To what extent is networked technology altering modes of musical consumption?

 

Music has been an important part of culture for thousands of years. Way before mass mediums came into existence music was disseminated through cultures by live performance and later by sheet music. At many times in the evolution of western society, we have seen technology interacting with society changing the way that we work and live. The industrial revolution is regarded as being a great landmark in our own culture, a time of great change influenced by technological development when new practices of work and living came into play. As technology and society have progressed we are finding ourselves ever more connected to each other, surrounded by and integrated with technology, this had led some to suggest we are entering a new post-industrial time, the network society. Whether the network society exists is debatable, but one thing is clear new communication technologies are offering new mediums for information transfer, something which is affecting many spheres of society. But what is the reason for this? Are technological developments driving society forward? Or does technology get developed to fulfill societies ever increasing needs and whims. The relationship between technology and society is without doubt incredibly complex, and some of the greatest social thinkers and cultural philosophers of our times have taken interest in the developments of Mass society and the extent to which technology affects our lives.

During this case study I will attempt to highlight some of the key themes within the technological determinism debate, examining the links between technology and society. This will be illustrated online project management by exploring the influence which the internet is having upon musical consumption.

For messaging online there is a great tool to be found at LAN chat software - Improve your internal communication with Softros LAN messenger! To contextualise my examination of these links and likely future trends I feel it is useful to explore the recent history of musical consumption. In the 1940’s critical Marxist theorists Adorno and Horkheimer wrote an essay entitled ‘Enlightenment as Mass deception’ which was a critique of the American media industry. In their essay they speak of the way in which cultural products, such as "films, radio and magazines" (Adorno & Horkheimer: 1945: 32) are produced. They call the way in which these cultural products are manufactured industrial, and make it very plain that they see the companies which create these cultural products as an industry, like any other. This led them to coin the widely used phrase ‘culture industry’; an industry for producing cultural products. They describe in great detail how music has moved away from the artisanal stage into commodity form. They talk of how cultural products such as music are produced quickly, and made according to standardized technical processes leading to great homogenisation and lack of individuality "mechanically differentiated products prove to be all alike in the end" (1945: 34). The bottom line they say is that the cultural industries are industries like any other, motivated primarily by economics and the need to make a profit. It is for that reason they believed that there was no ‘social utility’ in cultural commodities produced by these industries. "The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce… any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed" (Adorno & Horkheimner: 1945: 32)

Although not all would whole heartily agree with everything in Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique, it has been incredibly influential and provided poignant insight into the workings of modern music industry. Popular Musical commodities are standardised today by the digital nature of production, creating even greater homogenisation and mechanization than the industry which Adorno and Horkheimer described. Most popular music nowadays is commodified into digital binary data, where it is packaged and sold in shops on compact discs. There is practically no difference between cd’s of Mozart and The Orb if examined aagt a purely physical level in their commodity form. Recording processes and manufacture are standardised, providing musical ‘software’ for our technological devices.

The digital nature of contemporary music raises important questions for the future of musical consumption, web application development with increasing convergence in technology it is possible to listen to music in new ways, new mediums for dissemination and enjoyment of music are being presented and becoming mainstream. There is a strong possibility that one day the cd may even go the way of the cassette tape, to be replaced by the Mp3 player and other digital delivery devices. But if this does occur would it be because society has called for the change, would society just adopt to the technology because "that is the modern way" (Williams in Longhurst: 95: 82)

The emergence of the internet and mp3 technology is offering emancipatory modes of musical production and transfer for individuals. New means of distribution are emerging bypassing traditional channels, allowing recording artists to distribute music themselves through websites and peer to peer and offering consumers the option of downloading digital music in raw forms. The effect on the industry is evident, with upto 1.7 billion pounds in lost sales attributed to piracy by the record industry of America (www.RIAA.com ), even if this figure is exaggerated independent estimates still put the number of weekly illegal downloads of files at around 1 billion (Oberholzer & Strumpf: 2004). Statistics like these make it clear that new delivery methods manifesting through networked technology are greatly affecting the way music is consumed.

