The Internet has profoundly challenged the divides that traditional media have established between production and reception

There is no doubt that the Internet has had a vast impact on society today and its massive growth worldwide has influenced domestic and commercial users alike. In particular, it is obvious that the Internet, although used in many schools and businesses across the globe, has become a huge outlet for the purposes of entertainment and leisure and the media industry has boomed since its arrival ‘on the scene’. This essay aims at looking at this impact in regards specifically to popular music and will look at how the Internet has altered the way the popular music industry operates and is consumed within society. The essay will first explore the nature of the ‘traditional’ popular music industry prior to and outside of the Internet, the impact of the Internet in general on our society, as well as its impact in terms of globalisation and on the local community. Finally, the essay will explore the Internet’s impact on the popular music industry by investigating into the impact directly on the music itself and its effect on the operations of the industry in terms of it as a business.
Firstly, however, it is arguable that if we are to look at how the Internet has “challenged the divides that traditional media have established”2 in regard to popular music production and consumption, we must first look at how the popular music industry operates both outside of the Internet today and how it operated prior to the Internet’s enormous growth in society.
Branston and Stafford argue that the “music industry is not ‘integrated’ in quite the same way as cinema’ and although cinema is no longer vertically integrated, it is structurally more integrated than the music industry.3 Film companies are often able to operate as producer and distributor or exhibitor and this plays a large part in successful ‘movie-making’, at least from a financial point of view. The music industry on the other hand, takes many more people into play. The statement in the title itself, automatically presumes that production and reception are by nature divided in traditional media operations.
On this basis then, we can argue that the operations of the popular music industry are somewhat ‘separatist’ in that production, distribution and consumption are more divided, or at least the control of them are, and although there are dominant companies in the industry they do not operate or hold the dominance that the major companies in the film industry do, for example. Now that we have established this, it is important for us to look at the impact that the Internet has had on society in a more general light before we begin looking at its impact specifically on the media and popular music industry.
When the Internet powered onto the scene, the dominant arguments surrounding the phenomenon were to do with accessibility and consumer reception. This of course is a vital topic if the Internet was to be a successful outlet for the popular music industry, as well as the entertainment industry in general. There were also concerns that user friendliness of new technology, like the Internet, would leave specialist job roles redundant and many technicians would be deskilled. However, as has been indicated already, the central debate in regard to this argument is the issue of accessibility. This is, of course, still an issue for many. E. Jones and M. Jones quote Giddens’ (1997, p.394) text when it says, “It is thought there are some 35 million people on line throughout the world… The number is not large [the same size as a small country]. More important is the rate of its expansion. It has been estimated that the Internet has grown at a rate of 200 per cent annually since 1985.”4 However, as this statement highlights, the ability of the Internet to become more available to consumers worldwide, as well as reaching those that traditional media often misses, is highly possible and probable, and it is arguable therefore, that it is this high probability that makes the Internet such an appealing outlet for the entertainment sector. Furthermore, we must not underestimate the power of media audiences. “The importance of consumer demand in relation to technological change is crucial to our understanding.”5 It is essential that we realise that if media producers and audiences do not adopt the new technology, technological change cannot happen, and the divides between production and consumption will not be altered or challenged. This is evident by the poor reception of mini-discs (MD). When they were first introduced to the market, it was hoped by producers that the new technology would eventually replace the compact disc (CD), as it was a smaller, lighter and apparently better quality product and it did have some benefits. Scratching the product for example would not have the same damaging effects on the music playback that the same damage would do on a CD. However, it is arguable that with other more advanced technologies entering the market not long after the dawn of the MD, like MP3 players and Internet downloading, its success was bound to be extremely short lived if ‘lived’ at all. Even the CD has in part become redundant since these technologies became available. However, although the MP3 player and Internet downloading are for many a more desirable option, the presence of the CD has hardly faltered, as the issue of accessibility ‘raises its ugly head’ yet again. The issue for the popular music industry, and for other entertainment industries, is that the lack of accessibility to the Internet makes it an unsuitable outlet for sole distribution. Although its impact has been vast and continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, the Internet is still dependent on the media audiences’ ability to gain access to it. If it is not available, it becomes an invalid outlet for media producers to release their work.
