Week Ten - The Opportunities, Challenges and Implications of Fan Financing

A huge interest of mine through my experiences of fandoms is how important they are for a band/brand/media to continue to exist. Duffett explains this by claiming “they form a particularly stable market” and explaining the 80-20 rule (that the fans being the 20% of the audience, create 80% of the profits) (Duffett, 2014, p. 21). This shows the complexity of the challenges facing media when opting to fan finance, due to asking them to finance their own enjoyment, when they already do so so much.

I became a fan of Yashin after seeing the band as a support artist, and since then were planning on seeing them as headliners on their own tour. They created a fan-funding page for the release of their second album, with teasers of the tracks already recorded being made public, so that myself and other investors knew we would like the new music and want to make sure we could hear more. As I was only 14 years old at the time and only had cash funds rather than card to be able to pay online, I told my parents the money was for pre-ordering the album, and didn’t explain that if they didn’t get enough then it wouldn’t actually be released, as I knew they would not agree with the concept and therefore not let me use their card! Having little faith in ‘the system’, I knew they would be dubious about where the money may be going, much like Kustritz’s depiction of crowdfunding “creating ruptures of discontent within an otherwise hegemonic system of mutual consent” (Kustritz, 2015, p. 47). My interest in wanting to help fund the album was partially due to wanting to have the music released and hear the full version of the songs, and partially due to having an interest in them from such an early stage in their career, I was excited to be able to say to any new fans that I has helped create that. This links to Thornton’s idea of subcultural capital and using knowledge and experiences within your niche subcategory for capital gain, be it socially, experientially or monetary (Thornton, 1995).

Another type of fan financing that I think it is essential to consider, due to its notability and popularity on ever-growing social media platforms is fans as brand ambassadors. I would consider it a form of fan financing due to the business gaining free advertisement/publicity from fans. An example of this being reality TV star Kady McDermott launching a beauty brand and advertising on her Instagram account, where the vast majority of her fans are located, about wanting people to join the By Kady Ambassador Programme. She advertised perks such as being able to get products first, free products, working with her. While fans may have added passion as brand ambassadors, I feel it may be detrimental for the business-audience relationship for other fans, due to the added hierarchy of the fan brand ambassadors. The idea discussed by Gehring and Wittkower of those involved’s perception “that they are playing a crucial role in helping an artist” (Gehring & Wittkower, 2015, p. 69) supports this, with this level of importance being given to fans that are brand ambassadors. A friend of mine that also followed Kady, became a brand ambassador and tension/annoyance was cased due to them being a ‘fan’ still, but feeling in a position of power, like they were instead a ‘friend’ due to their interactions with Kady. I would argue that the added fan hierarchies and cultural capital created by fan-funded projects while being fine for larger brands/media, may be a downfall for smaller businesses/products due to the large fan hierarchies may intimidate or put off new fans.

Bibliography

Duffett, M. (2014). Introduction. In M. Duffett, Understanding Fandom (pp. 1-34). London: Bloomsbury.

Gehring, D., & Wittkower, D. E. (2015). On the Sale of Community in Crowdfunding: Questions of Power; Inclusion, and Value. In L. Bennet, B. Chin, & B. Jones, Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics & Digital Society (pp. 65-82). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

Kustritz, A. (2015). Exploiting Surplus Labours of Love: Narrating Ownership and Theft in Crowdfunding Controversies. In L. Bennett, B. Chin, & B. Jones, Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industried, Ethics & Digital Society (pp. 47-64). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

Thornton, S. (1995). Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Week Nine - Researching Digital Fandom

A contemporary digital fandom that I have participated in is Pokemon: Go – which will be my main case study for this blog, considering the effects and influences it has had, the positive aspects of its digital advancements for the audience, product and market, as well as their oppositional negatives. Pokemon: Go, released in the summer of 2016, is arguably one of the first popular and commonly used augmented reality games. It had 100 million downloads by August 2017, and had a revenue of $268 million (Dogtiev, 2018), showing the huge impact it had on the gaming market.

