“Music 1.0 is dead.” (Cohen, in Anderson 2008)

Not surprised by this statement? You shouldn’t be – the past decade has seen almost every imaginable media transition from one- to two-point-zero. Even Vegemite.

But what does this strange numerical suffix actually mean? What was ‘Music 1.0’, and how did it ‘die’?

Harold Innis (1972, in Angus 1998) suggests that in any given society, the dominant forms of communication media establish the limits of what is ‘experienceable’, and the manner in which it is experienced.

“[C]ivilization has been dominated at different stages by various media of communication such as clay, papyrus, parchment, and paper produced first from rags and then from wood. Each medium has its significance for the type of monopoly of knowledge which will be built and which will destroy the conditions suited to creative thought and be displaced by a new medium with its peculiar type of monopoly of knowledge.” (Innis 2004, p74)

Developments in media technology reconfigure the social arrangements of power and control over ‘knowledge’, which in turn reconfigures the way we understand that knowledge. Internetisation is an obvious example of the way communication technology itself can cause a complete revision of social hierarchy and interaction. To understand the implications of this on the music industry, we must look at the development of music publishing technologies which have challenged and reconfigured the existing social order.

MUSIC PUBLISHING HOUSES: THE BEGINNINGS OF AN INDUSTRY

The music industry was born in the early 16^th century with Gutenberg’s invention of movable type.  The piano was the centrepiece of every middle-class European home, and sheet music was the primary vehicle for disseminating music (Garofalo 1999, p319). Control over publishing technology was suddenly freed from the exclusive hold of the church, and placed into the hands of the entrepreneur (Sanjek 1988, cited in Garofalo 1999, p320). Publishing houses formed the new power centre of the industry and publishers began to make substantial incomes, for which they sought legal protection. The first conception of ‘intellectual property’ was born in 1710 with the Statute of Anne. The Statute sought to protect consumers by giving copyright an expiration date and creating a ‘public domain’ or ‘commons’ which was exempt from privatisation. However, royal sanctions were given to stationers’ guilds, granting an effective monopoly on publishing to the wealthy elite who had access to printing technology (Garofalo 1999, p320).

European publishing houses maintained an elitist control over the type of music they printed, favouring classical ‘art’ music from well-respected composers. In the United States, however, a different kind of industry emerged. Publishers chose to print popular works that were considered the collective property of ‘the commons’ rather than individual artists. The industry became rapidly centralised, as publishers congregated in a small area in New York known as Tin Pan Alley. Popularity, rather than high taste, became the keystone to success. Aggressive marketing and a formulaic ‘pop’ mentality became the driving force behind Tin Pan Alley’s “song factories” – traits which would frame commercial music culture for centuries to come (Garofalo 1999, p322).

SOUND RECORDING

The development of sound recording technology brought a whole new dimension to music publishing, accompanied by a shift in the monopoly of musical ‘knowledge’.  At the end of the 19^th century, Emile Berliner’s gramophone demonstrated the potential to make unlimited copies of a single master, prophesising the development of a mass-scale home entertainment market for recorded music (Garofalo 1999, p324). Inherent in the nature of industrialisation is an imbalance of power: those who own new technology also own – and thus control – what is produced and distributed to the public. The first major record companies were established as the industrial power centre for music publishing in the early 20^th century. These companies made exclusive deals with artists, in return for negotiated royalty payments.

Copyright needed to be redefined for the new recorded medium, which effectively divided ‘publishing’ into the separate functions of production and distribution. Legislation was needed to delegate who could claim royalty payments for each aspect of the music. Mechanical rights pertained to the different mechanical processes and physical parts involved in recording – owned by the studio. Performance rights gave record companies royalties for ‘public performance’ of the sound recording (rather than a live performance, as the name suggests) through jukeboxes and later, radio (Garofalo 1999, p327).  The concept of moral rights was born with the 1928 Berne Convention, granting the author “the right to be properly identified and guarded against any editing or other alteration of a work that would compromise its integrity”(Garofalo 1999, p328).

RADIO & RECORDS

“As is often the case in the music business, technological advances have a way of changing existing power relationships and influencing cultural choices” (Garofalo 1999, p329). The introduction of radio challenged the monopoly held by publishers over the dissemination of music. The medium had unprecedented power and reach over mass populations, and it quickly became clear that those with control over radio technology would have a unique influence over public taste. Commercial radio shows began to base their programming on audience responses, establishing a ‘listener-preference’ rating system. For the very first time, the power to determine public taste was conferred upon the consumer. The rapid commercialisation of music parallels Innis’ (2004, p78) reflection on the tabloidization of the newspaper:

“The newspaper was made responsive to the market. The business office occupied a dominant position. News became a commodity…”

Post-WW2 industrialisation saw rapid advances in technology:  the most significant being the microgroove long-play (LP) record. These records provided excellent sound quality in a form that was light and durable, and therefore could be shipped faster and more cheaply than ever before. “Records became not only the staple of all radio programming but also the dominant product of the music industry as a whole, eclipsing sheet music as the dominant medium for music.” (Garofalo 1999, p336)

Radio stations developed a reciprocal arrangement with record companies: cheap programming in return for cheap promotion (Garofalo 1999, p336). Multinational media conglomerates began to buy out both radio stations and record labels, creating a corporate monopoly over music production and distribution. The industry became dictated by a formula mentality which attempted to mimic what was popular and commercially successful. This signalled the end of ‘David and Goliath’ stories in which small independent labels challenged the majors for market share (Garofalo 1999, p338). The sheer power and size of the major labels meant that they could simply step in and “acquire a controlling interest” in any promising independents, who were doomed to become “part of the same corporate web”(Garofalo 1999, p338-339). The ‘elitist’ values of musicianship and artfulness which had dominated the original European publishing houses now existed only on the outermost fringes of popular circulation.

