I saw a fantastic show on Australia's ABC News 24 recently. The show is called News Exchange and it is on Friday nights at 8pm. It combines news and current affairs with social media and online activity to present stories on current issues as they are experienced and communicated in both real space and the online world. The most recent show provided a detailed discussion about online activism with a number of recent international campaigns highlighted and interesting interviews from a representative from YouTube and an academic from the University of Queensland. It is well worth a look, and a show I will certainly try to watch again in the future. You can view it here.
Looking through their archives, it seams they had a show in November 2012 where they considered streaming music and whether this is a viable business model - check out the show here. They also briefly mention the internet blackout in Syria, and Bradly Manning.
Further Information
ABC News 24, News Exchange (25 January 2013) < http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/news-exchange/ > at 25 January 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Sir Tim Berners-Lee Australian Lectures
Wow! It appears I have a ticket and funding to attend a lecture to be given by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in February. iiNet and others are sponsoring a three city tour that includes free public talks. If you are interested in attending you can read more about it here.
Further Information
Australian Computer Society, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the Web first visit in 15 years to Australia (January 2013) < http://www.acs.org.au/news-and-media/news-and-media-releases/2012/sir-tim-berners-lee,-inventor-of-the-web-first-visit-in-15-years-to-australia > at 8 January 2013
Further Information
Australian Computer Society, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the Web first visit in 15 years to Australia (January 2013) < http://www.acs.org.au/news-and-media/news-and-media-releases/2012/sir-tim-berners-lee,-inventor-of-the-web-first-visit-in-15-years-to-australia > at 8 January 2013
Thursday, December 27, 2012
HLS EdX Course on Copyright
(Yes my holidays are going well ;) but...)
I just found out that EdX (Harvard and MIT) are running a course in Copyright Law from 28 January 2013 which goes for 12 weeks and requires a minimum of 8 hrs per week study. Applications are open until January 3rd 2013. No legal background is required but there will be a limit of 500 applications accepted. The course instructor is William Fisher III. Applicants must be 13 yrs or older and have a good grasp of English. Certificates of completion and written assessments will be given to those who pass. The course material will be made available publicly, so even if you don't wish to do the course, perhaps you might still want to take a look at that, when it becomes available.
Further Information
EdX, HLS1x Copyright <https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/HLS1x/2013_Spring/about> at 27 December 2012
I just found out that EdX (Harvard and MIT) are running a course in Copyright Law from 28 January 2013 which goes for 12 weeks and requires a minimum of 8 hrs per week study. Applications are open until January 3rd 2013. No legal background is required but there will be a limit of 500 applications accepted. The course instructor is William Fisher III. Applicants must be 13 yrs or older and have a good grasp of English. Certificates of completion and written assessments will be given to those who pass. The course material will be made available publicly, so even if you don't wish to do the course, perhaps you might still want to take a look at that, when it becomes available.
Further Information
EdX, HLS1x Copyright <https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/HLS1x/2013_Spring/about> at 27 December 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Off The Web
I'm taking a break for the next few weeks to enjoy the beach and the summer sun. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog this year - it has been a lot of fun writing it - so thanks for being a great audience. I think what I write about is a little obscure so its great to know that over 1,000 people a month read my blog. Have a fantastic Christmas and a wonderful New Year. I hope to be back around the end of January 2013 but it depends a little on whats happening with events in cyberspace - I'll try to keep you uptodate if anything big happens.
Sal
Sal
Friday, December 7, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
IASPM: Music Festivals and the State of our Planet: An Eco-Musicological Perspective
Donna Weston gave a fantastic paper this afternoon. She talked about ecomusicology and in particular WOMADelaide and Woodford Folk Festival and the connection between music and the environment. Donna stated that at music festivals there is commonly a sense of community, a common purpose and often a degree of environmental awareness.
The aim of her study was to consider ways in which festivals could be forums where environmental responsibility is raised with a particular view to inspiring people to take action to help the environment after the festival is over.
By way of an introduction to the ideas of ecomusicolgy, Donna explained that the field concerns itself with the relationship between society and the natural environment. It questions the role that musicology plays in the welfare and survival of humanity. Furthermore it asks whether the environmental crisis is relevant to music and whether musicology is relevant to solving it.
Donna was particularly interested in finding out how festivals incorporate environmental issues into their programs and reduce their environmental impact. Solidarity concerts, calls to action, raising awareness both from artists speaking out and displays, stalls and speakers, making financial donations to NGOs, merchandising, and showing audiences proof of environmentally friendly technology in action were all ways that these festivals had sought to promote environmental awareness.
Donna suggested that it would be best to adopt a deep ecology approach to the organisation of music festivals in the future to produce deep thinking and wisdom from audience members to ensure that individual responsibility and action emerges.
Donna mentioned a book I am hoping to get my hands on soon - Juke Box In The Garden - sounds like a fabulous read.
The aim of her study was to consider ways in which festivals could be forums where environmental responsibility is raised with a particular view to inspiring people to take action to help the environment after the festival is over.
By way of an introduction to the ideas of ecomusicolgy, Donna explained that the field concerns itself with the relationship between society and the natural environment. It questions the role that musicology plays in the welfare and survival of humanity. Furthermore it asks whether the environmental crisis is relevant to music and whether musicology is relevant to solving it.