I have a rather mixed experience of Pokemon: Go. I embraced the new opportunities and enjoy the social experience of re-joining a fandom I used to be in, but was doubtful due to the technical issues and the binary implications these had to the social experience in the fandom, as well as being dubious regarding the competitive/addictive collecting aspect. Due to this mixed response, I enjoyed participating in Pokemon: Go, but while doing so did not allow myself to fully invest and commit to the game, instead using the opportunity to appreciate the older media from the fandom, due to being a fandom member before and then re-joining. This fits in with Penley’s observation regarding fan communities being “enthusiastic, yet thoughtfully cautious about the new Internet culture (Penley, 1997, p. 116).

Positives that I experienced being the social aspect of it: meeting up in a group to use the app, or conversation starters based on the app, due to, as stated above, its big impact on the market. Its release, for me, also led to a revival of the fandom, with both new and old fans getting involved with the franchise again. The Journal of Marketing assesses this in more detail, stating that brands should be “amenable to both technological and symbolic updates so as to ensure its perpetual relevance to consumers, who constantly revise their own identities” (Stephen Brown, 2003, p. 30).

Some negatives that I experienced with this new technology included the technological bugs that may occur on the App, sometimes meaning that you either would miss out on small aspects of the game, or couldn’t play the game at all, the exclusive aspects of the game, where you would need to have a certain type of phone to be able to download, with a certain amount of storage space, with enough battery life and internet data to play, again meaning that you would be missing out on the enjoyment and social aspect of the game. This coincides with Couldry’s idea of Media Rituals and them enacting “media’s presumed location at the centre of the culture” (Hoover, 2006, p.267 cited in Couldry, 2012, p. 67), due to if people are not able to take part in the ritual, in this case catching certain Pokemon on Pokemon: Go, then they would not feel a part of that media in the centre of their culture.

While the digital advancements of Pokemon: Go prompted an increased popularity to the fandom, its existence also led to more digital aspects within the fandom. I was part of online forum/chat communities that would discuss the best areas to play the game, jokes and stories from the game and tips and advice on playing. It also accommodated for the transformative fans in the fandom, and led to new topics for fan productivity, examples being fan-made Pokemon Go The Movie, and even a fan-fictions revolving around the game and the ‘origins’ of Pokemon: Go.

Bibliography

Couldry, N. (2012). Media as a Ritual and Social Form. In N. Couldry, Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (pp. 59-83). Cambridge : Polity Press.

Dogtiev, A. (2018, May 1). Pokémon GO Revenue and Usage Statistics. Retrieved from Buisness of Apps: http://www.businessofapps.com/data/pokemon-go-statistics/

Films, D. B. (2016, Nov 24). Pokemon Go The Movie (Fan Made). Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgRJQh9lb4s

Penley, C. (1997). NASA Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. London: Verso.

Stephen Brown, R. V. (2003). Teaching Old Brands New Tricks: Retro Branding and the Revival of Brand Meaning. Journal of Marketing, 19-33.

Wynter-Solstice. (2016, August 30). Pokemon Go: Origins. Retrieved from FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12127033/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Go-Origins

Week Five - Taste, Capital and Fan Identities

It is my view that being in a fandom or identifying as a fan can affect and influence capital, consumers taste and their relevance. This is partially due to the ‘rules’ and conventions involved with being in a fandom, at the same time as being exposed to a much wider array of media, and partially due to questioning the reliability of a fan or fandom member’s opinion and capital, due to it being influenced by other fandom members, pressures and practices, rather than an impartial judgement of the media.