CASSETTE TAPES and SUPERSTARS

The mid-1980s saw the introduction of cassette-tape technology: a new medium which was not only portable and affordable, but recordable. Access to production, duplication and dissemination was suddenly opened up to the amateur, ripped from the hands of the corporate monopoly (Azenha 2006, par.17).  Unsurprisingly, copyright was once again called upon to redefine the ownership of music. This was no longer simply a professional battle between the creators, recorders and distributors of music. Copyright legislation now had to deal with duplicators who could circumvent royalties and the acknowledgment of creative property. The Athens Agreement 1989 was the start of a continuous battle against piracy, which in itself is a symbol of the monopoly of knowledge slipping out of corporate control.

For music, this could have the positive effect of “new voices and new musics [which] will find new avenues for expression” (Azenha 2006, par.118).  However, instead of embracing this opportunity, record companies continued to restrict access to professional production, slipping into a “superstar” formula. Advertising became institutionalised as a revenue source, so much that artists were no longer selected on musical talents but rather their commercial possibilities as a ‘revenue stream’ – a modern marketing tactic which utilises cross-media campaigns to flog a small number of ‘blockbuster’ artists. This exclusivist strategy helped corporations to maintain their monopoly on music publishing, but technology was pushing boundaries that would soon go beyond their reach.

TEH INTERNET, LOLZ

Advances in publishing technologies have increased consumer access to music “production, duplication and dissemination” and threatened to decentralise the industry (Garofalo 1999, p342). Up until the last two decades, major record companies have managed to maintain their control over the music industry by forming multi-national conglomerates. They effectively owned every step in the music publishing process, creating a seemingly unbreakable ‘monopoly of knowledge’.

“The specialised, professional world of mainstream media production places a premium on technical finish and excludes the unskilled and the underconfident.” (Hesmondhalgh 1997, p256).

The internet provides an alternative:  a production and distribution system that operates entirely independently, and links artists – signed or unsigned – directly with listeners. Sophisticated music-creation software is now available on inexpensive home computers, and a vast number of websites allow musicians to upload and promote their recordings to a global audience (Holzman 2009). In a purely digital market, the cost of production is minimal, and there are no warehousing or shipping costs because there is no physical product (Richardson & Hayslett, 2007). Macquarie University researchers (Young & Collins 2010) have defined this new phenomenon as Music 2.0, which: “points to a flattening of hierarchies, a disintermediation of traditional arrangements and promising a direct connection between musician and audience.”

COPYRIGHT VS THE COMMONS

Copyright has been turned on its head for a number of reasons. The concept of ‘intellectual property’ is inherently at odds with the basic concept of the internet: a free and accessible public domain of shared creativity and knowledge. As Lawrence Lessig has put it, the internet is itself a “commons”: a space where content is “open for anyone to see… and to steal, and to use as one wants” (Lessig 1999, p3). This system has the power to drastically undercut the monopoly of major record companies over creative property and the royalties associated with it.

According to Innis (2004, p92), legislation is inherently unable to keep pace with human discovery, invention and the quest for wealth. Copyright laws based on 18^th century conceptions of media and society do not translate to the internet age. Major labels have attempted to protect their monopoly by placing heavy restrictions on online streaming and file-sharing. Despite claiming to ‘protect’ music and musicians from piracy, these measures have been labelled inoperable and out of place in the new mediascape (Higgins et. al. 2008). Rather than creating “an environment in which a vast number of creative individuals earn an income thanks to financial incentives”, it provides “substantial flows of income to administrative organisations with no creative function” (Dolfsma 2005).

Legislation has thus become “a mere surface-stratum, having under it an ever-changing assemblage of contractual rules with which it rarely interferes except to compel compliance with a few fundamental principles, or unless it be called in to punish the violation of good faith” (Innis 2004, p93). The effect has been widespread consumer indifference to copyright. Music 2.0 has exposed major flaws in the core philosophy of our present copyright system – the ‘fundamental principles’ and ‘good faith’ upon which it is based. Internet technology has reconfigured society’s relationship with music, and the concepts of power and authorial rights must be reconfigured accordingly.

IN CONCLUSION

Media, whilst related to technology, are much more than technology: they are “the social relations within which a technology develops and which are re-arranged around it. A medium is thus a mode of social organization, defined not by its output or production but by the relations obtaining within it” (Angus 1998). The changing media through which music has been published and disseminated have shaped society’s understanding of the ‘knowledge’ that is music.