Donna was particularly interested in finding out how festivals incorporate environmental issues into their programs and reduce their environmental impact. Solidarity concerts, calls to action, raising awareness both from artists speaking out and displays, stalls and speakers, making financial donations to NGOs, merchandising, and showing audiences proof of environmentally friendly technology in action were all ways that these festivals had sought to promote environmental awareness.
Donna suggested that it would be best to adopt a deep ecology approach to the organisation of music festivals in the future to produce deep thinking and wisdom from audience members to ensure that individual responsibility and action emerges.
Donna mentioned a book I am hoping to get my hands on soon - Juke Box In The Garden - sounds like a fabulous read.
IASPM ANZ: Flows of Relevance: still fighting the power 23 years on?
I saw a very interesting paper at IASPM this morning by Sarah Attfield. Sarah spoke about Public Enemy and The Specials and the relevance of their music more than two decades after its release. Sarah noted that while Billy Bragg says that music cannot change the world, it can bring people together. Sarah suggested that listening to Public Enemy's Fight the Power and going to their concert could be a catalyst for a listeners entry into activism. She noted John Street's view that music has been the site of political expression for centuries with some songs explicitly referring to political issues and events, some reflecting on society and other songs being adopted for occasions or causes. Sarah suggested that while political music is often grounded in the lyrical content and the music can be from any genre, the sound of the music is still a very important component to the potential impact of the song and its reception. She also suggests that who performs it is very important with Taylor Swift, for example, being unable to carry a song such as Fight the Power. Sarah reflected on her experience of going to a Public Enemy concert in recent years and suggested that they now attract a very broad audience of both young and old people. Sarah also noted the sadness in the continued relevance of their music to the socio economic circumstances and incarceration rates of African Americans. A very interesting paper, I really enjoyed it.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
IASPM ANZ: The #RockStar in Social Media
I am at the conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Hobart, Tasmania. I just saw a fantastic paper by Penny Spirou on the functions of social media for rock stars. Penny spent a lot of time talking about NikkiSixx and his use of facebook and twitter. Penny identified the three central functions of social media for rock stars as being; 1. Autobiography 2. Intimacy and 3. Self branding and promotion. It was a very interesting paper and these three qualities are easily identifiable in the posts made by the artists that I myself follow. Most of the artists I follow (being more of the political musician type) also post a lot about causes they are interested in. Perhaps for those artists there is a fourth function of social activism.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Artsfex
I was just reading a press release on Freemuse from October this year about a new organisation called artsfex.org - they write:
Today 14 international arts and human rights organisations and networks – representing more than 1,200 national organisations globally – launched Artsfex, the first international civil society network actively concerned with the right of artists to freedom of expression as well as with issues relating to human rights and freedoms generally. Artsfex aims to promote, protect and defend artistic freedom of expression, as well as freedom of assembly, thought, and opinion in and across all art disciplines, globally.. Recent censorship incidents, the suppression of creative voices, and threats against the lives of artists have made it clear that we have arrived at the moment when creative workers and free speech activists need to work together against repression and for an open cultural space both locally, regionally and globally.”
The organisations involved are:
There is an urgent necessity to launch an international initiative to
protect and promote freedom of artistic and creative expression (in the
visual arts, music, dance, film, writers, theatre etc.) with the goal
of increasing awareness about violations of freedom of expression in the
arts among artists and the arts sector, in the media, among political
bodies, human rights and free speech organizations, as well as among the
general public.
This initiative will:
Further Information
Arstfex: http://artsfex.org/
Today 14 international arts and human rights organisations and networks – representing more than 1,200 national organisations globally – launched Artsfex, the first international civil society network actively concerned with the right of artists to freedom of expression as well as with issues relating to human rights and freedoms generally. Artsfex aims to promote, protect and defend artistic freedom of expression, as well as freedom of assembly, thought, and opinion in and across all art disciplines, globally.. Recent censorship incidents, the suppression of creative voices, and threats against the lives of artists have made it clear that we have arrived at the moment when creative workers and free speech activists need to work together against repression and for an open cultural space both locally, regionally and globally.”
The organisations involved are:
- Arterial Network
- ECA – European Council of Artists
- ECSA – European Composer and Songwriter Alliance
- FERA – FEDERATION OF European Film directors
- FIA – The International Federation of Actors
- freeDimensional
- Freemuse – The World Forum on Music & Censorship
- ICAF – International Committee for Artists’ Freedom
- IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts
- IFCCD – International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity
- Index on Censorship
- PEN International
- NCAC – National Coalition Against Censorship, USA
They passed the following resolution at the Copenhagen Summit on Artistic Freedom of Expression:
This initiative will:
- serve as an information exchange
- monitor and analyse censorship in the arts worldwide with the goal of identifying trends and creating an understanding of the various mechanisms of censorship and persecution of artists for their creative work
- publicly expose the persecution and censorship of artists
- advocate in support of artistic and creative freedom worldwide
- hold governments accountable to their obligations under the relevant international conventions and national laws
- direct artists in distress to existing information, funding and other resources for emergency and ongoing support and facilitate their relationship with relevant funders and defenders of human rights
Further Information
Arstfex: http://artsfex.org/
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