Transparency : The Gift and The Curse

Transparency seems to be a phenomenon

directly linked to the Internet.

Hiding from people is becoming more an more complicated,

even for totally anonymous persons.

Google your own name if you don't think it's true,

and you'll soon find it scary !

So you can imagine how twisted it can get for celebrities, especially for politicians who are supposed to represent their party and electors. The Internet is dissuading political figures to lie to the people because the new technologies make it harder for them to withhold information, which is a good thing.

But today, every single word that comes out of a politician's mouth is recorded and posted online, even when it is useless. This transparency allows us to see who our leaders trully are. But is this really necessary ? I don't tolerate the blooper of the home minister Brice Hortefeux insinuating that Arabs can cause troubles in France, I think it is racist and simply tactless. But the problem with transparency, is that it totally erased the line between the official speech and what is supposed to be off the record. Ministers and presidents are being judged for the men and women they are in real life, and Nicolas Sarkozy understood that very fastly and learned how to play with the media by exposing his private life to the public. But the danger with transparency is that it makes people focusing on trivial things.

We are lucky to live in a society that doesn't keep the information hidden. Thanks to the Internet, people from suppressive countries can communicate with the rest of the world : we saw it recently on Twitter with the Iranien dissenting movement. But westerns countries have to be careful not to abuse this gift and turn it into a disinformation tool.

Media's Anatomy

Is there something more thrilling than hearing the magical words

"Previously on..."

followed by the name of your favorite TV show ?

I honestly don't think there is !

Spotted : Your devoted blogger turns out to be a soap opera addict.

Be careful L., you might have to write an article about this unexpected liking...

First of all, I apologize for those who read this article and aren't into american TV shows.

That being said, I can tell you what's been on my mind lately. I noticed that ever since the Internet came into my life, I was watching even more series than before. Nowadays, hundreds of streaming websites such as alloshowtv broadcast all kinds of series for free.

So just as Carrie Bradshaw would write it down in her column :

When it comes to TV shows, did the Internet make us break our habits ?

Even if I was already a huge fan of Friends before the Internet revolution, I became a real addict of soap operas since the day I got my own laptop with the Wifi. I really think that by allowing its users to watch videos online, the Internet dethroned television in the TV shows field. Why would you bother to watch an old episode with awful dubbings at a specific hour, when you can have the latest one on your computer in original version at any moment of the day ?

I used to wait for the video tapes or the DVD to be in store to watch series, but now, I can watch the brand new season of Lost almost as if I were in America. It only takes few hours for websites to publish the videos, or a day if you want the subtitles. If television remains the master media in the field of talk shows, I think the Internet paradoxically stole its thunder with TV shows. And I believe that this new media is to do with the success of series like Gossip Girl that are totally adapted to the Internet users' habits and codes. The French TV Channel M6 doesn't take any risk by broadcasting Desperate Housewives on prime time because the buzz that it provokes online months before guarantees its success on television.

This just made me realize I still haven't seen the brand new episode of How I Met Your Mother !

XoXo

Passion's within a click

Mahalia Jackson

There's a website called Onlygroove that you've probably never heard of unless we share the same passion for soul music and hip hop. I used to visit this site a lot for its reviews and articles. Here's one thing I like about the Internet : whatever you're passion is, you'll find it online. You probably figured that out by now, but mine is music, and more specifically african-american music. From the jazz queen Ella Fitzgerald to the rap singer Nas, this whole musical culture has always inspired me in a way that is hard to explain with words.

The Internet enabled me to quench my musical thirst. It represents a precious opportunity to listen to more underground artists because it's becoming harder and harder for them to impose themselves in the stores, especially in France where they're not famous at all. The Internet is also a great way to understand the origins of the contemporary music because it allows us to rediscover artists who aren't present in the other media anymore. Even if I already knew legendary singers like Nina Simone, the Internet is the only media that can provide so many songs and videos in the wink of an eye.

But let's focus on the website I was telling you about called Onlygroove. You probably wonder why I'm evoking it when I could have talked about millions of sites dedicated to urban music. But this one is particular, at least for me. One day, I was reading a very interesting article on this site and I noticed few mistakes. I felt like writing to the staff just to let them know, so I clicked on the contact rubric to see if I could get an e-mail adress. But something else caught my attention instead and here's what it was :

"The members of the editorial staff of Onlygroove are volunteer writers, specialized in a field they chose to share in order to help, inform or to make the "groove culture" evolve. New passionate and experienced writers are welcome, don't hesitate to send us your application or exemples of articles."

And that's exactly how I became a writer for Onlygroove ! I had always dreamed about making my own contribution to music, but I just didn't know how. Now, I get to share what I love the most, and it wouldn't have been this easy if I had applied for a magazine, a radio station or a TV channel. As a volunteer writer, I am free to write about what I want, without any pressure. This represents a lot for me because I simply love doing it, and it is also a way to acquire experience. For exemple, I might make my very first interview next week, if the press attaché dare to find me a slot !

So not only the Internet enabled me to go further into my passion, but it also made me a part of it, and that's what I call a precious opportunity !

Click on these links to read my articles (in french, sorry!) :

Death of Autotune

Leela James

Maxwell

Iam & B-Real

The only thing constant in the world is change...