As I have grown older, my taste and attitude towards fan identities and capital have changed. During adolescence, although it was a genuine appreciation and enjoyment that I would get from the media I would consume, I would use it to construct an identity, to let people know more about myself and what I like, and to help fit in with others similar to me.  Most of my time was spent consuming products or media from specific bands or media brands related to my fandoms. This changed when I started to broaden the media that I consumed, either through mixing with new people, or through naturally being exposed to it and, due to the heavy time investment that comes from being involved in a fandom, not having the time to invest so heavily in it. I still incorporate what I am a fan of into my identity, but do not rely on this, and incorporate many other factors rather than just the fan practices to outline or define my identity. Now I would buy something because I like it as a product, rather than just the fact that it is merchandise or promotional. I actively seek out new music or media to consume if I am not satisfied by what I am originally given or find, and I would consume media even if I do not expect to like it, to be able to form an accurate and fair opinion on it. As mentioned in Understanding Fandom, “Nobody functions entirely within fan culture, nor does fan culture maintain any claims to self-sufficiency” (Jenkins, 1992, p. 3 cited from Duffett, 2014, p. 5). Duffett’s claim relates a lot to my own opinion on fan capital and identity, and my interest in finding the balance between identifying as and calling myself a fan of something, and not letting being a fan of something define me, and finding ‘self-sufficiency’ through other media, not just those included in the fandom.

Relating to my opinions on the reliability of a fan’s capital is a quote from an anime series that I would consider myself a fan of: “Admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding.” (Kubo, 2005, p. 12). From my own experience in the Marvel Fandom, the competition among fans to gain hierarchy within the fandom can often lead to a misunderstanding of a work, or an excluding of certain media. Bleach, the anime series the quote is from, is not something I would’ve ever been interested in being a fan of, but it was recommended by a friend, and is an example of how, since not being attached and too heavily invested in a certain fandom, I have become a lot more socially available and accessible. This is also portrayed by Fiske when he expresses the difference between official cultural capital and fan cultural capital, showing how there may be differences in their understanding and judgement of a text, and further examined when discussing the role of collecting in fan culture, and how “the individual objects are often cheap, devalued by the official culture, and mass-produced” (Fiske, 1992, pp. 42-44), showing how fans would continually invest their time and money into something regardless of its value.

Bibliography

Duffett, M. (2014). Introduction. In M. Duffett, Understanding Fandom (pp. 1-34). London: Bloomsbury.

Fiske, J. (1992). The Cultural Economy of Fandom. In L. A. Lewis, The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media (pp. 30-49). London: Routledge.

Kubo, T. (2005). Chapter 170: End of Hypnosis 2 (The Galvanizer). In T. Kubo, Bleach. Tokyo: Shueisha.

Week Three - Exploring Subcultures

During adolescent years, looking back, I may have been seen to have been part of, what was more commonly and contemporarily known as, the Emo/Scene subculture. ‘Commonly known as’ due to the fact that a lot of people that fitted into that subculture and followed some of the practices, did not want to be known as being an ‘Emo’ or a ‘Scene kid’. This may be due to the media portrayal or the negative personal connotations stigmatised to the name and therefore attached to any associated. An example of the controversial media portrayal is Daily Mail labelling it as a “suicide cult” (SoEmo, 2008) and blaming a band of the genre for a girl’s suicide. Bentley also discusses this when reflecting on the representation of British youth subcultures in the 1950s and the media’s production of a “simplified dichotomy of the demonization of youth alongside counterclaims of the ordinary and commendable qualities of ‘most’ young people” (Bentley, 2010) and how clearly an unequal dichotomy this was.

Personally, I participated in some ways but not others, for example by the music listened to in the subculture, attending small gigs of those genres, buying lots of band merchandise, or of brands associated with the subculture (e.g. comic books). However, for example, I didn’t dye my hair black or unconventional colours or have facial piercings etc, so may have been seen as a more ‘mild’ member of the Emo/Scene subculture.

I, personally, find a lot of interest in learning about past subcultures, as, in comparison to the few possible remaining subcultures of today, participants seemed much more deeply invested in the past. Examples being Mods vs Rockers, Teddy Boys, Skinheads, Rude Boys all sharing some similarities, as well as differences in their styles and practices – with Mods and Rudeboys influencing Skinheads. However, a similarity I notice between past subcultures and current subcultures is the idea of distinguishing subcultures and being firmly in just one subculture is very hard. Dick Hebdige shares this idea of shared styles within subcultures through his discussion of ‘Style as bricolage’ (Hebdige, 1979). A factor that I feel has influenced this even more since Hebdige’s work is the digital advancements in media, leading to less defined subcultures, and definitely less defined mainstream – encapsulated as “there may be in society a dominant class, but it is doubtful if there is a dominant culture” (Brake, 1980, p. 7). This is due to new media increasing the accessibility of subculture styles, knowledge and practices, and due to youth constantly wanting to be different. (Hall & Jefferson, 1993).