This situation provides a good chance for discussion of technological shaping theories. We can see that change is occurring, with consumption patterns shifting to new channels. The industry is adopting to these channels itself, offering new legitimate distribution methods such as Napster, iTunes etc. It is important however to consider the causes of these changes. Are we moving to new technologies of consumption just because they are there? Or has society demanded new modes of consumption, and the technology arisen to fulfill our needs? A likely answer is that the rise of new technologies are affected bv both social and technological factors, and that one reason alone cannot determine why a new technology makes it into the marketplace. This can be seen as a cultural determinist view, and is echoed in the work of Winston\. His work suggests that technology is created within a social context, and only makes it to the marketplace at a time when society is ready for it. Winston argues against the idea that we are living "in the midst of an ‘Information Revolution’ or at the start of an ‘Information age’ (2000: 1). He suggests rather that the concept of an information revolution which is often presented to us through the mass media is "largely an illusion" (2000: 2). He talks of the importance of considering the creation of new technologies within their historical context. Like Raymond Williams Winston argues from a cultural determinist perspective claiming that: "There is nothing in the histories of electrical and electronic communication systems to indicate that significant major changes have not been accommodated by pre-existing social formations" (2000:2) He does not accept the basic assumption of technological determinism that "new technology emerges [solely] from technical study and experiment " (Williams in Longhurst: 95: 82) Below is a copy of the Winston’s model which I have recreated.

White Label SEM - White Label SEO allows you to offer quality and effective link building, SEM and SEO service to your clients without doing the work yourself. Increase revenues and improve customer retention by packaging a quality outsourced SEO service for your clients under your own private label.

 

 

As a business or medical practice owner you know that the quality of the customer service you provide is crucial to gain repeated clients. You need to stand above the other companies to be able to compete and online appointment scheduler will definitely elevate you above the other businesses not only in your neighborhood, but also on a national level. With online appointment scheduler, your clients can book appointments online at any time of day or night and what’s more, out of town family or friends will be able to purchase, send, and even personalized gift certificates right on your website. Hands down, such software is the most effective marketing and customer service tool.
Time Saving Online Appointment Scheduler
Scheduling appointments for many people working for your company or practice, who additionally share rooms, can quickly turn into a nightmare. One mistake and you can have double bookings on one room or overcrowd your building, or even schedule two people for an appointment with the same employee at the same time – how embarrassing! Such faux-pas can easily be avoided with online appointments scheduler who will allow you to keep track of all the engagements which can be updated immediately so that everyone in your company can be on the same page. Smoothly run business without any inconveniences to your customers speaks volumes about your company

As can be seen above the model is contained within a sphere. Winston calls this "the social sphere" (2000: 4). The production of ‘inventions’ from start to finish takes place within this social sphere. This is because all stages of invention from conception to production are carried out by people, people who are "social beings, exponents of and prisoners of the culture that produced them." (2000: 5) Winston highlights that there are different people involved in the creation of a new technology. A key component of the model is the difference between the spheres of science, and technology; which can be seen as being separated by two horizontal lines, joined by a diagonal line entitled Ideation. Winston envisions that a new technology can only be created once there is sufficient scientific competence for it to be created, then we need an ideator (someone with the idea) to create a bridge between the pool of scientific knowledge and the technology, this person Winston calls a technologist. A technologist need not necessarily be a scientist, but will be someone who has "at some level absorbed the science" (2000: 5). The model also factors in constraints placed upon ideation (socio, cultural factors). This is Winston’s concept in its most basic form: on one side we have the available pool of scientific knowledge, and on the other we have technologies, and in-between we have technologists or ‘inventors’ who come up with ideas for new technologies from the scientific pool. But this is only the beginning of the process, according to Winston. It is not inherent that just because a new technology is feasible or viable that it will be produced, or that society will adopt it, this would be a technologically determinist stance. Winston believes that social factors determine what prototypes are developed and why some succeed, whilst others fail. These social factors are described as supervening social necessities. Supervening social necessities are described as "[Ranging] from the objective requirements of changed social circumstances… through to the subjective whims of perceived needs (such as the introduction of new consumer technologies to fulfill essentially the same function as those filled by previously diffused consumer technologies)" (2000: 6) According to Winston’s it is necessary for there to be sufficient supervening social necessity, in order for a prototype to evolve to an ‘invention’. If there is sufficient supervening social necessity (S.S.N) then it is likely the prototype will be accepted, if there is not then it is likely the prototype will be rejected (because no use can be seen for it). Here is a great html to pdf converter - ExpertPDF offers a library for .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 that can help you to convert any HTML page to PDF in a few minutes. Try free our HTML to PDF converter.

