Sun goes down:
-Lil Nas X returned to taco bell
The media magazine student conference
On Friday 24th January, media students from across the country came together at the BFI Southbank Centre to listen to inspiring talks from a vast range of media industry professionals. The speakers covered topics such as AI, newspaper editing, fan culture, the making of music videos, cultural aspects of media and the writing of hit TV shows. Despite these talks exploring such wildly different aspects of the media, they were all equally interesting and thought-provoking.
Chris Hogg
The first speaker was Chris Hogg, a professor of media arts from Royal Holloway University. Hogg described AI as ‘magic and loss’, and wanted to find a way to perfectly convey this. He decided to host an event called ‘The Speakaisy Live’, in which he invited a number of poets to come and perform their work to an audience. Meanwhile, Hogg instructed AI software to listen to these poets and create artwork out of it. The results of this event perfectly summarised his point: although some amazing artwork was created, it couldn’t have been done without the human influence behind the spoken word. At the conference, Hogg decided to recreate a version of this for us to watch live. A student was invited to the stage to give a speech about the power of language, while AI created images from what he was saying. While certain images were impressive, many of them felt slightly random or inaccurate to the speech as a whole; as well as there being a 30 second delay between the speech and the images. This further cemented Hogg’s message to us all, which is that while AI may appear to be ‘taking over’ the creative world, we are in fact a long way off this. The hopeful nature of his talk left students and teachers feeling a lot more informed about AI.
Alison Phillips
The next speaker was Alison Phillips, the former editor of The Mirror newspaper. Phillips began her talk by speaking about the way the news industry has shifted from print to digital media, and the impact this has had. This has resulted in less loyalty to specific news outlets, as many people will now read the same news story from multiple websites rather than just one. Previously, people would buy newspapers as a form of identification – for example, somebody walking down the street holding a copy of The Mirror was making a statement to the rest of the world about what they stood for. Phillips argues that while people obtaining their news from multiple sources can be a positive thing, it also has its’ dangers. For instance, some people may have trouble distinguishing between different newspapers online, and end up reading news from sources they would have never have bought a physical copy of. Phillips ended the talk with her advice to aspiring journalists, which was to ‘talk to people, be curious, be interested’. She highlighted the fact that curiosity is the essence of journalism, and almost everything else can be learnt along the way. This was another very informative and eye-opening talk, and could easily be applied to the newspapers topic covered at A-level.
Hannah Ewen
After a short break, the next speaker we heard from was Hannah Ewen, music journalist and author of ‘Fangirls’, speaking about fandom and the way it has evolved. Ewen began by recalling how on her commute she would pass by dozens of girls queuing outside music venues as early as 7am, with some even camping overnight. This sparked an interest, leading to her speaking to these girls and eventually to her work in music journalism and profile writing. Ewen went on to tell us about getting to sit down and speak to a Beatles fan who was now in her 60s, reminiscing on the ‘Beatlemania’ phenomenon. This fan emphasised how important these concerts were for her as a young girl, and how she believed they were a healthy form of expression for teenagers. Despite the uplifting nature of fandoms, Ewen also explored some of the darker and more negative aspects. There has been a shift towards a more invasive fan culture which negatively impacts artists, with those such as Phoebe Bridgers and Chappell Roan publicly speaking on how ‘weird’ and ‘dehumanising’ certain fan interactions could be. Ewen still recognises that even though fandom has changed greatly in recent years, there is a ‘special kind of passion’ that lies at the heart of it all. This was my personal favourite talk, as fan culture and music journalism are areas I am particularly interested in, and Ewen spoke about them in such an inspiring way.
Harv Frost
The following speaker was Harv Frost, a filmmaker who specifically works within directing music videos. Frost recently worked on a project with The Last Dinner Party for their album ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’, helping to create a short film compiled of a sequence of music videos. We got the chance to watch this piece, and it was absolutely mesmerising. She briefly explained ‘world-building’, a concept which has become popular within the music industry in recent years. This involves bands and artists aiming to create an entire visual world around the music for audiences to truly immerse themselves in. Frost also highlighted how much of a collaborative process this was, and how important it is for her to listen to all of the bands’ ideas and suggestions. This offered a fresh new perspective to the direction of music videos we study, which was previously thought to be minimally influenced by the musicians. She also touched on some of the creative challenges faced when combining structures of films and music videos together, for example deciding whether a linear sequence is necessary. This talk was a great opportunity for us to understand more about the creative choices behind music videos.
