Moon-Kyung (1)

"MUSIC AGAINST POVERTY" (MAP) is a project that was held in February, for the poor children and families of Africa (especially Ghana). Both African and International Artist came to perform for the African people, to get sponsor and donations from people all around the world. Most of the performances were recorded and uploaded in YouTube. The songs that I’ve heard in the performance videos weren’t related to ‘poverty’, though there also were some songs directly talking about poverty, in some sections of the advertisement video.
Generally this isn't a specific song or piece that talks about poverty, but the fact that 'music' is used to promote a campaign for the poor in Africa shows us how music can be used to make a broader statement (out of just its words and melodies), as a form of culture and a social connector. Music makes people act by not just affecting them emotionally, but also by being a form of medium for consensus between music-lovers (this is something new that I’ve realized through this research). There is no specific bias in this campaign, because it isn’t voicing a statement of a specific person or a group, nor is it for a personal benefit. It is for the ‘poor’ people, who can be considered as a specific group that the campaign dedicates to, and we can say that it is biased in saying that the poor in Africa need help, rather than leaving them alone to survive on their own. But since such view is a worldly accepted notion, it’s rather meaningless to criticize it logically.
There also was a blog in MSN that is continuous of this campaign, with different artists that have joined to support and promote the website. This also shows that different artists that represent the music industry can be a motivation to their fans to also support what they support. This is a very indoctrinated, sometimes even a dangerous form of mass media that can lure the fans into doing something they don’t really want to, but it’s hard to say that it is biased because the fans have chosen which artists to follow and whether to follow or not by themselves without specific intentional persuasion, except for appealing with their music.

Promotion Video: http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=vgr0r_7QVBY
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