Reader>.

The Video Voice

The state of online video lies in the hands of video- sharing website, YouTube.com. Online video has grown in popularity because it gives internet users the opportunity to express themselves creativity. It also gives users a voice and sense of individuality. Since any of the users can upload a video, home videos are the most popular online content. Kristen Purcell states that, “Seven in ten adult internet users (69%) have used the internet to watch or download video. That represents 52% of all adults in the United States.” These video sharing websites cover several categories that remain very popular among adult internet users. Some of these categories are humorous, educational, movies, TV shows, and political videos. All of these videos are enjoyed and watched by adult internet users with all different likes and interests. YouTube.com was created for everyday people which make the site so popular. It is even used to expose media to other media. Videos on video-sharing websites like YouTube are considered media and when viewers like certain video they usually share the video on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Video sharing sites allow your own creations to become brought to the public from just a home, web camera. Purcell explained that, “On the other side of the camera, video creation has now become a notable feature of online life.” Video-sharing sites have become so popular that users are combining their actual life with their online life. The separation between the two has been blurred. Even though the separation is blurred, viewers are watching more than ever before. Since we have been given the opportunity to broadcast ourselves, users and viewers are taking advantage. By people taking advantage of this fact, the state of online video is very stable and influential.