David Hesmondhalgh and Anamik Saha
The next talk was delivered by David Hesmondhalgh, who is one of our set theorists, alongside Anamik Saha, Professor of Race and Media at the University of Leeds. This was a particularly unique opportunity, as it is very rare for students to get to hear from theorists first-hand. Hesmondhalgh was asked by Anamik Saha about a range of cultural products currently within the media, ranging from newspapers to hip-hop artists. He spoke to us about the increase in ‘cultural imperialism’, which involves the most powerful cultures (such as America) dominating the world with their products. Hesmondhalgh also touched on TV shows such as Squid Games or The Traitors, which tend to represent people in a dark way and emphasise the mistrust within society. He argues that imitations of these products done on Youtube or other platforms depend greatly on the spirit in which they are done, which is the case for almost all media products. When asked about his thoughts on growing diversity in the media, Hesmondhalgh concluded that it was ‘very welcome, long overdue and still insufficient’. This was an informative and exciting talk, which helped further our understanding of Hesmondhalgh’s ideas and better apply them to essays.
Nida Manzoor
The final speaker of the day was Nida Manzoor, writer and director of both ‘We are Ladyparts’ and ‘Polite Society’. Manzoor detailed how she originally began working as a runner despite studying politics at university, and slowly built her career up from there. After working as a writer on CBBC, she began to receive many requests to write for others. However, these requests, much to Manzoor’s annoyance, would often be to write ‘a story about an honour killing’ or ‘about being married to a terrorist’. She felt she was being forced to represent the Muslim community in a way that seemed harrowing and inauthentic to her creative style. So instead, she decided to start writing her own comedy show, which followed a fictional all-female-punk-rock-Muslim band. By writing in the way she truly wanted to, Manzoor was able to use comedy as a vehicle to touch on more serious issues, while still keeping a light hearted energy overall. She also talked about her film ‘Polite Society’, which was inspired by her teenage love of martial arts, Bollywood and action movies. We watched a fight scene from this film between two sisters, which Manzoor admits was heavily influenced by how it felt to fight with her own sister growing up. The talk concluded with Manzoor reminding us all that right now was ‘a very important time to create authentic art’. This was yet another greatly inspiring and engaging talk, which I felt I learned a lot from.
The day as a whole was an amazing experience, and one which I’m sure everyone in attendance will have gained a lot from. Not only were the talks informative and useful as part of our education, they were also deeply inspiring and helpful for future endeavours, and something to be remembered for a long time.
By Martha Callaghan, student at Southend High School for Girls
This video helped demonstrate the limited understanding children have of homelessness, despite the profound effect it may have on them and their families. The stark contrast between the space scene and the reality also shows how quickly someones situation can change, and the naivety of children facing poverty. This creates empathy within the audience, who feel sorry for young children who cannot grasp the gravity of their situations.
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Bandcamp and the changing music business
The Media Magazine article I chose to read was titled 'Alternative music business: a case study of Bandcamp'. It begins by outlining the way new technologies have changed the way music is streamed in recent years, and how labels and artists have had to adapt to these changes. The article then goes on to discuss how the pandemic negatively affected the music business, specifically in the live events and touring sectors. Although bigger artists found ways through this, for smaller bands it was tougher to adapt to.
The dominant music streaming platforms such as Spotify have faced scrutiny in the past due to their poor handling of streaming revenues for artists. Music streaming is a billion pound business in the UK but as little as 13% of the revenue is actually paid to artists. This has been criticised by many big artists such as Thom Yorke and Taylor Swift, and was even investigated by the UK parliament. Many independent bands and artists felt as if they did not have many options other than to play by Spotify's unfair rules if they wanted to achieve any access with their music.
However, Bandcamp emerged and appeared to provide an alternate solution. Founded in 2007, the global platform mainly focuses on underground or alternative music. The artists on the platform range from established names such as Bjork, to brand new artists with one song. Much to the dismay of major labels, the site is run very democratically and refuses to partake in any special deals or preferential treatment for big artists. Bands have much more freedom over what they release and when, as well as being free from constraints of any membership fees. Fans can happily support the platform with the knowledge that artists will receive over 80% of the money they spend. As of today, Bandcamp has paid their artists a total of $1.41 billion. This figure is available at any time on their website and is updated daily.
Although Bandcamp knows it is not realistic for them to compete with big names such as Spotify, their main goal is to provide a fairer alternative for both fans and artists.
I found this article very interesting, as the music business is something that fascinates me. I am hoping to go on to study music business and media at university, and eventually to work within the music business. The end of the article also contained a 'careers' section, where they talked more in depth with someone from Bandcamp about what he does for work, and how he got into the industry. I personally found this section particularly helpful and gave me more insight into alternative routes into music business.
