Wednesday 10th

Today started off badly. I didn't have any anything to do, because the article i was asked to write up i finished ages ago and nobody told me to change it or gave me any extra work. After kicking about for the first lesson, i gave Alex my article to read through. He read through it, crossed bits out, added bits in and generally doodled on it. This was good, because it meant i could come home and make the changes necessary for the article to improve. He didn't change anything drastic, most of it was just simple re-wording of sentences or phrases left, as i have a tendancy to be very informal. Second lesson i came back and read through the changes. I also looked through the exam specs, trying to think up some questions i could sent to some practitioners. This was difficult as the specs were very vague and not partcularly helpful, so we asked Pete and he helped us come up with questions. Once we got the first few done, it was a lot easier to think up some more.

I don't exactly have contacts in the industry, or none that i could rely on for much, but i know a few people that will happily answer questions and reply to e-mails i send. I was going to e-mail a director i know, but figured the internet probably hasn't changed his career much as he directed, like, Casualty or something. How people watch it may have changed but how it's made probably isn't affected. Instead, I decided to e-mail MC Lars. MC Lars, while not exactly mainstream in popularity, has quite a collective following and always seems to be happy to answer any e-mails he is sent. I figured as his career is very much involved in the internet, he's in his 20's, he knows the internet, and is very much dependant on it for his career, it would be interesting to see his opinions of web 2.0, compared to other artists who aren't quite as 'plugged in'.

He's also one of few artists i know that sees music piracy as a good thing, because it's just hitting a new audience with his songs, and has released at least one 'torrent only' album. I thought this would be good as it's a very big topic in media at the moment, and lets face it - other than kids, most people are against it. These are the questions i sent him:

When did you start making music?

If so, how did you get it known?

How much difference has the use of the internet/web 2.0 made in distributing your music?

Did the introduction of YouTube and Social Networking change your audience?

How has the internet and 'torrenting' effected your chosen career?

Has your audience changed much since your music became more easily available?

Has the way you advertise your music changed as the internet got more popular?

The Quality Control Team were also working together to come up with a
name and logo for the newspaper. After stopping everyone from what we were originally doing and getting us to write down ideas for names, they decided which one they liked best and asked someone in the class to make a logo. I was prety bored and didn't have much to do while waiting for Alex to finish so we could make up the questions, so i doodled an idea for a logo on the corner of my page. Even though it was originally just me doodling, one of them saw it and quite liked it so they asked me to do it bigger and submit it as an actual suggestion. Originally it was just the MEDIA bit, as the name they decided on was Media Me. I then doodled an arrow pointing back to the 'me' bit in case people didn't work it out. Then i realized it looked kinda like a face so gave it eyebrows and a nose.