A more recent time that I have considered myself to have taken part in a subculture was attending the ‘Brighton MOD Weekender 2017’, a gathering of Mod subculture members celebrating their style and heritage 50 years on from the infamous ‘Mods vs Rockers battle at Quadrophenia’. As mentioned above, I enjoy learning about past subcultures, a lot of which have been influenced/learnt from my Dad and how he describes the cultures from his youth. At this event, I participated in the subculture practices by dressing in their certain style (eg Fred Perry polo shirts and Dr Marten boots) and attending the scooter rally, markets and ‘MOD Club Classics and Northern Soul Allnighter’. The fact that Dr Martens were originally associated with Skinheads, rather than Mods, and that the music event included a mix of genres, further links in with Hebdige’s idea of style as a bricolage.

Bibliography

Bentley, N. (2010). 'New Elizabethans': The Representation of Youth Subcultures in 1950s British Fiction. Literature and History, 16-33.

Brake, M. (1980). The Sociology of Youth Culture and Youth Subcultures. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Hall, S., & Jefferson, T. (1993). Resistance through Rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain. Oxon: Routledge.

Hebdige, D. (1979). Style as Bricolage. In D. Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (pp. 102-106). London: Routledge.

SoEmo. (2008, June 02). MCR Emo Fans Protest Daily Mail. Retrieved from So Emo: https://www.soemo.co.uk/my-chemical-romance-mcr-emo-protest-daily-mail-london.php

Week Two - Fans, Communities and Hierarchy

The community aspect of Fandoms is that of a complex one. For me, the idea of a shared community was one of the main attractions to becoming so invested in a Fandom. However, it was one of the, possibly mandatory, aspects of that community that was my prime motivation for distancing myself from the Fandoms – the hierarchy within that community.

When I was younger I would be involved with Fandoms for many rock and metal bands, and often broadening by taste through the shared interests with the Fandom members. One particular artist I was a fan of was the band Fall Out Boy – initially through a close friend’s investment – which would involve sharing sourced media of the band on sites such as Tumblr and Twitter, showing a popular opinion and knowledge-span of the band, and occasionally producing my own fan content. As I became more comfortable in the Fandom and started to be more heavily involved, I would gain satisfaction from other users gratification, acknowledgements and compliments – even indirectly, such as reaching a large number of followers or likes on a shared post.

However, once I started to not have the time to participate as regularly, or would post something that is outside of the popular opinion or attitude of the Fandom and their practices, I would be criticised, ‘unfollowed’ or posts ‘unliked’. This links in with Busse’s work around policing fandom boundaries and defining what is the right level of investment (Busse, 2013, p. 75). At first, just the novelty of having that shared space where I could learn and consume even more of the band was enough of a social satisfaction, but the experience of the binary to this when criticised or excluded showed me another side of the Fandom that I didn’t particularly want to be part of – it gave me the sense that the social interactions I was gaining satisfaction from previously were actually rather fickle and weren’t as valuable as real-life interactions and practices.

Giddens encapsulates my sentiment in his work in Modernity and Self-Identity, saying a person’s identity is found in their “capacity to keep a certain narrative going”. (Giddens, 1991, p. 54). Personally, I found it was more effective to be distant from the Fandom but still consider myself a fan, to try and find a balance between being involved in the clique of the Fandom, to gain satisfaction from the social community aspect, but possibly feel disheartened when excluded or policed, and being a fan to whichever level I desire and in whichever way I desire, but possibly on my own, without the Fandom community. This links to Jensen’s idea of the two dominant archetypes of fans as “the obsessed individual and the hysterical crowd” (Jensen, 1992, p. 9) due to me recognising the two and trying to find a point between them.