As a result CDs still remain a dominant product of the music sector. In this respect, it can be argued that the Internet, although it has had some impact, that effect is minimal due to its own flaws, and in this case it can be argued that it still fails to truly challenge the divides set up by traditional media between production and reception.
However, there are other ways in which the Internet has impacted upon the popular music industry in order to challenge these divides financially, technologically, socially and culturally. Firstly, it has introduced the music industry to a global arena entirely based in one place. This means that popular music finally has an outlet that can reach millions across the world in seconds. Branston and Stafford argue that digitalisation has allowed for the ease of passage from one department to another and as a result the Internet has had a massive effect on the reception of popular music, as it allows media texts to become more quickly and more widely available.
It also offers itself to communities that would perhaps ‘miss out’ on it. For example, it can be argued that prior to the impact of the Internet, music was a far more local or regional form of entertainment. However, Strinati states “From the point of view of post-modern theory, the recent history of popular music can be seen to be marked by a trend towards the open and extensive mixing of styles and genres of music.”7 It can therefore be understood that the effect of the Internet has been to act as a conduit for popular music and has encouraged this blend of regional music styles. For instance, the reforming of 1990s bands, such as Take That, with their new brand of popular ‘indie’ music as opposed to their previous boy band style of songs could be a strong example of how the Internet has bred a new style of music and allowed for this to dominate the global market.
It is however, difficult to establish that this has been due to the Internet. Many have argued that the Internet has worked to de-stable local and regional communities by encouraging people to fixate on their computer screens while others support the idea that the Internet has in fact encouraged a new community to develop through the mixing of popular music styles and genres, as well as other media texts.8 It is fair to say that the Internet has generated a new global community, and although issues of Internet availability challenge this, it is possible to suggest that the Internet has brought local music styles into the global arena as well as continuing to promote them in their home countries.
However, what effect does this have on the divides between production and reception within popular music? Branston and Stafford argue “Internet technology…is beginning to make possible exchanges of music between countries, without the input of a music distributor.”9 Taking this into account, it can be seen how the Internet has begun to challenge the divides between production and reception. It can be argued that the Internet is making distributors totally redundant and in so doing bringing the manufacture of popular music texts themselves that bit closer to how their reception is managed. It has in effect ‘cut out the middle man’. In this respect the Internet challenges the structure of the industry professionally and, as Branston and Stafford fear, deskills workers of distribution companies as their services become superfluous.
Furthermore, in creating this fundamental change in the structure of the popular music industry, it can be argued that the Internet allows for music industry companies to become “vertically integrated”, a system that was abolished from the film industry in the mid-20th century, due to its impact on the global and local film markets and businesses worldwide.
This becomes more apparent with the development of software and hardware that allows consumers to become their own producers. Jones and Jones suggest that the Internet has created a digital battle between Digital Liberation and Digital Corporatism.11 In their argument, it is indicated that the Internet has the potential for consumers to become producers and directors, as technological advances results in less need for specialist expertise and that the Internet in particular allows for this due to its interactive features. In arguing this then, it can be said that the Internet has challenged the divide between production and reception to such an extent that there is no divide between them. If the consumer can also be the producer then there is no break.
It is clear from this investigation then, that the Internet has the ability to play a large part in challenging the traditional methods that have been implemented within popular music. It is clear that in fact it has done this already. However, there are many aspects to the Internet that makes it a limiting outlet for media texts and that limits its impact as a result. The largest of these issues at present is its availability to everyone. The Internet is gained at a cost, not only for the necessary hardware but to access it on a regular basis also. As such its audience is too small for it to solely support the popular music industry. As such it is argued that the Internet, although it has had a vast impact on the music industry in terms of bringing such media texts to a global arena, it is still unable to truly and entirely challenge the divides that traditional media have established.