Coming into this class, I was interested to see if we were going to be given more examples of what we have been learning throughout the year. Professor O’Malley began by saying that we don’t need to have a definitive conclusion for out final project, but that we should be able to create something on the level expected of college students. Then, he said that he was going to give us another example of music that crosses the boundaries. He illustrates this with “Watermelon Man” by Duke Ellington. It’s full of minstrel stereotypes, mainly of the fondness of watermelons. Ellington, who was born in 1899 in Washington DC, was a very educated man, making it quite strange for him to make this song. Herbie Hancock, another educated man, wrote his own variation of “Watermelon Man”. Mongo Santamaria, a Conga Player, made a national hit in his own “Watermelon Man”. They were all quite similar, but it’s interesting to see how they adapted the song through their own means.

We then listened to more examples of music that went across the boundaries, even some more interesting songs like “1-900-LLCOOLJ”, which was a bit old-school. All of these song involved “Crossing political and racial lines”, and discusses cultural heritage and who owns it. The re-use of styles is inevitably political and historical, and as Professor O’Malley notes that knowing the history of things makes it more interesting, and makes you more engaged.

We touched on the question of how society should handle the digital age and its history. The digital age makes more information free, but it also allows garbage to swarm unchecked. An example we are given is radio, which works like a recording as we speak into a microphone, where vibration of a diaphragm is transformed in voltage. In the 1920’s, radio was the tool of enthusiasts and technicians, usually veterans of the Navy Signal Corps in WW1. The radio would grow in influence throughout the United States, forming radio stations. Radio stations broadcast at a specific frequency within a range of possible frequencies. AM Radio goes from 535 kHz to 1.6 MHz, and human hearing range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Theses frequencies are limited, so the government forms Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate all of the radios. Broadcast channels are “scarce”, and the broadcast spectrum is considered a public resource.

Broadcast bandwidth is held to be a scarce public good, like land. It belongs to the public, therefore the government has a right and a duty to regulate it use. Because of this, you have to apply for the right make use of it, to have rights to a broadcast bandwidth. You have an obligation to serve the needs of the public, and the way to do so is left to the licensee’s discretion.

TV follows a similar pattern to radio, which began to appear in homes in the late 40s. It’s fascinating to hear how the regulation of radio and television is handled by the FCC. In most large cities, there were probably only six-ten TV channels available. ABC, NBC and CBS had four local stations to spread their channels and influence. Everyone is watching the same thing since there are only three choices for family viewing. People who got licenses to broadcast under the FCC had to comply with the “fairness doctrine”, much like with radio. These were never laws, they were FCC licensing requirements. It’s funny to hear what was considered obscene in the past, particularly with married couples having to sleep in separate beds in television. Television has to be restrained so that it could speak to everybody.

To avoid censorship, another doctrine was formed to give guidelines for television. They can’t show crimes or give bad guys sympathetic portrayals. It’s honestly amazing to see how television has advanced in terms of vulgarity and diversity in programs. Honestly, hearing all of this has made me pity how monotone the entertainment of the past was. We have so many different programs to enjoy that it makes the past seem dogmatic.

All of this is shifted in the 1970’s, where Cable TV has much fewer bandwidth restrictions, and Digital Cable TV in the 1990’s has virtually no bandwidth restrictions, so the reason for regulating is gone. Now there is no limit to the number of digital channels. This would eventually lead to a discussion about the regulation of the internet like YouTube. Honestly, I think that freedom of speech makes this a difficult subject, though some of the stupider people on the internet that we watched makes a compelling argument for regulation, though hopefully not on the level of the past.

All of this showed an interesting discussion that I don’t think we can answer at this time, but I don’t think it’s an issue we should ignore, considering that all of this can have dangerous consequences. There should be a regulation of content, but we need to be careful before it spirals out of control.