Mp3 as a Cultural artifact

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Dear Student,
Hi and thank you for using Brainmass. An artifact is an object, a tradition and a practice (so it can be tangible or intangible) that has been created or contrived by human beings which in turn provide an insight about the culture, beliefs and practices of its makers. Objects gathered through archaeological digs for example exemplify and tell a lot about the people that used them like their level of technology, their economy, their social practices, etc. Archaeologists and anthropologists can learn a lot from a single artifact and fill in knowledge gaps about the practices and way of life of a people that have left no records outside of the objects, for example, the lost Minoan Civilization that some historians and archaeologists say was the 'real' Atlantis.

The range of artifacts from the past to the present is manifold and all that you have to do is to choose one that you think best represents your own culture. I would actually venture suggesting virtual artifacts like Wikipedia (as it is rather popular and representative of the in-demand virtual information) or the Superbowl - representative of American sports and American love of spectator sports or computers as it is a symbol of the current information age (just as typewriters can symbolize the pre-analog period of information keeping). It is really up to you. I would suggest mp3s or digital music if you like as I am quite sure you are very familiar with it. You will have mp3s on your phone, on your iPod or any other mp3 player, on your computer or burned to a CD for your car radio. I would suggest the following outline:

1. Introduction - here discuss what your paper is about and introduce your cultural artifact; about 300 words.
2. A short history of your artifact - 300 words.
3. Mp3s and Music - relate the importance of mp3 to our love of music - what values and cultural elements does it reflect, present? 500 words.
4. Future of Artifact - what changes do you think will the mp3 undergo? Around 300 words.
5. Your references - following the APA format: Author, Year, Title, Publisher or Author, Year, Title, date accessed, URL.

If you are citing within the paper follow the (Author, Year) rule. Having suggested the mp3 as a virtual artifact, I will suggest using this very interesting article on the topic:

http://sterneworks.org/mp3.pdf

The sample narrative below follows the suggested outline above. If you have any questions just le time know via the feedback section. Good luck with your studies.

Sincerely,
OTA 105878/Xenia Jones

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The MP3 as a cultural artifact

The MP3 is a common format of digital music that just about everyone tuned in to the digital life uses. MP3 is an abbreviation of MPEG-2 Audio Layer III which is a patented digital audio encoding form ...