Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week Seven

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week Seven: Audiences, Consumption & Resistance

In our final week of Radio and Popular Music theory readings, we furthered the understandings of audiences that we have already considered by acknowledging the idea of different kinds of consumption, how consumption is used and resistance to conventional consumption. To aid this learning, the readings we studied were “Take Those Old Records Off The Shelf: Youth and Music Consumption in the Modern Age” by David Hayes and “From Analogue to Digital, From Pragmatism to Symbolism – The Cassette Tape as a Hybrid Artefact in Contemporary Popular Music” from Iain Taylor.

Hayes work focuses on analysing the presence of vinyl records as a significant and common form of music consumption. Hayes main point that the intention of these young people actively choosing “seemingly regressive technology” (Hayes, 2006, pp.51) is to defy the industry’s intended, more current forms of consumption that is a lot more easily regulated and controlled. While similarly, Taylor’s piece is about the materialisation of cassette tapes and their function and role in music consumption, many industry evolutions of their origin. Taylor focuses on the idea of value and currency, both literal and perceived, and how innovative use of this music form redefines the understanding, image and usage of this previously straightforward form.

Both Taylor and Hayes use the methodology of interviews, both structured and semi-structured to gather their research, showing to be effective and useful in their almost ethnographic research. A positive aspect of Hayes work that I have found is his consideration of the issue from many different perspectives. Throughout the reading, he contemplates the effects and considerations of his topic in several different contexts, for example among youth audiences, as a collection, changes in the music industry and the human effects of postmodernism and nostalgia. Considering the topic from such a wide range of perspectives means he is able to give an accurate, non-biased account that would be open to fewer queries. A positive aspect of Taylor’s work that I found was the incorporation of some of the format and structure of a historiography - this being effective due to the topics link with past events and cultures, as well as giving Taylor the opportunity to draw upon these historical events when discussing his finding from his interviews.

If I were to focus a study on audiences, consumption and resistance, based on inspiration from these readings, I would do a comparative study into the audiences of two binary opposite genres, and consider the similarities and differences in their consumption habits, possible explanations for this, and the effects it has on the production of the music, audience enjoyment and political economy practices.

References:

Hayes, D. (2006) "Take Those Old Records off the Shelt". Youth and Music Consumption in the Postmodern Age. Popular Music and Society, 29:1, pp.51-68

Taylor, I. (2015) From Analogue to Digital, From Pragmatism to Symbolism - The Cassette Tape is a Hybrid in Contemporary Popular Music. Conference Paper presented at the Westminster Goldsmiths Symposium for Research in Popular Music, University of Westminster, 24th June

Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week Six

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week Six: Conceptualising The Audience

The concept we analysed this week was audiences – with a focus on fandoms and subcultures. To be able to further my understanding I completed two readings; the first being “Subculture Theory: A Historical and Contemporary Assessment of the Concept for Understanding Deviance” by Shane Blackman, with the second being “Locating the Punk Preppy: A Speculative Theory” by Daniel S Traber. Themes running throughout our lecture and the readings include questioning the role and meaning of fans and audiences, observations of how audiences engage with certain media and how fan systems and processes work in terms of subculture, ideologies and representations, discourse and hegemony.

The work of Blackman addresses the idea that, as subcultures are defined by aiming to disregard and oppose dominant mainstream ideologies and cultures, subcultures are also linked with the practices of deviance and rebellion – with a focus throughout the reading of a sociological stance. On the other hand, Traber address subcultures from yet another critical standpoint. He concentrates on the idea of subcultures being used by some solely to construct an exterior identity for oneself, without necessarily being the immersive, loyal and adoring fan that is often described as a necessity for being part of a subculture. He focuses on the idea of the punk subculture being used by some as a fashion, making people able to stay positioned on the lines in between certain subcultures.

