Case Study.

The label that I am researching is Universal Records. I am researching this particular label because it parents Island Records and Bon Jovi is signed to Island Records. The record label I am researching is a major record label and parents several labels. Universal Records has bands which are signed to them in the US and the UK. Universal Records are a wide spread label and they have some of the biggest acts in the music industry signed to them. They have several different labels which they parent and the labels they parent also have some of the biggest acts in the music industry. The label I have chosen is global. This is because you can purchase or listen to the music by the signed artists pretty much around the world. Any records/merchandise will be distriputed around the world when it is released. This is so everyone can have access to the products on a world wide scale. Universal parent a few companies but they also have shares in other companies. 

Music Industry Terminology.

Convergence of Technology

Technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks

Convergence of Industral Activity
Produce and distribute across several media sources.

Synergy

The coming together of two seperate media texts in such a way as to benefit both.

Conglomerate

An international company with a wide and varied range of commercail interests.

Globalisation

The growing tendency of industrial and commercial companies to merge and operate on an international rather than national or regional basis.

Analogue Music

In media technology, a method of recording visual and sound images. Analogue technology represents the shape or apperance of an object in an unbroken form.

Digitalisation

the representation of an object, image, sound, document or a signal (usually an analog signal) by a discrete set of its points or samples.

Vertical Integration

The merger or takeover of companies operating at different stages of the production/distribution process.

Horizontal Integration

The merger of competing companies from the same line of business and involved at the same level of activity.

Major Record Label

Major record labels are large corporations which are  often owned by a parent company for example Sony.

Subsidiary Label

Independant Label

An independent record label (or indie record label) is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels

Niche Audience

The targeting of a small but significant group of consumers with a media product directed specifically at their interests.

Mainstream Audience
The uncontroversial, generally accepted attitudes, beliefs and values of the majority population.

Fans
The fans are people who will buy CD's, singles, merchandise and go see them in concert.

Active Audiences

Any of various theroies of audience behaviour that see the audience as active participants in the process of decoding and making sense of media texts.

Audiophiles

Early Adopters

Consumption

Web 2.0

Meta-Tags / Personalisation

Download

Streaming
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.

Peer To Peer
Peer-to-peer file sharing allows users to download media files such as music, movies, and games using a P2P software client that searches for other connected computers

Piracy
Music piracy is the copying and distributing of copies of a piece of music for which the composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company did not give consent

Portability/Minaturisation

Multi-Track
Is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole.

Sampling
 Sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece.

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for recording, editing and playing back digital audio.

Brief.

To produce a case study for two different record companies, independent label and major label. Both the labels need to be research and fully up to date to compare and contrast. Your case study needs to be written up on a blog and presented in a ten minute presentation as a summary of your findings.