My Fandom in question has been represented as both aspects of these fan types in different occasions/situations. It is often represented as a hysterical crowd by media at band events, or fan forums, with the community choosing to portray a creative community front to outsiders. However, to those that know of more controversial fan practices, it is common for them to be seen as the obsessed individual also. An example being when even the band themselves publicly parodied ‘confession’ from fans in a staged Youtube video and reading FanFictions they had written aloud on Radio. Even though I did not participate in these fan practices, this was criticised by myself and many other fans, with one posting “I’m aware that the fanfic some people write is an outlet and to have Fall Out Boy come up and possibly read it and then make fun of it is just… really gross” (User1, 2015). Here, even the band that the Fandom is surrounding are pathologizing fans and policing boundaries for fans.  

Reflecting on my experiences and observations in this Fandom, to exist well within a Fandom community is only possible by finding the right balance for your position in the community. Being involved and liked enough to not be ‘and obsessed individual’ and maintaining your individuality within the community, to not become a member of ‘the hysterical crowd’. This concept is addressed further when considering work on ‘good-enough’ fans, discussing how successful fans “have a sense of inherent self-enoughness and authenticity while engaged in their fandom actions” (Blommaert & Varis, 2011 cited in Staps, Milan & Spotti).

 

Bibliography

Busse, K. (2013). Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 73-91.

Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Jensen, J. (1992). Fandom as a Pathology: The Consequences of Characterisation. In L. a. Lewis, The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media (pp. 9-29). London: Routledge.

T. Staps, S. M. (n.d.). A Good Enough Fan Within an Online Community of Game of Thrones: An E-Ethnographic Enquiry.

User1. (2015, January 2). Retrieved from dslyl-ordr: http://dslyl-ordr.tumblr.com/post/106950714109/a-mini-rant-in-regards-to-fall-out-boy-fanfic

How important is the concept of synergy when studying the music industry?

For a recent theory module at university, 'The Music Business', one of the assignments was a written exam - with half being short-answer questions, and half being a written essay question response. As the exam was timed, this essay answer should take roughly an hour to write. We were given the 9 questions that we could choose one from 2 weeks before the exam in order to prepare an answer, although, any plan had to be learnt, as notes could not be taken into the exam with us. As we did not have any readings or notes with us, it was explained that were would not be expected to be able to remember full references for quotes/ideas from readings, so I ensured I remembered and included who a reference was from, but have not included reading names or page numbers.

The essay below is written from my memorised plan and is roughly what I submitted for my answer in the exam. I have tried to recreate what I produced in the exam in timed conditions, so acknowledge some structural or quotation mistakes, for example, which, if this was coursework and not a timed exam I would have worked on further. 

The exam in general (this essay question and the 20 short answer questions) was graded as 82/100, a 1st. 

Question:

How important is the concept of synergy to studying the music business?

Answer:

"Synergy is the product of the way in which different companies involved in different sorts of media activity are related within popular music culture" - Wall

Based on Wall's definition of synergy shown above, it is very important to understand and recognise the concept of synergy in the music business. With both the media and music industries being ever-evolving with technological advancement, the opportunities, reasons and effectiveness of interacting with other businesses and other media are stronger than ever. Synergy can be both a positive and negative aspect for music business, depending on their context and position in the industry, but even is synergy is not necessarily 'useful' to the business or part of the industry you are studying, I will explain how it can have such a big effect on the industry, and therefore why it is important to understand and recognise it when studying the music business.

As Williamson and Cloonan state, the music industry is actually "disparate industries with some common interests". Due to these industries in the music business, although functioning very differently, having shared interests and aims, working together with these disparate industries would increase the means and opportunities for the businesses production as well as open them up to the audience of this other business that they may not have yet reached.