Twitter : What are you doing ?

Liv : Working on a new article for my blog

Facebook : What's on your mind ?

Liv feels like dancing tonight, who's in ?

Social networks always ask their users what they are doing while the things they do is obvious : they're killing time checking their personal pages, admiring their profile pictures and spying on their so called friends or followers.

The only thing you could possibily write as a status on Twitter or Facebook is : I'm on Twitter, or I'm on Facebook.

But everyone knows that the Internet isn't about being honest...You have to be extraordinary, to always say something special, even when there's not much to tell. Updating your page is a new way to show the world you exist, and you have to let people know what you do just to stay in the newsfeeds, even if there's not much to do ! Otherwise people will think you're dead, or just borring which is even worse.

The Internet is the Kingdom of impermanence, and Boredom Land is its worst enemy.

So if you're getting bored and feel like saying it, buy yourself a diary, but don't even dare to let people know about it ! The new technologies are preventing us from doing nothing, and I have the feeling that it is now considered as a weakness to be bored once in a while...

Change or die, that's what the Internet says to us.

But a great philosopher once said that people who kept on running away from boredom were not the strongest ones because they were just scared of facing their own reality. Does anyone remember who it was ? Here's a clue...

Internet vs. Music : bridging the gap

For a long time, I thought there were two clans. The clan of those who loved music and respected it by buying CDs, which I belonged to, and the clan of those who desecrated this art by downloading every possible song they liked. I wasn’t wrong...but I was definitely too stubborn !

Music means the world to me, and I've always been reluctant to the idea of listening to it thanks to the Internet. I blame the new technologies for the crisis that the music industry is facing. But who doesn’t ? The french marketplace has lost 50% of its worth since 2002, a year that corresponds to the expansion of the ADSL in France. What a coincidence ! By enabling people to download music freely, the Internet has started up a revolution. It is not the first time that progress imposes its rules on art : CDs replaced EPs and LPs and we didn’t make a big deal out of it. But this time, we moved from a material support to a digital and virtual one, which totally changed the way we used to relate to music. I must say that it makes me feel nostalgic...

I’ve always believed that the happiness of listening to a record could only be achieved by holding the jacket and the leaflet that contains the lyrics while the music played. My first musical memory goes back to Michael Jackson’s HIStory album, and I’m not saying that because he died few months ago. I’m evoking this personal memory just to show how powerful the whole concept of a CD is. I perfectly remember the pictures of Michael Jackson dressed up as a creepy nocturnal creature, without really understanding why, and I also remember asking my mother who was the evil man laughing at the end of Thriller. Would I be able to write about such specific details if this album would have been downloaded on my computer ? Probably, because it was such a good one, but maybe not that well.

My point is, ever since music emancipated itself from its material support, we tend to consider it as ephemeral. Songs became something we consume, and the sacred dimension of music is vanishing away because we take it for granted. You will never throw away a CD, but you don’t mind deleting music on your computer, do you ? To a certain extend, I wonder if this new tendency could have an impact on musical creativity. Internet is a great way for artists to promote their music by using platforms such as Myspace or social networks like Facebook and it gives to the amateurs a visibility that the other media can’t afford them. But the Internet is offering so much to the music lovers that it became difficult for the artists to keep on satisfying their audience. They have to come up with new songs very frequently so that people don’t forget them. Instead of thinking about the message they want to deliver, many artists are just struggling to stay afloat. I’m actually passionate about rap music, and I noticed this phenomenon with mainstream singers like T-Pain who always manage to do new songs by collaborating with trendy artists. But while they’re busy trying to stay on Twitter’s trending topics, they forget about real music.

But limiting the impact of the Internet on music to a criticism of free downloading would be simplistic. I had to wonder why people felt they needed to download the albums they liked instead of buying them. Beyond the money criterion, I think the CD simply became outdated and was doomed to disappear anyway because of a social reason. People are getting used to progress and CDs don’t match with the idea of the unconditional freedom that digitisation is offering. They require to do things from what we already emancipated ourselves, like carrying them around while we can have thousands of songs on one single MP3 player.

The Internet put the music industry through a lot, but paradoxically, it also represents the answer to its crisis. The real challenge now is for the music industry to find ways to promote its projects by using the same media that brought them down. Legal downloading is becoming more and more popular, but doesn’t make up for all the money lost. On the other hand, the websites that provide free and unlimited music without downloading are a way for the record companies to be present online without jeopardizing their economy. Indeed, these streaming websites are totally legal because they are financed by the advertisers and respect the copyrights. What is interesting about the streaming is that it gives a feeling of freedom to the people, without placing them as the owners of the music they listen to. The notion of buying is not excluded on deezer.com or jiwa.fr because they propose to their users to buy CDs or concert tickets on websites like fnac.com. I recently learned while reading an article that people who frequently use streaming music services are more likely to buy CDs because they have the opportunity to listen to them easily and that they discover new artists everyday.

So even if it still means a lot to me to buy a Stevie Wonder album, and if I still care about my old stereo, I think that the impact of the Internet on music can also be positive. The connection between music and us is definitely different now. But it is still there, it is even growing stronger, and that is what truly matters to me.