History of Music

Music is found in every known culture, past and present, varying widely between times and places. It began with the dawn of man when human's used beats to emulate that of a heart beat.

Prehistoric music refers to all music that existed in preliterate cultures. This means any music that is too old to be documented falls under this category. There is no real time frame for music in this period, considering it is far too old to know when it began or exactly when it ended.

Ancient music was said to have birthed with the invention of writing and refers to the very first recorded instances of musical compositions, dated 3400 years ago.

Early music refers to the European style of music that came about after the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD up until the 18th Century.

Following this was the Modern era of music which includes several sub-periods of western cultural music.

Once the digitalisation of music began with the format of the radio in the early 20th century, music was revolutionised, and new technologies were being invented to record, distribute and reproduce music constantly. Visual aspects were also beginning to be integrated more and more with the production of music videos and concerts.

Once Musical amplification and electronic devices were being fused with instruments in the mid-20th century, the development of new forms of music was accelerated and is still to this day being experimented with.

Weekly news 36

"Bite her, don’t stop": Brutal mum encourages daughter, 15, to batter classmate in after-school brawl

Source: Daily Mirror

The story is as it says. Two 15 year old girls supposedly planned to fight ahead of time and one of their mother's was cheering her daughter on as they fought. The mother has been arrested and the 57 second clip of the fight is circulating the school in Kentucky. This isn't the only violence that the students have been subjected to in recent history, as on January 23rd, a school shooting took place, killing 2 students and wounding others.

It's somewhat hard to compare this news story to anything because nothing compares to America and how terrible their gun-control is. Surely after a school shooting, a mother should be more protective of their child if anything and try to keep them away from as much violence as possible, not spurring them on in school-yard fights. I can compare this to my last weekly news, which featured a pro-gun activist arguing with Piers Morgan. It appears that the Daily Mirror is quite openly biased towards their views on the gun-control situation in America, since that news story was also from the daily mirror. And I agree with them. The evidence is simply undeniable. The variable for school shootings is gun-control in every case. The recent marches that college students are making in the name of gun-control will hopefully get somewhere.

Weekly news 35

Furious Piers Morgan shuts down pro-gun supporter in fierce debate on GMB: 'How many more children have to be shot dead?'

Source: Daily Mirror

I'd like to mention that before turning to the Daily Mirror, I scanned The Sun's website for stories to cover, and I realized that the difference in stories is far more prominent than I thought. I didn't see a single common story on the front pages, nor the  'TV & Film' and 'TV and Showbiz' sections.

The topic of Gun control is often heavily debated, especially in America's case. It appears that not just the US itself is conflicted on it's own laws, as many other countries have been known to critique the leading country in Gun ownership's policies. This outburst from Piers Morgan on a pro-gun spokesperson raised the question of how professional should debates remain when televised. In my opinion, Piers Morgan did nothing wrong, and on subjects and topics such as this, it's very easy to get flustered and passionate. Of course, self control is important and points from both sides must remain logical and consistent, rather than spiteful, but if personal feelings and freedom of speech was limited, then it'd be impossible for us to judge any spokesmen or women based on how genuine they seem.

The Daily Mirror also covered the story with completely clear biased. The paper appeared to be on Piers Morgan's side in the matter and went out of it's way to show feedback from the audience that praised him, with little to no coverage on the opposing argument.

Television

Gogglebox:

Who - Various families and groups of friends around Britain. Narrated by Caroline Aherne from 2013 until her eventual death in 2016. Also narrated by Craig Cash from 2013 to current day. Directed and produced by Tania Alexander, a TV producer who's been around since 1999 producing other British shows.

When - The main show has been running since 2013 and is still going strong and has had multiple spin off shows such as Gogglesprogs, which features exclusively children and Vlogglebox which was a recently announced show that stars 16-24 year olds watching online content.

Where - Various areas around Britain.