The term ‘Music 1.0’ only exists because of ‘Music 2.0’ – a revision of an industry so complete that it requires an entirely separate title. The internet has revolutionised modern media, and it remains to be seen whether Innis’ (2004) concept of ‘monopolies of knowledge’ will continue to play out in this new mediascape. The concepts of intellectual property and commercial ‘ownership’ are deeply ingrained in modern psyche; we are still a long way from music becoming a ’commons’ which is shared freely and unexclusively within the public domain. What Music 2.0 will entail remains to be seen – the only certainty is that won’t look much like the music business of the last several decades (Anderson 2008).

REFERENCES

Anderson, N. 2008, ‘Music exec: “Music 1.0 is dead”’, Ars Technica, 26 February 2008. Retrieved June 1, 2010 from http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/02/music-exec-music-1-0-is-dead.ars

Angus, I. 1998, ‘The materiality of expression: Harold Innis’ communication theory and the discursive turn in the human sciences’, Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 23, No. 1. Retrieved June 4, 2010, from http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1020/926

Azenha, G. 2006, ‘The Internet and the decentralisation of the popular music industry: critical reflections on technology, concentration and diversification’, Radical Musicology, Vol. 1, 125 pars. Retrieved June 4, 2010, from http://www.radical-musicology.org.uk

Dolfsma, W. 2005, ‘How will the music industry weather the globalization storm?’, First Monday, Special Issue #1: Music and the internet, 4 July2005. Retrieved June 3, 2010 from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/1461/1376

Garofolo, R. 1999, ‘From music publishing to MP3: music and industry in the twentieth century’, American Music, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Autumn), pp. 318-354

Hesmondalgh D. 1997, ‘Post-punk’s attempt to democratise the music industry: the success and failure of Rough Trade’, Popular Music, Vol. 16, No. 3, (October), pp.255-274.

Higgins, G., Wolfe, S., & Marcum, C. 2008, ‘Music piracy and neutralization: a preliminary trajectory analysis from short-term longitudinal data’, International Journal of Cyber Criminology, Vol. 2, Issue 2 (July-December), pp.324–336

Holzman, K. 2009, ‘Changes in the music industry’, MusicBizAcademy.com, June 2009. Retrieved  June 1, 2010 from http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/kh_changes.htm

Innis, H. 2004, ‘The Press: A neglected factor in the economic history of the twentieth century’, in Changing Concepts of Time, Rowman & Littlefield, USA, pp. 73-104

Lessig, L. 1999, ‘Code and the commons’, Media Convergence conference at Fordham Law School, New York, February 9, 1999. Retrieved on June 5, 2010 from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/works/lessig/Fordham.pdf

Richardson, N. & Hayslett, C. 2007, ‘The rise of independent music: indie labels maximize control’, Black Enterprise, December 2007. Retrieved on June 1, 2010 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_5_38/ai_n24219213/

Young, S. & Collins, S. 2008, ‘What is Music 2.0?’, Music 2.0. Retrieved on June 5, 2010, from http://musictwopointzero.net.au/index.php

Image from iStockphoto via musolife.com

“Music can save people, but it can`t in the commercial way it`s being used. It`s just too much. It`s pollution.”

“Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you ALIVE.”

“I’d rather be dead than cool.”

Dylan, Vicious, Cobain… all of them began as a part of some kind of underground movement, intent on overturning the status quo and putting something real into the increasingly synthetic world of mass media. Now, almost every person in this room recognizes their face as a celebrity, a symbol of an era that has been pigeon-holed and co-opted into what “popular culture” thinks it should be.

Ever since mass entertainment began to skyrocket in the 1950s and ‘60s, independent musicians like these guys have been locked in a constant struggle against the number one arch-enemy: MAINSTREAM. Major record labels held such sheer power that the independents were invariably lost somewhere in the shadows of the top 40 charts, or otherwise preyed upon by major labels: dooming them to 1% profits and an image dictated by the status quo.

Such is the dilemma that faces underground musicians: without mass media you are nothing but background noise, but with it you become an emblem of whatever the masses construe your values to be. Though the specifics did vary, these guys all had a message that was fundamentally about being real, being individual, and standing up for the outcasts in popular culture.

These days, that message sounds a little tired and overused to the point of satire – we’re keeping it real, man, it’s all about the music – and that seems to the inevitable result of allowing the media to help you voice your cause. This is not to say that these guys weren’t in any way revolutionary, or failed in their attempts to change the way society thought. What it comes down to is the idea of the “sell-out”, the shameless promotion and commercialization of ideas that begun as a grassroots philosophy but ended up as synthetic media nostalgia.

So can there only be two options for artists: to remain fledgling independent acts restricted to small local scenes, or to sell out and go mainstream, forfeiting their values for a major record release?

Maybe in the 70s, but the digital generation is launching yet another offensive against the mainstream: a DIY revolution that is creating huge waves in the previously calm, controlled waters of the record industry. Armed with little more than an internet connection, artists are able to record, upload, share and promote their music online – entirely free, entirely independent. Download GarageBand to record your song, upload it to your Myspace Music page, film your own gigs in your bedroom and upload them to YouTube, and spam thousands of Facebook groups, Twitter followers and music blogsites… bam, an international audience is at your feet. The internet has been dynamite for the indie music scene – but is this the ‘real deal’ that dedicated musos have been fighting for for generations? Or are we in fact facing another dilemma, what Tim Walker at The Independent refers to as “the globalisation of hip”?

