WCC COMM 101 chapter #7 music and culture LUTHER

Chapter 7
Radio, Recording, & Popular Music
Chapter/Study Focus:
MUSIC & CULTURE

RADIO, RECORDING, AND
POPULAR MUSIC
•Book offers good information about
the history and technology involved
with radio, recording and popular
music and is covered in quiz material
•We’re going to use our classtime to
look at MUSIC & CULTURE before
turning to the impact of RADIO

NY77: THE COOLEST YEAR IN HELL =
RECORDINGs/MUSIC + FILM
• Pop Culture has long been enmeshed in “History” and
music is no exception; beyond being just a “soundtrack
for our lives”, music can often be so powerful that it
enacts cultural changes that resonate through every
level of society. This documentary takes a close look at
1977 as a pivotal year in the life of New York City,
including how music can be part of the very fabric of
society. Please consider how music can be both a
reflection of, and an influence over various factions of
society and culture, and how such reflection and
influence can impact us all long after songs fall off the
charts…

•NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell

•How did hip hop, punk, and
disco and their mass media
messages (recorded songs)
relate to the political and
societal realities of New York
City in 1977?

•What TYPE of documentary is
NY77? What narration style
does NY77 use? (please use
provided terms)

• What is a “DOCUMENTARY FILM”?
• A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture
intended to document some aspect of reality,
primarily for the purposes of instruction or
maintaining a historical record.
• Documentaries often explore effects of mass media
while also simultaneously being a form of mass
media themselves. A movie about censoring movies
for example, or a TV show about how TV shows are
important

• TYPES OF DOCUMENTARIES
• Observational documentaries attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived life with
a minimum of intervention. Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary,
post-synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The films aimed for immediacy,
intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations. TYPICALLY
USES SILENT NARRATION
• Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not
influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is emulate the approach of
the anthropologist: participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we
also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence.
TYPICALLY USES HOSTED NARRATION
• Performative documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional response to the
world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental,
and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what
it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our
own. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger political
or historical realities. TYPICALLY USES VOICE-OVER NARRATION

• NARRATION STYLES
Voice-over narration
• The traditional style for narration is to have a dedicated narrator read a script
which is dubbed onto the audio track. The narrator never appears on camera
and may not necessarily have knowledge of the subject matter or involvement
in the writing of the script. TYPICALLY USED IN PERFORMATIVE
DOCUMENTARIES
Silent narration
• This style of narration uses title screens to visually narrate the documentary.
The screens are held for about 5–10 seconds to allow adequate time for the
viewer to read them. They are similar to the ones shown at the end of movies
based on true stories, but they are shown throughout, typically between scenes.
TYPICALLY USED IN OBSERVATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Hosted narration
• In this style, there is a host who appears on camera, conducts interviews, and
who also does voice-overs. TYPICALLY USED IN PARTICIPATORY DOCUMENTARIES

•What made NY77 an
effective or non-effective
example of documentary film
in your view?

•The cultural influence of
hip-hop, punk and disco
lives on in our current
reality/world

• Punk’s lasting influence on society and culture is
undisputed and is also the subject of much
academic and cultural research and critique. It’s
style and energy lives on in modern rock and its
influence can be felt in
• Advertising
• Fashion
• Broadway
• Beyond…

• Disco’s lasting influence on society and culture is
also undisputed and the subject of much academic
and cultural research and critique.
• Disco as a musical genre has evolved into House
Music and EDM (WHAT WE STARTED trailer)
• Disco is often sampled into contemporary music
• Mark Ronson on how sampling transformed
music
• Disco’s influence can still be felt in culture in many
ways (6 Ways Disco Changed the World)

• Hip-Hop’s lasting influence on society and
culture is undisputed and is the subject of much
academic and cultural research and critique. It
continues to a dominant commercial musical
force and its influence can be felt in
• Advertising (80s / 90s Rap Commercials)
• Broadway
• Beyond…

MASS MEDIA AS A ROAD MAP
• And you can also look backward at all types mass
media – including music – and trace its evolution,
lineage, and connections to the current day.
• Doing so provides a kind of cultural road map that
only tells us where mass media has been, but also
where it might likely be going in the future in terms
of themes, concepts, and technology. Yesterday’s
published plays are today’s TV shows movies and
are tomorrow’s virtual reality and interactive
experiences.
• Culture and its mass media always builds on what
came before it. For instance…

Hip-Hop & Shakespeare are more alike than you
might think…

• Both art forms feature some raw human behaviors and
emotions — sex, jealousy, plotting and killing, to name just a
few.
• Both Shakespeare and hip-hop stretch and shape the usage
of the English language, using imagery and especially
rhythm to tell the story in a powerful way.
• “Shakespeare, like all great poetry, deals with what it means
to be human: love, tragedy, war, violence. Think of Titus
Andronicus -- one guy doesn’t like some other guys, so he
cuts them up and puts them in a pie and feeds them to the
other guys’ parents. If Biggie Smalls told that same story,
people would say, ‘Why is Biggie promoting violence?’ ”
- AKALA, UK Rapper and founder of The Hip-Hop Shakespeare
Company
HIP-HOP’S LINK TO PAST MEDIA

MUSIC’S CULTURAL INFLUENCE
• But one could argue that
Hip-Hop’s most enduring
legacy outside of music
might be found in
fashion…
• FRESH DRESSED is a
terrific example of how a
mass media message (hip
hop music) can have a
larger impact on culture
outside of its own specific
area

STUDY FOCUS QUESTION
• We’ve seen several instances in class of Music and
how it can spawn its own culture that, in turn,
identifies and bonds members of that specific
group. Now give THREE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of a
music genre (Punk, Disco, Hip-Hop, Trap, Grunge,
Metal, Emo, etc.) having an impact OUTSIDE of its
own musical style. For instance, seeing the genre’s
influence in fashion or film or television or
slang/language or visual art or advertising or any
other area of culture that you identify. Again, this is
about recognizing the impact of a musical
genre/culture OUTSIDE of its own specific area.

The media so fully saturate our everyday
lives that we are often unconscious of
their presence, not to mention their
influence. Media inform us, entertain us,
delight us, annoy us. They move our
emotions, challenge our intellects, insult
our intelligence. Media often reduce us to
mere commodities for sale to the highest
bidder. Media help define us; they shape
our realities…
CENTRAL THEME OF
COMM 101: UNDERSTANDING MASS MEDIA

…but Media does none of this alone.
They do it with us as well as to us
through mass communication, and
they do it as a central—many critics
and scholars say the central—cultural
force in our society.
CENTRAL THEME OF

•Media literacy is the ability to access,
analyze, evaluate, and create media.
Media-literate youth and adults are
better able to understand the complex
messages we receive from television,
radio, Internet, newspapers, magazines,
books, billboards, video games, music,
and all other forms of media.
CENTRAL THEME OF

WCC COMM 101 chapter #7 music and culture LUTHER

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WCC COMM 101 chapter #7 music and culture LUTHER