History 390 blog

Week 13 didn’t really have any new material since we were about to go on break, so we’re gonna talk about the conversation that came from week 14. The conversation was one where though it had elements that I knew about, I was able to learn a good amount about the early stages of regulation of the radio, and TV. First thing that I want to discuss was the re appropriation of the song The Watermelon man. It was interesting to hear the many different remixes, and covers of the song. I think all that shows is when a song sounds great, or elements of a song is great then people get inspired to use it. As was said in class music travels, and you can’t stop people from the way they want to vibe to something as people want to be free to create, and enjoy as they please. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it as I’ve said in a previous blog post, as long as they give credit where credit is due. I think even a shoutout is something. Of course some compensation money wise would be better for the original artist, but something credit wise is better than nothing, and trying to play it off as your original work. I’ve heard of The Watermelon man instrumental before, but I would’ve never known the great Duke Ellington was the originator. I don’t know the exact version I’ve heard before, it may have been the latin infused version by Mongo Santamaría, but I definitely didn’t know it was Duke Ellington’s song originally.

The early stages of regulation of radio, and TV was information that didn’t shock me, but was good to learn. I heard many times growing up about TV back in the early 70’s when my parents were kids, and for example how you had the major networks in NBC, ABC, and CBS, and then a couple others but there weren’t an abundance of channels until cable came onto the scene which of course happened in the 70’s as well. The government being able to regulate radio and TV is something that I also knew about, and it made sense the FCC did so not just anything would enter the bandwidth/airways. You had to comply with the so called fairness doctrine to broadcast under the FCC. The thing about that is the FCC can limit creativity if your product doesn’t fall under their guidelines. That’s why services such as Youtube, Netflix, and other streaming services are so important because they don’t have as many regulations (especially Youtube). I think it’s great that they provide videos, and programs that aren’t regulated by the government, and come off overall more genuine. Under the FCC, you can see some programs look as though they are trying to push an agenda whatever that might be. Overall it’s always interesting learning the history behind the services that we utilize today so often.