A positive I found from Blackman’s work was that he explored many different arguments and ideas in relation to subcultures definition and role, doing this through extensive recollection and analysis of secondary research from a wide range of sources from different locations and eras. He rightly states that “It would be wrong to argue that there is a dominant explanation of subculture. Different theoretical concepts of subculture are in vogue in different settings and across societies” (Blackman, 2014, pp.508). Traber’s work also follows these advantageous conventions although, in my opinion, goes further to assess his ideas and issues in wider contexts in the real world – for example, where he has mentioned “how ‘revolutions’ like the civil rights and feminist movements benefited from alliances with middle-class, non-extremist support” (Traber, 2008, pp.504) – relating to his point of people only being partially immersive in subcultures and participating in both the mainstream and the subculture.

With inspiration from my readings, if I were to undertake an investigation into audiences, fandoms and subcultures, I would focus my work on the effects being a long-term member of a controversial subculture has on a person as they age. For example, I may do an audience study using ethnographic research into people in an older generation that are fans of punk or metal music and what effects their belonging in a controversial subculture has had on their treatment in and attitude towards society as they have aged, and if this has changed their thoughts about their subculture – maybe also including some historiographical research also.

References:

Blackman, S. (2014) "Subculture Theory: An Historical and Contemporary Assessment of the Concept for Understanding Deviance" in Deviant Behaviour, Vol. 35 (6), pp.496-512

Traber, D. S. (2008), Locating the Punk Preppy (A Speculative Theory). The Journal of Popular Culture, 41: pp.488-508. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2008.00532.x

Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week Five

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week Five: Representations on Radio – Discourse and Power

While exploring the topic of representation in radio and popular music, I studied two readings – Frith & McRobbie’s ‘Rock & Sexuality’ and Belle’s ‘From Jay-Z to Dead Prez: Examining Representations of Black Masculinity in Mainstream Versus Underground Hip-Hop Music’. Frith and McRobbie’s work looks at how the representations of sexuality in rock music are affecting how feelings regarding sexuality are perceived and understood, and how this differs due to the artists and audience’s gender and their position of power. Belle’s article compares the ideals of different demographics and psychographics in regards to the definition of a masculine image, as well as how this representation differs in different scenes and cultures, for example, underground and mainstream, and looks into the discourses in their musical texts and how they parallel and affect their representation of masculinity. Both of the readings reflect upon their findings to describe how the discourse and accompanying representation has led to positions of power and success and why, as well as how the artist's stance on a topic or ideal is understood through the musical elements/discourse.

An interesting point of Frith and McRobbie’s work is looking at the integration of expression and control – saying they are “simultaneous aspects of the way rock works; the problem is to explain how rock gives ideological shape to its sexual representations” (Frith & McRobbie, 1990, pp.373). I agree with their idea of the different aspects working symbiotically, and considers the audience, the audience's demographics and how it communicates with them, as well as just the artists point. Belle furthers this with another interesting consideration – how the record labels and political economy affect how something is represented, saying “without white entrepreneurial involvement, hip-hop culture wouldn’t have survived its first decade” (Belle, 2014, pp.291). Although I hadn’t considered this aspect before, I also agree with her points regarding industry and political economy, as its involvement is essential to the production, distribution and consumption of music texts, and therefore the communication of the representations. Personally, I think Belle’s work may be more effective due to the consideration of more aspects of the industry.

Inspiration I have gained from these readings regarding my own research into representation in popular music includes looking into how different representations affect each other, how a certain representation have changed over time and what has effected these changes, and how representations in popular music has affected audiences, both fitting the style and ideal represented and not, and their response to this. By recording interviews, I would conduct an audience study into representations in regards to femininity – looking at popular music texts through different eras and genres and how audiences are affected by their representations.