The independent “indie” music scene has indeed become synonymous with musical elitism and a cooler-than-thou attitude. The growing indie crowd are developing an identity based on avoiding ‘mainstream’ like the plague, regardless of musical talent. To quote the infallible Urban Dictionary: “Indie kids get off on listening to music that nobody has heard of. (Often times, it is some random crap they found on myspace) If they tell you their favorite band, and you have heard of it, they have failed as an indie kid…. Avoid them, unless you’re ready to be ripped to mental shreds for liking Beyonce.”

But like it or not, a cultural revolution has begun. What the user-generated mediasphere will do for the fate of independent music remains to be seen. Will the internet emancipate true musical talent from the historical suppression of major record labels? Or are we merely allowing some strange form of vertigo to blinker us from what good music really is? Has this allergy to mainstream, cultivated by so many inspiring non-conformists like Dylan and Cobain, actually taken us further from the pursuit of real, unadulterated music? Like Lester Bangs tells young William in Almost Famous, it’s an industry of cool. The times they are a changing… but, be it Britney Spears, Bright Eyes, or your brother’s best rendition of ‘Wonderwall’, there is still music being made, shared and appreciated around the globe.
And according to Jack Kerouac, the only truth is music. (awww.)

LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT:

“DIY and Indie: record labels, options, benefits and disadvantages”

 Recording Industry vs. The People (blog) 

Indie Music – Cracked.com

How to be an Indie without Knowing Independent Music
 

FINDING INDEPENDENT MUSIC ONLINE:

The Hype Machine (links to hundreds of music blogs)

Triple J Unearthed 

Myspace Music 

AltSounds: Independent Music Journalism

Drum Media (free publication from most big music retailers)

I am procrastinating. I read the headlines, take in the photo, and move on… occasionally glancing at the clock as it creeps closer to 4pm. This is what these websites are designed for – news.com.au wants me to get sucked in by the pretty pictures and flashy captions. And if, in my procrastination, that’s as far as I’m going to read, then the interplay between the image and the text is crucial to my understanding of these stories.

In her paper, Mary Macken-Horarik (God bless double-barrel last names) calls for more sophisticated analysis of this relation between the verbiage and the visual. She refers specifically to reports on asylum-seekers and the implications of the ‘Children Overboard’ affair. Recognising the increasingly ‘multimodal’ nature of modern news, she studies the ways that text and image create meaning – independently and interdependently.

Macken-Horarik uses 3 categories to analyse representations in news texts. The first is genericisation-specification: whether the main actors are referred to as identifiable individuals or members of generalised groups. In terms of verbiage (definitely word of the week), generalisations are constructed through the use of plural and collective nouns. These tend to symbolically remove the actor from our sheltered little worlds, allowing them to be more easily demonised or dehumanised. The visual can back this up by using an image to typify a certain group, rather than focussing on the individual. Take a look at the NRL stories of late. You’ll most likely find the most damning articles come with a picture of the burly players practising scrums mid-training, with a headline pertaining to “NRL players” or “league boys” as a generic group. Those trying to resuscitate Matthew Johns’ career feature close-up shots of him looking sheepish and sorry, referring to “Matty” like he’s our big brother.

Categorisation is M-H’s next tool: looking at what societal groups the actors are pigeon-holed into. Defining someone in terms of their occupation or role – functionalisation, as van Leeuwen calls it – can help build a perception of that person’s morality and values. I could refer to my dad as a lawyer, a public servant, an amateur cricketer, or simply my dad. Each one carries its own implicit values, according to the audience’s view of these different roles. News images often use ‘cultural categorisation’ to construct these stereotypes -  police uniforms and rugby jerseys carry implicit meanings about the wearer without needing to say a word. However, the interplay between these images and the accompanying verbiage can drastically alter or enhance the meaning of the whole text – so, as Macken-Horarik presses, it’s important to study both in conjunction.

Lastly, M-H looks at role allocation – whether a story’s participants are ‘agents’, doing the doing, or ‘patients’, to whom the doing is being done. What side of the doing line you stand on can change your percieved role dramatically: “representations can reallocate roles, rearrange the social relations between the partipants” (van Leeuwen, cited in Macken-Horarik p11). Reports on sexual assault allegations are a clear example. A woman can be portrayed as a victim or a provocateur, a man can be a monster, a mental case, or a victim himself. Images again play a part in constructing this role – Paris Hilton is always a perfect picture of class and glamour during Fashion Week, but when the DUIs come out she’s suddenly falling out of limos with her skirt up to her waist.

Flicking back to the Daily Telgraph site, I have just found that for some unfathomable reason, poor Kylie Labouchardiere just got replaced by the derriere of George Clooney’s new squeeze. News changes fast in this modern media world. I give in to the urge to rewatch chk chk Clare one last time… wondering what complex analysis will we soon need to apply to stories that utilise video, audio, visual AND my much-loved verbiage?

