QUESTION 1 [40 MARKS] Read the following case study and answer the questions below Esme had been working in the music industry for a small and successful independent record and had witnessed many changes in the music industry. The most significant of which was the transition from selling cassettes, vinyl records and CDs at retail to selling digital music online. She had observed that the music industry had not taken much notice of the potential for marketing and distributing digital music online until Shawn Fanning developed his peer-to-peer (P2P) file trading application, Napster, in 1999. Esme had decided that she needed to understand why Napster was so popular and consumers so enthusiastic about sharing music online. She decided to download the Napster application and was surprised to find older songs that were no longer available at retail, previously unreleased recordings, alternative studio versions and bootleg recordings made at live concerts. While searching for and downloading music, Esme also began to interact with communities focused around their file trading activities. While the music industry viewed Napster and other P2P file trading applications with deep suspicion and focused on the issues of piracy and loss of royalties to shut them down, her interactions with P2P file traders provided her with significant insights into how the consumers relationship to music was changing. P2P file trading applications and other digital music technologies represented new meanings for music fans and distinct new channels for music marketing and distribution. As online music sharing became even more popular, Esme observed that both major and independent record labels continued to struggle with and resist the very technologies that were fundamentally redefining their industry. She was puzzled by this and wanted to develop a more consolidated understanding of the current state of the music industry and to gain in-depth knowledge of the potential that new technologies had for transforming the entire industry. Esme decided to undertake a literature review to grasp her field of investigation. Upon reviewing the literature, Esme arranged a meeting with her supervisor and outlined her realisation that managing in the cultural industries related less to producing products and more to creating, managing and maintaining the meaning or symbolic aspect of the product. She explained to him that her final project would focus on how traditional marketing departments in record labels could approach redefining their notions of music products while adapting to emerging digital music distribution channels. This would entail understanding how the process of symbol creation by record labels would need to be managed in order to adapt to the emergence of new symbols and potential meanings enabled by the development of new digital music technologies. Her supervisor responded by commenting that her research project sounded interesting and relevant. (a) After gathering a sufficient number of academic sources, Esme needs to go through each source before extracting patterns and making connections between common themes. Discuss why does she need to undertake such a process and how would she assess the suitability of the materials she is reading. [20 marks] (b) Research philosophy explains the researchers understanding and view of the world. Based on the case presented above, analyse and recommend which philosophical approach Esme would follow throughout her study. Support your response with relevant evidence from the case. [20 marks]