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Elsa Deliyanni, Alexandros Baltzis, Tatiana Synodinou

International conference The Impact of Internet on the Mass Media in Europe
European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST - Action A20)
Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences
Delphi, April 26-28, 2006

 

Abstract

Based on the case of music in the internet, this paper explores the framework and the parameters of the conflict arising between copyright (in the sense of the protection granted by law to the authors by allowing them to prohibit unauthorized use of their works) and the right of the citizens to be informed. It presents some paradoxes that often result during litigation the degree to which the established legal approach of the peer-to-peer music file exchange complies with recent developments.

The paper discusses also the challenges that the internet creates for the recording industry, the phases of the "war on copyright infringement" in which the industry is involved, as well as its strategy. A major asymmetry is actually established in this field: the very notion of intellectual property - being socially constructed (and therefore culturally determined) - is incompatible with new types of practice and new forms of culture that proliferate in the internet and the public "cybersphere". Furthermore, it is incompatible also with cultures ignoring the concepts of individual creativity and of the autonomous and accomplished individual artwork.

Finally, the paper discusses some issues which are really at stake and extend far beyond the industry concerns about lost profits.

 

Andreas Veglis, Alexandros Baltzis

Local conference Image and Discourse in the Media
School of Journalism and Mass Media Studies (Aristotle University)
Thessaloniki, November 4, 2005

 

Abstract

This paper introduces the theoretical and methodological background for the analysis of the functions and use of the personal web pages by musicians. The paper presents briefly the expectations for democratizing the communication in general and the artistic communication in particular - expectations expressed in a more or less systematic way in different fields (communication studies, sociology, economics, and political science).

It also presents in broad strokes various approaches and indicates that the research on internet and the arts neglects to explore the attitude of the artists themselves and the ways they make use of it. To address this shortcoming, the paper presents the results of an exploratory study that implemented a test model to analyze interactivity in the websites of musicians.

The data analysis - resulted from 22 websites of Greek musicians using the test model - indicates that in the sample of this study there are some dominant features: monologue, the clear role differentiation in the communication with the audiences, the low control of the communication process and its content by the audiences, the clear trend to conserve intermediation through already established institutions of artistic communication. The study concludes that the musicians of this sample see the internet as a cultural marketing tool rather than as a new medium that offers a wide range of new possibilities to the artists and their audiences. Finally, the paper presents the future orientation of the research. The empirical research presented in this paper contributes to the study of the internet and its impact on the cultural field.

 

Societies in Crisis and Search of Meaning
4th International Congress of Clinical Sociology and Clinical Social Psychology

Department of Media and Communication (University of Athens)
Laboratoire de Changement Social
Université de Paris VII - Tolbiac
C.I.R.F.I.P.
AISLF (Comité 19)
ISA (RC 46)
The Greek Society of Clinical Social Research
The Greek Psychological Society
Athens-Spetses, May 28 - June 1, 2003

 

Abstract

The paper discusses the stages in the development of the systems for dissemination of artistic goods giving emphasis to the emergence of the global multimedia conglomerates. It analyses the intrinsic antinomies and the complexity of the social context in which the reception of artistic goods occurs - seen both as an interpretive process and a form of social practice. The analysis focuses on the structural changes of the meaning and the functions of the arts in a mediated environment. It traces the communication divide both in the infrastructures and the access, and sketches the current cultural asymmetries. The paper indicates the significance of the communication divide for the arts and argues that it has a decisive impact on the displacement of the meaning and the functions of the arts on a global level. The analysis of the cultural crisis focuses on the coexistence of risks and opportunities and stresses the importance of the cultural policy and of the artistic and aesthetic education policy in general under these circumstances. Finally, the paper underlines the fact that under the current situation the meaning of the social responsibility - of the political institutions and the mass media alike - is also changing.

A basic methodological assumption of this paper is that the meaning - particularly in the case of the artistic communication - cannot be lost. It can only be displaced, contrasting the romantic views expressed often in the public discourse about the arts.

 

Lecture at the international seminar of the European research network Digital Radio Cultures in Europe (COST A20)
Egham, June 18-20, 2004

 

Abstract

This is an introduction to the theoretical and methodological framework for the study of the impact that the internet has on the artistic communication.

The first part introduces the main changes of the artistic communication brought about by modernity. It also analyses briefly commodification, intermediation and emancipation as the main features of this form of communication in modern societies.

In the second part, the analysis regards reproduction and broadcast as two successive phases in the development of the ways to distribute artworks and introduces a review of the analytic term "mediamorphosis". Although the term is introduced at the beginning of the '70s, it is elaborated just at the beginning of the '90s in the fields of the communication and journalism studies (by Fidler) and in the sociology of music (by Blaukopf). By the beginning of the next decade, the term is used in the sociology of the arts (by A. Schmudits), in order to signify the major changes of the cultural and artistic production brought about by the development of the mass communication and the media. In this context, the lecture explores the main features of the artistic communication in its most recent phase - the internet.

The third part of the lecture describes the main features of the mediamorphosis of the artistic communication through the internet: digitalization, global dissemination, interactivity, development of the global multimedia conglomerates, production designed as ever-expanding revenue stream, flexible specialization and finally high concentration and diversification, but - at the same time - high degrees of product diversity and consumer choice.

Finally, in this complex and contradictory context, the lecture describes in broad strokes the main asymmetries and antinomies of the current phase in the development of the artistic communication, as well as its different aspects.

 

Discussing Globalization
Local conference

School of Economics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, March 4, 2002

 

Abstract

The literature in Greek lacks sociological analyses of the recording industry and mass musical culture, although they both have a long tradition in this country. The objectives of this paper are to contribute in filling this gap and to support the argument - based on a given example - that globalization is a complex social phenomenon. The case of the recording industry indicates that globalization goes far beyond the economic phenomena, contrasting the view that this is a purely or mainly economic phenomenon. The argument about globalization as a complex and multidimensional social phenomenon is supported by analysing fundamental social changes in which the origins of the globalization of the music industry can be traced. It is also supported by the analysis of its cultural consequences.

The background of globalization in the field of music includes its specific status and functions in modern societies. It also includes the structure of the global recording industry whose main features may be traced back at the beginning of the 20th century. However, beyond the inner logic of the musical culture itself, the development of the global recording industry - by the end of the 20th century - is related and interacts with broader social processes and phenomena. According to this approach, the paper concludes that globalization cannot be the result of subjective choices and decisions, contrasting some of the arguments found in the local and international literature. At the same time, the paper argues that the current form or type of globalization is not the only one possible, based on the assumption that there are several other choices and possibilities for alternative forms or types of globalization, open to the social actors.