References:

Frith, S & McRobbie, A (1990). 'Rock & Sexuality'. In: Simon Frith & Andrew Goodwin (ed), On Record:Rock, Pop & the Written Word. 1st ed. UK: Pantheon Books (pp. 371-389)

Belle, C. (2014). From Jay-Z to Dead Prez. Journal of Black Studies Vol 45, Issue 4, pp. 287-300)

Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week Four

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week Four: Popular Music Genres and Narratives

During this week’s lecture, we explored the concept of genre in relation to the music industries. We discussed it as a form of categorising and controlling music, and with that, it’s listeners/fans, attitude and style, how they interrelate and the codes, conventions, contexts and narratives within genres. The first reading attempts to use genre to further develop and understand how meaning can be constructed in popular music (Wall, 2003, pp. 180). On the other hand, the second reading, from Silver, Lee and Childless, challenges the idea that genre is becoming less important, and investigates the complexity of genre and sub-genre structures. Both of these arguments related to music genre were discussed in our lecture, so it is particularly interesting to see which of the readings is most convincing, or if there may be a way that both of these concepts could be correct, and in fact complement each other and work symbiotically.

I agree with a point made Wall’s work that music material is now less able to be categorised into genres for the practice of following musical or stylistic conventions but instead, a genre's main purpose now is for producers to target specific audiences/cultures and for these consumers to then receive it due to the expectations of the encoded genre (Wall, 2003, pp.181). Then the second reading furthers this point by explaining that genres are not just made up of musical components – and even though the non-musical aspects of a genre can be shared with other genres and subgenres that may slightly relate in some way, these aspects still need to be categorised and defined, as for ‘genre’ to exist, some form of expectation must accompany it (Silver, Lee & Childress, 2016, pp.3).

In reflection, I think that the work of Silver, Lee and Childress is the most effective and accurate in researching music genres and their role in the music industry. It allows for the idea of genres to be fluid and flexible, more so than Wall’s study and approaches the idea of genre from many different angles.

These readings have inspired me to challenge the importance and purpose of genre and how it is used in the music industry. If I were to conduct a study of music genres, I would focus it on collaborations of artists from different genres – challenging the expectations of their music and genre. I would research the effects of when artists that are considered significantly different, in both popularity terms and in genre and style terms, coact and produce music together – the reaction from followers of each of the participating genres and any changes to the codes, conventions and culture of the fans of the collaboration/original artists work.

References:

Wall, T, (2003). 'Genre'. In (ed), Studying Popular Music Culture. 1st ed. UK: Hodder & Stoughton Educational. pp. (179-188)

Silver D, Lee M, Childress, CC (2016) Genre Complexes in Popular Music. PLoS ONE 11(5): e0155471 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155471

Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week Three

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week Three: Political Economy

The topic in popular music concepts that we studied this week was the impact of political economy, with my related readings being “The Political Economy of Internet Music Radio” by Tim Wall and “From Independent to Corporate: A Political Economic Analysis of Rap Billboard Toppers” by Letrez Myer and Christine Kleck. Reoccurring ideas throughout our lecture and the readings include explanations of the role and implications of political economy, the constantly evolving dynamic effects that political economy has on editorial and broadcasting guidelines and on industry and participant functions and engagement.

My first reading from Wall is based on the introduction of internet radio, due to constantly evolving new and digital media. He analyses the political economy considerations of this, for example, the use of money and profit generation in this new radio format and the regulations to contemplate and scrutinise in regards to publicly available content, and reflects on, from a political economy stance, whether these new digital technologies are beneficial to the public. Meanwhile, my further reading from Myer and Kleck focusses on specific genres, hip-hop and rap, and, using an industry study of the successful music in these genres in the Billboard chart, examines the effects of institutional proprietors on the success of these genres, considering a comparison to independently produced music.

Although Wall’s work would now be considered outdated, I was reassured to see his acknowledgement of possible further developments in technology that may affect his arguments – often mentioning to possible capabilities of the technology, for example the “Internet’s potential for interactive texts” (Wall, 2004, pp.39) being the most significant difference from previous mass media. Another slight positive I found in Wall’s reading was his use of a table of numerical figures as one of his secondary research sources – generally showing a more accurate analysis (although considerations of reliability would still come into account, for example, the participants used, the source of the data and the calculation methods used). A main positive feature of Myer and Kleck’s reading was the recurring inclusion of their analysis and review of existing work, with their comments then inspiring a further development in their study – for instance “media owners involved in corporate mergers did not consider the implications of such agreements of corporate realignment” (Myer & Kleck, 2007, pp.140).