Why - People like to relate to other's and watch their friends and family react to things they found captivating, which is how things go viral. A show centralised around watching people react to other shows can be used, not only to advertise certain shows and earn more revenue but also satisfies our craving of human interaction as we relate and connect to the families featured.

Celebrity Big Brother:

Who - Random British celebrities who are rapidly falling from grace that the producers can hire cheaply and easily.

When - Has been running since 2001 to present day, but has experienced various different cancellations and hiatuses. It aired on BBC One in 2001, Channel 4 from 2001 - 2010, Channel 5 from 2011 onwards and 5Star on a non-consistent schedule.

Where - Sources often disagree on where the big brother house is located, but two locations seem to be recurring: Elstree studios in Hertfordshire and a compound in Borehamwood.

Why - Seeing celebrities placed inside a somewhat natural environment gives us the illusion that we're gaining insight into they're real life. It pulls back the veil of glamour and gives us a close up to what life is like behind the camera's, while ironically putting it on camera.

I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!:
Who: The same as Celebrity Big Brother, but often features more diversity.

When - First aired August 2002 and is contracted to air at least until 2019.

Where - Australia is the film location, but the show airs primarily in Britain on ITV and various channels in Ireland.

Why - Again, similar to Celebrity Big Brother, seeing celebrities who are usually surrounded by lavish, put into unfamiliar conditions (in this case, we're led to believe they're horrible conditions), gives us a sense of relief that we're not in those conditions and the voting system gives us a sense of involvement, allowing us to root for and help our favourite celebs.

Weekly news 34

AWARD-WINNING 

What are the Bafta 2018 nominations, when is the awards ceremony and who’s hosting?

Source: The Sun

I'm not very fond of award shows in the media industry because the categories have nearly no diversity. It feels as though the nominations are all just different awards for the same 7 or so films. The best films with the best actor nominations, best director nominations, best actress nominations, etc. Granted, it's understandable that the best films would have some of the best director's and vice versa but surely there's one film that wasn't the best directed but had an astounding actress. 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' is up for 6 nominations this year (that we know of right now). Last year 'La La Land' was nominated for 11, winning quite a few, and it feels as though the entire award system is rigged, which is a reoccurring complaint among the audience. Perhaps the nominations should be much more audience or critic based rather than controlled by an unseen, unnamed, probably biased company.

Weekly news 33

SHOP AXES WAIFS 

ASOS tells super-skinny models to fatten up if they want more work

Source: The Sun (22nd January 2018)

It seems the public is becoming increasingly self aware lately, as the media has come under fire recently for various acts of discrimination that have been apparent for decades. Better late than never. Recently, a modelling company by the name of ASOS was chastised for using extremely thin models, and they have begun attempting to hire bigger models in the efforts of gaining good publicity. This is very reminiscent of the Oscar's in 2016 which was accused of being 'whitewashed', leading to the 2017 awards being very obviously biased towards minorities, specifically black people. Any action is better than none at all but it's shameful that it's taken this long for the general public to begin lashing out against the media, and even more shameful that they're only taking action to try and fix their shattered image so their sales don't drop.

Weekly news 32

WINTER IS COMING 

Game Of Thrones fans confused as Kit Harington spotted selling Christmas trees in Aberdeenshire

Source: The Sun

I choose this story because it is nice to see a positive representation of a male celebrity among all the recent accusations, especially one that's simply spreading Christmas cheer. This comes under the representation of both Events, in the Christmas themes, and gender as it shows a vulnerable Kit Harrington who's simply doing some manual labour with his family. If we compare this representation compared to most male representations in the media lately, we can see that perhaps the defining difference is the age. The only difference between Harrington and a lot of the other accused sexual offenders is he's not considered middle aged and I have yet to see a young celebrity be exposed in this latest storm of sexual offences. Granted, a lot of the accusations are from years ago, when the celebrities could perhaps be considered young, so it's possible that once current, young, male celebrities grow older, dark pasts could surface as well. In my opinion, it's a story that is pure and innocent in a time that needs it, yet it could still be used to compare and contrast other modern news stories.