Kidding, I just want to watch her say OI BRO, you slept with ma cousin aye…

Reference:
Macken-Horarik, M. “The children overboard affair” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26.2 (2003) pg 1-16.

To beard or not to beard: it’s all a matter of respect. Beth Dalgleish reports.

..

“THE male beard communicates an heroic image of the independent, sturdy and resourceful pioneer, ready, willing and able to do manly things.” Psychologist, Robert J. Pellegrini, made this observation in 1973; and in our modern material world, not much has changed. Harry Domanski can certainly vouch for that. The eighteen-year-old Elanora resident has spent the last four years on the receiving end of humanity’s mysterious infatuation with facial hair. His impressive, thick blonde growth has attracted a cult-like following: it’s iconic masculinity achieving a level of respect usually reserved for men far beyond his years.

However, the bravado associated with the beard is startlingly incongruent with the man behind it. A self-confessed introvert, Harry always met flattery with a reserved humility that often bewildered admirers as much as the beard itself. The respect attracted by his impressive exterior was always quickly sidelined by a deeper respect for his down-to-earth personality. Evidently, Harry’s fondest memory of the beard is not one of power or triumph: “It’s a toss-up between putting as many cicada shells in it as we could find, and putting as many pens in it as we could find. (Ending up with 15 pens and a highlighter.)”
Recently, however, friends and fans alike were shocked by Harry’s sudden decision to ditch the infamous beard. He explains the act as a kind of “social experiment… more or less to see if it would make that much of a difference to how people treated and respected me.” It is, undoubtedly, a shallow world: integrity can be measured by the hair on a man’s chin. Having lived with the status of the ‘big man with the beard’ for 4 years, Harry’s moral fibres called out for a change. Admitting he will miss the instant status his beard demanded on first impression, Harry says he disagrees with the “principle vanity” behind it.

“I’m still trialling it to see if people I meet regard me in any different way than they would with the beard. Respect is a very powerful thing, but is easily cheapened when you, yourself are getting it so cheaply… [respect] should be a thing earned, and not judged off the most whimsical of glances.”

So what has been the result of the Domanski social experiment? “With people that know me, even in the slightest… personal interaction and general treatment has remained much the same.. whereas strangers seem to fear me much less. I’m guessing that implies a more approachable person. Seems a little shallow, but it’s all a part of initial perception.”

Pellegrini postulated that, “inside every clean-shaven man there is a beard screaming to be let out”. In Harry’s case, however, it is the man behind the beard that is seeking triumph over the one-dimensional stereotype that confined him. The man of substance is fighting back – but will he hold his own in the material world of goatees and sideburns? Only time will tell…

So! Where on earth am I going with this long-winded and seemingly irrelevant anecdote??

..Signs.
Not the Mel Gibson alien movie, but Saussure’s linguistic study of semiology: the science of signs and their role in creating meaning in everyday culture. As an example, Saussure would have analysed my tshirt by dividing it into signifier (the physical tshirt with its screen-printed image), signified (the concept evoked by the tshirt) and sign (the combination of the two). Evidently, what it signified by a signifier is heavily dependant on the context of the sign. Worn in my local coffee shop, my tshirt signifies a popular – to the point of obscene overuse – image of an heroic historical figure. Worn in the streets of Noumea, it signifies dedication to a violent racial revolution. These differences are explored in the chapter by Schirato & Yell. They explain that the reading and interpretation of such signs is an ideological process; usually entailing negotiation, disagreement or conflict en route to establishing a certain ‘meaning’.

Saussure believed that meaning is relational, thus it depends upon the way ‘signifiers’ are understood in different socio-cultural contexts. He argued that languages, as ‘semiotic systems’, are abstract entities to themselves, defined by a methodical set of rules and logics. Russian linguist, Volosinov, disagrees (in true Marxist fashion). Volosinov believed that language is a messy social construct in a state of constant change and renegotiation – rather than Saussure’s idyllic meaning-making machine. The contextual relevance of words as signs means that “there are as many meanings of a word as there are contexts of its usage” (Volosinov 1986, quoted in Schirato & Yell pg 26).

[For example, my friends have adopted the verb, 'fang', and subsequently stretched its meaning to disturbing degrees. Very few care that it's initial meaning referred to the speed of Fangio the F1 driver - because 'fang it' no longer just means put the pedal to the floor. Can you fang me a glass, let's fang a coffee, I'm gonna fang it home... it's even developed a past-tense form, 'fung'. It's terribly bogan and I apologise to anyone who encounters a poor Northern Beaches soul who's been sucked into the craze.]

In terms of the media, the importance of semiotics comes with the construction of ‘politicised meanings’. As the chapter points out, there is an important relationship between a sign – be it a word, an image, a label – and the way that the subject is treated in its surrounding culture. This raises the issue of power: who controls the dominant interpretation of a sign? Of course in our modern world where media seeps from our pores, everything is a construction and everyone is fighting to get their own “real” meanings across. By discrediting and disassociating themselves from any alternatives and ‘naturalising’ the interpretation they present, media producers convince our subconscious minds that they are ‘correct’. Depending on where you are, the dominant reading of a sign might be completely different… KNKY sure ain’t kinky in New Cal.