To analyse when and how synergy in the music business is a positive thing, I will first consider the media conglomerates that dominate the music industry, otherwise known as 'The Big 3' - Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music. In his paper' 'Building International Empires of Sound' Bishop explains concepts that he suggests are part of  'The Big 3''s business success. By analysing their structure and how they operate as oligomonies, as well as use a mixture of horizontal, vertical and lateral integration, he shows many opportunities for these conglomerates to interact with different business and different industries, both from within their control/ownership and not. An example of one of The Big 3 using synergy in a positive way for them is from Sony Music, their record label Syco and their relationship with the mainstream TV talent show, The X Factor. In this case, both businesses involved in the partnership benefit - Syco benefitting due to the exposure coming from being involved with such a high profile, commercial TV show, and having access to the artists featured, and The X Factor benefitting due to being able to offer their artists a relationship with a real record label for the future (leading to profitability after being on the show) and also having access to the other artists on the Syco record label and their music to be able to feature on the show. This links in with Galuska's idea of music acts competing for attention, rather than money - with how the attention that the relationship between the show and the record label gives the act is what leads to them possibly making money in the future from a record deal or further partnerships.

To get a fairer judgement of whether synergy in the music business is advantageous or not, we must also consider less commercial music businesses. The opportunity for advantageous use of synergy does not only sit with major music companies like 'The Big 3' - independent releases have shown to gain success as a result of using synergy too, with an example being Alex Turner's release on independent label Domino Records. This is an advantageous relationship for both businesses, as press and reviews for each media would link and possibly create publicity for the other. As well as this, the genres of the soundtrack and the film are both similar and of the 'indie' style, bringing marketing benefits and a shared target audience. This links with Lee's idea of indies holding a "cultural status greater than the economic impact they have on the market". This shows how, for indies, the aim may not always be to make money, instead to make a difference and connect culturally - with, in this case, synergy helping to achieve this through well thought-out links with other relevant businesses and media.

A factor within the music industry that is helping synergy to have a positive impact is collection societies, such as PRS For Music, MCPS and PPL. It is said that the role of a publisher is to exploit the rights of artists/the copyright holder and to get the works played on various media, for example, through syncing deals. These societies help the artist and the publisher do this in a profitable way, by collecting fees from the media that use it, as part of events, retail, TV, film etc. As Klein has said, "advertising can be seen as a champion of otherwise unheard music" - this showing how synergy's form of advertising can help to get work heard that otherwise may not be. However, copyright, the role of the publisher and the synergistic advertising can sometimes cause issues for the industry, with some saying the restrictions that copyright causes for new music/artists are limiting creativity and the opportunity for new music. 

This leads to the idea that synergy could be considered a negative concept for popular music culture. A context in which synergy maybe unnecessary/negative is in the case of netlabels - online record labels that do not operate to make a profit (instead, to spread talent) and do not spend money on their promotions. For netlabels, and some other independent/DIY labels, the idea of their music becoming a commodity, and used for business/profitable gain (which is part of what synergy helps to do) is a way they would not like to be thought of. Music being used for commerce, rather than art, for many, compromises the authenticity of the work. As Meier once said, "music is valued less for its own qualities than for its association with other phenomena". For DIY labels and their target audience, having the right attitude towards the work and the industry is very important - linking into subcultural capital and Benjamin's point that "being DIY is a lot more important than talking about being DIY".

Another negative aspect is found when considering Meier's concept of Promotional Ubiquitous Musics, with a noted consequence of these being that the relationship between an artist and a brand has become so important to the artists, that the brand is now in a position that they can set the terms (eg lower fees). This leads to the consideration that music is actually becoming the metacommodity to the brand, rather than the other way around. 

To conclude, throughout this report I have analysed the different ways in which synergy is used throughout the music industries, the positive and negative effects it may have, and the changes it has made to industry practices. I have explained how it is a very important concept to understand and recognise, due to the extent to which it has influenced companies success, both profitable and non-profitable, as well as having to note and learn from instances where it may not be such a good inclusion to a marketing strategy. As synergy has existed within popular music culture, it will always be important to consider it - whether it is a concept that lasts or not - to be able to study and analyse historiography and past practices from the industry and to further develop strategies. 

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