Pay-for-Play Music Industry

As an industry, the radio media outlet has always been against the government having control over regulations; however they are the ones begging for help from the government in order to save themselves from destruction. The radio industry giant, Clear Channel, is in negotiations with Tri State Promotions looking to receive an exclusive agreement to make Tri State’s promoters high priority over any other company. The deal if passed would allow all Tri State indies to be the first ones allowed to approach Clear Channel radio stations with new singles.
This deal is important to the industry because of the loop-hole found by record labels which allows them to drop large amounts of money in the pockets of indies who in turn pay radio stations to play new singles. The key to this loop-hole is the independent promoter (Tri State), without using an indie as the middle man record labels wouldn’t be able to pay radio stations for air time without it being shown on the books. Thanks to the payola law it’s against the law for record labels to bribe for airplay of their artists.
To give you an idea of the kind of money that is being spent within this loop-hole I will use this formula: new songs X bribe per song X number of radio stations.
So if there are 150 new songs a year and indies are paid $1000 per song and get 100 radio stations to play their songs then the indies make a possible $15 million a year. Another point to make clear is that record labels will offer indies anywhere for a couple hundred to a couple thousand per song which in turn isn’t all spent bribing the radio stations.
Forms of payment to the radio stations are also important to notice. Indies don’t use cash or checks to pay for airtime, instead they pay in form of coupons, cruise gift certificates and VISA gift cards. Radio stations do use these products in their contests and giveaways, but they don’t use them all, and the ones that aren’t used are held as kickbacks. For example, there was a radio station that was giving several coupons for free cruise trips; they only gave away two and kept the rest for themselves. Now the most popular form of payment is in the form of VISA gift cards because it can be used anywhere and there is no paper trail.
This entire situation brings up the question of morals and ethical behavior. No one is coming upfront asking for help because “everyone is doing it”, but it is hurting the industry by restricting the freedom of artists to get their music heard. Small record labels struggle to get their music played just on the simple fact that they can’t afford it. This is where the government needs to step in and help the industry out because shortly in time there won’t be any small independent labels left and the music industry will belong to the label giants. If you love your music and the artists’ individuality like I do, then help this situation get the attention that it deserves and voice your opinion on the problems at hand before small labels are locked out the market completely.

Dixie Chicks vs Bush

The mass media is a strong force in the fabric of American society. In our social upbringing we are constantly molded by sounds or images portrayed in the media. In this case I will discuss the controversy of the Dixie Chicks. At a concert in Europe, the lead singer Natalie Maines made a comment about being ashamed of the President being from Texas (their home state). In return the group suffered greatly materially and metaphorically. As news spread to the US about the comment made at the concert, the group began to be described as sluts or anti-American. This in fact was false. The group had a right to voice their opinion just as any other American citizen has. The sad thing was unfortunately they aren’t everyday American citizens and so paid a price for their actions.
The thought of mass media being the root of all evil is commonly thought of by the American public; however it’s not so clear here in this situation. The threat of big conglomerates to enforce their views and opinions on the public is apparent in most economists which is then passed on to the public. In reality it’s not so simple for this to take place; in Clear Channel’s position in the Dixie Chicks controversy there was a conflict of interest to take into account. Even if they wanted to cut the airtime of the group’s music to show patriotic support, they could not because they were also promoting the group’s upcoming American concert tour. In fact Clear Channel radio stations were the last to stop playing Dixie Chicks music on the radio. Also, I think it is important to note that even though their music may not be played on the radio anymore the amount of people who listen to their music or are fans of the group has not changed since the beginning of this controversy.

Public vs Private Space

Mitchell's discussion of People's park was very interesting to me because of the irony of the space being privately owned by UC but basically controlled by the people of the area. Although UC and the town of Berkley had plans to renovate the lot, there were forces and protesting that kept the park what it was; an open area for the public to express their opinions.

The struggle between the forces reminds me of a similar situation that occurred in Houston. There was a portion of the Heights that had a street that was paved by slaves with bricks. Nowadays the community that encompasses this road is prominently black and is proud of the history behind their neighborhood. The issue at hand was that the street was becoming deteriorated and needed to be repaved or repaired. Although the street was technically owned by the city, the residents of the street kept the road from being worked on. After months of protesting and organizing petitions the neighborhood was able to force the city to historically repave the street with bricks from the same era and reused old bricks that were still good from the original road.

Backseat Drivers

What is really going on here? Is there really a legitimate argument to Meiklejohn’s chapter, “The Rulers and the Ruled”? It is claimed that we Americans have the freedom of speech and govern ourselves, but do we really? I believe it is completely all on the individual to decide whether or not we want to take part in our governing. Yes, the option is and always remains out there for us to participate in the laws of our land, but to be honest the majority of American citizens do not take this option. Instead, we take a backseat to politics and rely on our elected officials to do what they promised to do in their election campaigns. The fact that we base our election opinions on “major” issues allows political officials to get away with smaller “personal” agendas. Thus, are we really being governed by ourselves or are we consigned into following the orders of a government that claims to represent the people? I feel that in order to truly govern ourselves we must actively voice our opinions to our elected officials as to get our opinions heard in legislation.

Public Spheres

Habermas's definition of public sphere is a domain in our social life where public opinions can be formed. The problems found by Nancy Frasier in Habermas's definition can be generally described in two different ways. Habermas said a public sphere should have easy access to all, but in fact this was not the case in the early years of the American political process. The second deals in the realm of equality, everyone was not treated equal in the public spheres of yesterday. In fact, forms of status where used to separate people within these spheres and to prevent others from getting their voices heard. In the case of upper and lower class citizens, the upper class's opinions were weighted heavier than the opinions of the poor. Likewise could be said about women vs. men and blacks vs. whites.
I believe the public i target with this blog page are people of any background that can provide insight or more information to the concepts of Democracy and the involvement of new media.

Modes of citizenship: Democracy of Change

In Schudson's article citizenship is modeled in three different ways that were molded by the economy and times the citizens lived in. Today, however, citizenship is not directly influenced by our economy in the ways they once were for our forefathers. Although it is true we will be influenced to make decisions based on our day to day interactions with the economy; we will not be told how to make those decisions by others. In other words, today is the time of the individual. Individually, we gather to form political parties. Individually, we place our vote in public office elections. However, we do not individually voice our opinions; like natural instincts, we look for other people with similar concerns and feelings and gather to make a louder voice. In the past we did this in town meetings or at political parties, today we can do this by blogging. Larger and larger numbers of people are finding it easier to get involved and get informed by public channels of communicating over the internet. Blogs are growing in popularity for places to voice concerns and opinions and to have others either respond with similar concerns or answer your own concerns. One place in particular that I have found to be a great place to blog is on the FOX NEWS webpage. Thousands of people pass through this website everyday and are joined in chat rooms or blog pages by actual news reporters and meteorologists. This mix of individuals help today's citizens make more informed decisions by providing many different perspectives on similar concerns.