Reference:
Schirato, T. and Yell, S. “Signs and Meaning.” Communication and Cultural Literacy: An Introduction. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2000, 18-33

Okayyy so, I’m not the Beatles. But I’m an ordinary member of the contemporary audience, meaning that I hold, by design, an inherent desire to perform and become involved in creation as well as consumption. Which brings me here, to the magical realm of blogs, where I can – to the most minor degree – become a ‘performer’ in the media world by publishing my thoughts. (It’s definitely not because I’m trying to pass a university Arts course.)

This is what Couldry percieves as the major shift that has taken place in audience behaviour in recent years: the line between performers and audiences is becoming increasingly hazy. With the proliferation of new media platforms that utilise digital technologies, audience members are now almost permanently connected to some form of media. This creates a ‘diffused audience’ (Abercrombie and Fitch, wait no. Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998). Rather than a ‘mass audience’ that relies on centralised media institutions, the diffused audience is highly mobile and individualised; and hell-bent on playing an interactive role in their media consumption. Thus, Couldry recommends a rethinking of traditional approaches to audience studies: to look beyond mere reception and response, and focus on the broader ‘media culture’ and the various roles within it. It is no longer enough to know that someone watches ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. It is now a question of whether they watch it live on free-to-air, or on pirate-streamed broadcasts on the internet, or podcasts from Channel 10′s website – downloaded and watched on an iPod on the bus… Audience dispersion requires a re-evaluation of spatial and temporal boundaries.

The changing nature of audiences has also called for a shift in power relations: in a media-drenched society, we have become around-the-clock audiences that absorb media texts almost subconsciously. This constant engagement with media has brought us closer to its production, as we are so familiar with watching performances and observing how they are constructed. The blurry line between producers and consumers poses a challenge to the ‘symbolic power’ of media institutions: its ‘capacity to intervene in the course of events, to influence the actions of others and indeed to create events, by means of the production and transmission of symbolic forms’ (Thompson 1995 – quoted in Couldry pg195). Couldry, however, postulates that institutional power may actually have been strengthened, rather than reduced:  the more deeply involved we become with media, the more important it may be to differentiate between ‘media performers’ and mere ‘audience members’.

Reality TV is an obvious example of the ease with which the ordinary person can break the boundary to ‘celebrity’. It is now quite plausible for your obese neighbour to be a well-known persona on the other side of Australia, or for your cousin’s backyard makeover to be the hot topic of conversation in a cafe. Thankyou Biggest Loser and Backyard Blitz. However, even with the rise of audience participation, we still distance ourselves from the ‘extraordinary’ worlds constructed by the media: exemplified by Couldry with the desire to visit TV sets as though they were tourist locations. I’ll admit to getting excited when my local beach makes an occasional appearance on Home and Away. You never know, I could be walking past with a coffee in the background… unknowingly trespassing on the magical pastures of Summer Bay…

Essentially, Couldry urges a re-evaluation of audience studies in adjustment with the new media world: no long a mass construct but a patchwork of individuals engaging with different media on different levels. End transmission… cue the red curtain.

Reference:
Couldry, Nick. “The Extended Audience” from Gillespie, M. (ed) Media Audiences, Open Uni Press, 2005, pg 184-196 & 210-220.

“The making of a good compilation is a very subtle art… many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so you’ve gotta coooool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules…”

Nick Hornby, High Fidelity. If you haven’t read it or seen the movie… well, just do it.

Compilation tapes, mix cds, iTunes playlists.. an evolution fuelled by technology’s advances, while remaining rooted in the core human desire for personalisation. The concept of the ‘playlist’ has existed in different forms for decades, expanding its programming capabilities into different media platforms. Playlists are now in the hands of the masses, no longer tied to broadcast schedules and regimented timetables. Rizzo (“look at me I’m Sanda Dee, lousy with virginity…” ahem.) looks at the implications this shift in power has for television, through case studies of Personal Digital Recorders (PDRs), YouTube and the iPod. She explores this through the concept of ‘flow’. No longer restricted to the one-way transmission of content through broadcast media, Deleuze and Guattari perceive flow as the connections between ‘machines’ – bodies, institutions and discourses. Interruptions and breaks in connection are essential for the functionality of any ‘flow’, defined by its own unique combination of connections and processes.

PDRs produce a spatial, rather than temporal, mode of viewing, where channels become places to visit at a time suitable to the individual. They allow users to create personal playlists of the shows they are interested in, effectively giving consumers power which was previously owned by television broadcast schedulers. In this way, viewers are said to behave less like pure ‘viewers’, and more like computer users – actively engaging in the structuring of their entertainment desires. The centrality of broadcast television, tied to the concept of passive consumption, is thus being challenged: viewers can select and organise shows into their own personal channels, to be played at their own convenience – and we can fast-forward through the ads! The “‘bargain’ whereby viewers watch commercials as well as programming” (Matt Carlson, pg111) is suddenly irrelevant. I can record the footy on Friday night, and re-schedule the kickoff to 8:30 so that I can have dinner first. I can fast-forward through the half-time ad-fest and dressing room pep talks, and by the time I’m halfway through the second game… I’ve caught up with live broadcast. Sweetness.