Based on my learning, if I were to study the topic of political economy in radio and popular music I would focus on how the political economy considerations and effects change throughout the growth of a company. I may do an industry study into a successful and long-running music festival, for example, Glastonbury, and consider what effects the growth and increase in popularity had on the organisations political economy practices, as well as taking into account historical and technological factors due to the differing time-periods.

References:

Wall, T, (2004). The Political Economy of Internet Radio. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media. 2 (1), pp. 27-44

Kleck, L. M. (2007). From Independent to Corporate: A Political Economic Analysis of Rap Billboards Toppers. Popular Music and Society, Volume 30, Issue 2: Record Charts, pp. 137-148.

Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week Two

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week Two: Regulation and Moral Panics

In lectures and personal study, we have been exploring regulation in the music industry and the idea of moral panics and their effects. The class reading was by Thornton; when examining regulation and the effects of moral panics in the music industry, she focuses on the effects they have on music fans and the popularity of the music piece. My second reading looks into the cycle of controversy, moral panics, regulation and rebellion and how it has been ingrained as part of the genre and counterculture to become one of its conventions.

For the focus of her work, Thornton incorporates two existing theoretical approaches to create her own new approach to this topic. She considers Dick Hebdige’s subcultural theory, the idea of marginalised groups form an identity resisting dominant norms and away from the mainstream (Thornton, 1994, pp.176), and Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital, the accumulation of knowledge about a certain topic, in this case, a music scene, that is used to influence and impact a certain culture (Thornton, 1994, pp.178). She then looks into how the media has a large effect the portrayal and success of a youth’s subculture – showing how negative press for a subculture can actually result in increased popularity within its niche youth, due to subcultures attracting a resistance against the mainstream, as well as how this can have a detrimental effect, as the more popular a subculture gets (even if it is through negative press) it reduces the threat of the culture or ‘moral panic’ to society and becomes more accepted – therefore against the intentions of the youth subculture.

The second reading reinforces the ideas of Thornton but instead using the case study of heavy metal. It gives an interesting perspective on the concept by applying it to audiences from different backgrounds. For example, it assesses how the ideologically dominant audience may perceive something (white, British/American, middle-class) as well as how people from more minority backgrounds – an example being ‘metalheads’ from middle-east countries such as Tunisia and Egypt, and the effect the moral panics and regulation had there, how the controversy caused through the subgenre and the music affected the fans, leading to some notable and significant involvement in  activist political activities.

If I were to conduct a study into regulation and moral panics, like the above two readings, I would take inspiration from Thornton’s idea of subcultural capital, as well as taking on board Hielm, Kahn-Harris and Levine’s direction of looking into a wide possibility of interpretations and uses of the moral panics and regulations. I may also challenge the idea that media reporting controversies or moral panics always leads to regulation or correction/prevention of the negative news, by researching examples where similar controversies have continued to reoccur, despite negative news coverage of them.

References:

Thornton, (1994). 'Moral Panic, The Media & British Rave Culture'. In: Andrew Ross & Tricia Rose (ed), Microphone Fiends, Youth Music & Youth Culture. 1st ed. London: Routledge. pp.(176-192).

Hielm, Titus; Kahn-Harris, Keith; Levine, Mark. 'Heavy Metal as Controversy and Counterculture'. In:Popular Music History, pp. 5-18, May 2012. 

Radio and Popular Music Reading Diary Assignment One - Week One

Assignment One - Reading Diary

Week One: Industries, Institutions & Histories

Both Frith’s work in ‘The Industrialisation of Music’ and Shingler and Wieringa’s in ‘Radio Time-Line: History at a Glance’ outline the developments in the music and radio industry and what factors impacted these changes. Frith focuses on how the economic state had the biggest influence on the record industry and how companies using technological change to adapt to make money was the main lead to the commercialisation of music. Shingler and Wieringa also consider the economic factors involved in radio’s history but focus more on the idea of democracy and the ideas fed through the industry, government and law. Both readings show the clear relationship with ‘power’ in the media and how and why it has changed, as well as what result this has on the consumers and the media produced.

