Krystyn Davis
Billy Middleton
2/10/10
I believe that in the article, “Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, Mash-Ups, and the Age of Composition”, the author, Philip A. Gunderson is writing to a very intellectual audience. This article was probably meant for readers whom were professors or well educated people because of the elaborate vocabulary used throughout the article.
The author wrote this article saying it was a review of The Grey Album when it turned out to be that he was also reporting information, describing how some things worked within the file sharing community and within the corporate community, and even lightly expressing his opinion on the whole copyright/file sharing topic. I think that he did all of these things to try and introduce mash-ups and file sharing to more intellectual men and women because everyday average Joes already know a lot about them and probably already do them. By introducing this and trying to persuade the intellectuals that mash-ups and file sharing are both okay things to do, he seems to be trying to start a revolution. If he can get the upper class to support those things then maybe a trickle down effect will occur.
In the article the author also uses different types of media to try to make his writing more powerful. He uses subheadings and an image to try and help get his point across to the audience. For example, the first subheading is The Forces of Production (pg. 1). The fact that “forces” is italicized could indicate a lot to the reader. In my opinion, seeing the word “forces” emphasized tells me that he probably thinks of production companies in a negative manner because he could be implying that they are forceful or too powerful for their own good. However, this method of using subheadings could have also been simply for organizational purposes.
Overall, I do agree with much of what the author is saying in his article. I think that even though mash-ups are going against copyright laws, they are very interesting and unique forms of music that should be able to be enjoyed by the public. I also think that big corporations are taking advantage of the copyright laws and that people who make mash-ups are somewhat putting them in their place by making them.
Krystyn, really interesting claims you're making. You could easily turn any of these topics into a good paper 2. Not too many people have focused on the design aspect of this paper, with the subheadings and use of italics. You could possibly write a paper addressing why he organized his article this way and why he chooses to stress the words he does. Your idea regarding why he chose to address the audience he does is really interesting. You could write a paper discussing how Gunderson addresses this intellectual audience and why he wants to get their support in starting the cultural revolution he wants to start. You have some really good ideas here.
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