YouTube also breaks with the temporal viewing structure of broadcast television: allowing users to establish their own ‘DIY channel’, fine-tuned to their specific tastes. This exemplifies the shift in audience attitudes, as we now demand media democratisation and ‘co-participation in scheduling, timing, controlling, viewing and engaging with media and entertainment” (pg114). YouTube encourages users to become producers and sharers, creating an online social interface for connecting with others with similar tastes and interests. Unlike passive engagement with broadcast television, YouTube users must actively search, select, download and program their choices in order to create their own ‘flow’.

The iPod, with its codependent iTunes in tow, could be the modern-day compilation tape. However, in saying this, I’d like to make something clear here… I don’t have an iPod. I’ve never had one. I have a slightly lame tendency to become stubbornly non-conformist when it comes to anything with such mass-hype. I am religiously anti-Apple – it’s always going to be the Beatles label in my mind – I am the conformist non-conformist, for sure. I’ve gone through about 5 different mp3 players (I’m also really good at breaking things. And apparently water – from a plastic bottle or the ocean – does not mix with electronics) and in formatting my current one, I use Windows Media Player. So take that iTunes devotees. I am a bit of playlist geek, there’s probably about 50 on my WMP… ranging from “hibernation for the winter” to “songs about alcoholism”, “if i had a cafe..” to merely ”f*** you”. Trust me, its a good way to procrastinate.
Rizzo explains that this interface between iTunes and the iPod (or respective alternatives!) allows the user to create and direct a number of personalised “flows”. What the iPod represents is more than a music playback device. It is mobility, freedom, the chance to dance like a lunatic silouhette against a fluorescent background. Podcasts and online TV can be downloaded and stored, ready to whipped out in any situation. Screaming child next to you on the bus? Extremely boring university lecture? iPod to the rescue: these things can be blocked out and replaced with your own hand-picked library of audio and visual delights. Television, in these situations, is useless. You can’t lug a plasma onto the L90.

Essentially, Rizzo explains that the expanded role of the playlist as a composer of diverse, personal ‘flows’ is challenging the hegemonic, one-way ’flow’ of broadcast television. New technologies and media platforms have responded to audiences’ desire for control and personalisation.
I never have to stay home on a Friday night again. 

Reference:
Rizzo, Teresa. “Programming Your Own Channel: An Archaeology of the Playlist”. In Kenyon, Andrew, Ed. TV Futures: Digitial Television Policy in Australia. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2007, p108-134.

Essentially, Nightengale reveals that the process of digitisation is forcing traditional media to change its fundamental structures through a process described as disintermediation. Although the emergence of new media platforms is threatening the ‘old media’ in terms of audience share and revenue, this is not necessarily resulting in the collapse of traditional structures: but rather their expansion and integration into a wider modern ‘mediascape’. For example, newspapers are branching into the world wide web with online ‘enhancements’: polls and interactive content aimed specifically at Internet audiences. This ‘internetisation‘ of traditional media is met by corresponding ‘mediatisation‘ of cyberspace (Fortunati 2005): where the Internet is adapting itself to the roles of exisiting media and continuously reinventing and expanding their services. Hence, convergence is seen as a process that unifies media (cue interlocking of fingers..) whilst also promoting diversification.

The article explores the way media content is now often treated as though it were a brand, a commercial product. The increasing range of media platforms can be seen as a new marketing opportunity, building on the idea of transmedia storytelling: where content is spread across different media platforms, which create their own ‘franchised’ experience of what is offered by the ’brand’ as a whole package.

Take the example of .. deep breath .. Harry Potter. 
He started as another daggy protagonist in a fantasy series: he lived in the world of the novel, a world which is defined by its unique engagement with readers’ imagination and perception. Then the kid with the scar got famous, he apparated to the world of cinema: again defined by its own unique way of engaging viewers. Some elitist ‘book people’ boycotted the movie, as it meddled with the imaginary nature of the original medium. Some lazy ‘movie people’ watched the film but wouldn’t read the book, because a picture’s worth a thousand words – so a moving picture says it all, right? And of course, some people did both: finding the new medium an enhancement of their experience overall, revelling in the prospect that Daniel Radcliffe just might age handsomely, demanding even more from the series… and suddenly the HP fanatic was born. These people (you’re sure to know at least one) are the reason for ’Mystery at Hogwarts’ Cluedo, HP video games, online Quidditch tournaments, and, perhaps the most blasphemous, Harry Potter fan-fiction.

The diversification of the Hogwarts crew across media platforms is unsurprising – as Nightengale notes, Disney have been doing it for decades. However, the concept of fan-fiction presents an interesting new twist on the idea of ‘transmedia‘. Content is no longer defined by its initial producers; audiences are no longer interested in mere blind consumption. We are becoming activists, we want involvement and agency. In the case of Potterheads, they want an engagement with the story beyond what novels, films and games can provide. Fan-fiction allows them to be the characters, change their relationships, interact with the fictional world they belong to. A product of online communities, forums and blogs, the popularity of this phenomena is a clear example of what Nightengale calls audience activism. Such ‘brands’ of content have the power to build cult-like fan bases, which become their own self-sufficient communities who provide a permanent market platform of their own.