Both pieces use the theoretical framework of political economy to centre their work around and use events to consider how the industry has changed. Frith focuses on 3 sub-areas of the music industry’s history: technological change, the economics of pop, and new music culture. Whereas Shingler and Wieringa recognise a wider range of themes that had implications on radio’s history: vision, ethics, democracy, dissidence, politicking, and various modes of communication. Although I think Frith’s options are valid and can be used to focus his research, in this case, I think Shingler and Wieringa’s research may seem more credible due to their wider range of considerations leading to more specific comments and conclusions on these themes. This may be because of each of their research and work backgrounds. For example, Shingler has been part of courses such as Art History and theoretical courses, whereas Frith is described as a sociomusicologist, so therefore naturally looks into the role of music in society – explaining their different approaches.

Frith’s work explains how the manufactured consumed records are now considered music rather than the natural original – he explains it is this final product that is used as a culture but needs to go through the industry processes to be used in that way. He then shows how this process is circular, by suggesting followers of the culture are inspired, and it is inspiration from following that created new music, and so the process continues. However, Shingler and Weiringa’s work has a very linear narrative, mainly due to it showing more solely industry effects, and therefore shows the history with different processes rather than repeated due to the inclusion of external effects.

If I were to conduct a similar historiography, I would choose to focus on a more specific topic, rather than the broad industry itself – for example, the history of a certain genre and the culture that accompanied it, possibly ‘Mods’ and events that happened that shaped both the culture and the music and how these intertwine and affect each other. I would present unbiased historical research that portrays an impartial view and reflects on many perspectives of the industry, as Frith, Shingler and Wieringa have. To conduct an accurate history I would show information from all areas available. 

References:

Frith, S, (1998). 'The industrialisation of Music'. In: (ed), Music for Pleasure: Essays in the Sociology of Pop. 1st ed. e.g. England: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Incorporated, pp.(11-23)

Shingler, M & Wieringa, C, (1998). 'Radiotime-line: History at a glance'. In: Martin Shingler & Cindy Wieringa (ed), On Air: Methods & Meanings of Radio. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. pp.(1-29)

NEC Events Week Live

On the 30th November and 1st and 2nd of December, I took part in NEC Events Week Live. It was an opportunity I was given through my University, and my Event and Exhibition Planning module - one at which I jumped at the chance of, in fact, as Event Planning is a great passion of mine, especially in recent years and months. The event that we based our learning and discussion on was Clothes Show Live, as it was in set-up stages for the first two days and the first day of the show was our final day of the Events Week.

I have some past experience in Events, mainly voluntary through organising my own fundraisers and concerts and Sixth Form events when I was Head Girl, and some through working in hospitality, where I've gained an insight into a really wide range of events - some of which witnessing has simultaneously frustrated me and made me more determined, as it was clear I so desperately want to be putting on events like them, rather than just serving the food!

These three days were based around giving the group of us from the University an insight into the work that goes into Event Management, the many different work roles and responsibilities there are involved in running events to the scale the NEC does, and helping us understand some practical logistics problems and how they're overcome. We learnt all about venue management and services, event organisation and also about contractors and how an event is built.

It was interesting seeing work from this large-scale production with so many years of knowledge and experience behind it and applying and comparing it to what I'd already learnt and experienced in the industry. I was also able to get a better idea of the different working roles available, and which I may be more suited to, and which I'd like to gain more knowledge in.

Being given this insight into the industry and what possibilities the future could hold, has increased my drive even more to work and achieve all I can!  It has also made me consider becoming Event and Exhibition Industries specialist on my course, instead of a broad course Media and Communications, as I am so certain this is the industry I want to be working in the future, it feels like it makes sense to specialise in that field.