Not all ‘brands’ of content can gain such a huge fanatical audience as Mr Potter. But Nightengale’s article does reveal the potential for multi-platform media to be used in this way, posing drastic changes to our engagement with content. Maybe the Sydney Morning Herald should start taking tips from JK Rowling… who knows, before long we could be voting for alternative endings on Home and Away during the ad breaks, and taking our dates to the YouTube home-page rather than Hoyts..

Reference:
Nightengale, Virginia – “New Media Worlds? Challenges for Convergence.”
In Nightengale and Dwyer, eds. New Media Worlds: Challenges for Convergence. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press, 2007, p.19-36.

One of the examples Moores uses is an internet chatroom – where participants can create their own idealistic persona within a virtual world, regardless of who they may be in reality. Textual descriptions, images and layouts allow us to create our own personalised ‘space’ on the internet, which may bare no resemblance to our physical circumstance. Effectively, we are actively engaged in two places at once.

So what does this mean for our identity, both in reality and in our personal perceptions? Most of us are able to limit our absorption into ‘cyberspace’, drawing a strict line to ensure this world remains a sideshow to our real-life identity. However, there is potential here for a dangerous distortion of perceptions: what if our experience of ‘place’ becomes so abstracted that we can no longer distinguish between ‘theres’? … feeling a little schizophrenic yet?

The ‘shrinking’ of global space is positive in many ways, with media technology allowing us to feel socially close to people, places and cultures that are physically distant. Moores’ example of a phone conversation (a private, communicative ‘place’) on a train (a ‘place’ of physical, public reality) leads him to question “why is it.. that people continue to feel the need for corporeal travel?”
In my opinion, the inherent human desire to be physically ‘with’ other humans is fundamental in maintaining our true identities when faced with this ‘doubling of place’. Although we can keep in contact via SMS and Facebook, these pragmatic forms can’t recreate the true nature of face-to-face human interaction. There’s no sharing smiles, no tones of sarcasm or excitement, no thoughtful silences, no lingering eye-contact… the language of reality and of virtual, communicative spaces is vastly different. You don’t break up with someone on the phone, or send a text saying someone close to you has died… and as long as these kinds of essentially human ‘unwritten laws’ exist, the value of “real life” communication can live on.

Beth Dalgleish
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Reference:
Moores, S. – “The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time-Space Arrangements and Social Relationships“
In Couldry, N. and McCarthey, A. (Eds) – “MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age” London: Routledge, 2004, 21-37.

It is Scannell’s belief that this kind of consumption pattern represents the dailiness of broadcast media, as it divides every-day life into mediated structures. This seems to be an inevitable result of life in a media-saturated modern world, and broadcasters have mastered the art: the demographics and behaviour of audiences have been carefully studied, and content appropriately tailored to their appeal. In this way, the media articulates the ‘care-structures’ of the public: the way we respond to issues, people and events in everyday life. According to Scannell, news aims to “routinize eventfulness.. thereby historicizing dailiness” (p160). The scholar’s ability to incorporate the suffixes ‘-ize’ and ‘-ness’ into every word imaginable is a feat in itself. However, I can’t help feeling that Scannell may have over-romanticised the media’s power to shape how we feel and respond to the world around us.

Sport is a good example of a ritualised media event. The Friday-night footy is an unmissable part of the winter season in my family. Here it is the game that dictates the care-structure, whilst the media facilitates my engagement with it: transforming spatial and temporal boundaries to bring it right into my living room. Yet Scannell looks beyond real-life events, analysing the care-structures created by fictional dramas and soap-operas. Temporality is more complex here, as ‘time in the fictional world runs parallel with time in the actual world’ (p157). These shows are designed to be highly relatable representations of the ‘real world’, and Scannell rightly observes that viewers come to ‘know’ fictional characters in the same way we can know people in reality. The way we respond to the goings-on of their world is dictated by our care-structures: developed both from experiences in reality and in other fiction.

So yet again, I’ll bring it back to ‘Underbelly’. (I can’t help that I only tune into 2 programs at the moment!) Gratuitous violence and graphic sex scenes are now the common expectation on Monday night TV. People get obliterated by cricket bats and lose their hands & feet to axes – we barely flinch. Sure, its based on real events, but we know its a fictional construction aiming to shock and entertain.

Then we see the headlines about ‘Real-life Underbelly’ in the streets of Sydney. Gang violence is erupting, bikies are beaten to death in domestic terminals, fathers are shot dead around the corner from their family’s restaurant. …it’s just like on ‘Underbelly’. So how do we respond to this? What do our trusty care-structures conjure within us? News and entertainment are becoming so closely intertwined that sometimes its hard to tell what follows what. Broadcasting may indeed have freed the world and salvaged the true meaningfulness of everyday life. But every superhero knows that great power comes with great responsibility, and the power to shape social perceptions is no exception!

Beth Dalgleish
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Reference:
Scannell, P. “Dailiness” in ‘Radio, Television and Modern Life’
Blackwell, London, 1966, 122-178