 

The creation of a ‘new technology’ in the model, occurs from left to right, along the line labeled technology If there is sufficient S.S.N then the prototype will move to the stage of invention, and it is here, as the invention moves into the marketplace that it will encounter what Winston describes as ‘Suppression of Radical Potential’ (S.R.P). In defining this term, Winston draws on the work of historian Fernand Braudel, who has theorized on historical ‘brakes’ and accelerators. Winston talks of how in this model the S.S.N is an accelerating factor whilst S.R.P is a breaking factor. More specifically Winston describes S.R.P as "[Where] social constraints coalesce to limit the potential of the device radically to disrupt pre-existing social formations" (2000: 11). In applying Winstons model to new modes of musical consumption based around the internet we could se the suppression of Radical potential, in the form of interventionist methods taken by the record industry, such as recent lawsuits by the R.I.A.A against p2p file sharers, as well as digital rights initiatives which attempt to stop digital music being transferred between users pc’s and from cd’s onto mp3 devices. It is easy to understand why the record industry may want to suppress this new distribution method, as it opposes their existing dominance in distribution and reduces their revenue streams. Winston comments on "the difficulty of inventing something to put other businesses out of business; and the bigger the threatened business the more difficult it is" (2000: 11). It is essential according to Winston to understand the positive interaction of supervening social necessities with the negative effects of suppression of radical potential when thinking about how communication technologies develop. He says: "Supervening social necessity guarantees that the ‘invention’ will be produced. The ‘law’ [of suppression of radical potential] operates as a constraint on that production" (2000:13)

project management software

In the final part of the model we can see what are labeled as redundancies and spin offs. Once a product has entered the market place, it will be refined and alterative (parallel) uses may be found. These alternative versions/uses may either be successfully taken up (spin offs) or may not be as popular (redundancies). When thinking of the emerging sphere of networked music distribution we could consider the original Napster service as a redundancy, which was subjected to the suppression of radical potential, in the legal challenge to its existence mounted by the R.I.A.A. However the new incarnation of Napster in the form of a monthly paid subscription service could be seen as a spin off, from the original product. This can be seen from the adaptation below.

 

web desing & seo training Nimbus Education provide seo training, web design training, call center training etc.

 

Winston’s model can be used to illustrate why network technologies present problems to the record industry. The Napster example presents just one application of p2p technology, but it can also be used to illustrate the growth of p2p generally. Peer to peer is a decentralised medium which makes it hard to regulate and police. There is great supervening social necessity and demand for it. Music is normally free on p2p networks and its also often quicker to download a song than to go to the shops and buy it. When these factors are combined this new medium of musical consumption is hard to resist. Music is marketed heavily, we are encouraged to consume it and to think of it as a commodity, and so it is perhaps no wonder that when offered a mode by which we can consume as much music as we want, for free that many will take up the option. It has been argued (Condry: 2004) that all consumers are doing by downloading from the net, is fulfilling the needs and dominant ideological wishes instilled in them by the record companies, and that if the record companies marketed music differently; with less focus on the commodity aspect of music then consumers would stop pirating through p2p.

Open source code exhibited in web conferencing such as Gnutella also mean frequent spin offs, making it difficult for interested parties to exert control over the networks. Therefore Suppression of the Radical potential of new p2p software and protection of intellectual property rights is difficult. The industry cannot realistically control the software as new versions spring up regularly and can be used to transfer legitimate un-copyrighted works as well. Current enforcement instead relies on the panoptic abilities of current peer to peer systems, observing what people are downloading and taking legal action against individuals who are made examples of. Internet distribution presents complicated dilemmas for the cultural industries. The desire to exert suppression of the radical potential of peer to peer is not hard to understand as the music industry already control parallel distribution technologies in the form of C.D’s and setting up alternative modes of distribution which can compete with free p2p networks new technologies may prove less profitable. Interested in SEO? See the pay per click google certified professional Yesiwillbuy a google certified company offer google ppc, yahoo ppc, msn ppc etc.. The radical potential of p2p and the net generally also means artists can publish to potentially huge audiences without needing the monetary and ideological approval of a record label. This threatens traditional power relations, and the need for the record industry at all. Networked technology has important implications for the democratision of information and cultural flows" (Lebkowsky: 2004: 1) something which the record industry will undoubtedly be worried about and want to suppress.

The industry is at this time taking steps to combat news modes of consumption, which bypass traditional distribution methods and revenue streams that the music industry has put in place. These manifest through legitimate services such Napster and iTunes. This is an obvious attempt by the record industry to reassert control of distribution, by offering centralised services by which they can glean revenue. As well as offering legitimate means of obtaining mp3 the industry is currently adopting a two pronged attack on online piracy. This involves stopping people copying music through digital rights management (Condry: 2004, Biddle et al: 2002) as well as launching punitive challenges through the law courts. The effectiveness of both of the methods of suppression of radical potential are however contested by theorists.

There is strong evidence that the shock tactics used in punitive lawsuits aren’t working, despite the rhetoric of the popular press. (Condry: 2004) The effectiveness of reprisals by the RIAA to curb peer to peer filesharing is challenged by quantitative data such as that from the pew internet project (an independently funded non profit organisation, which tracks online file sharing). Most recent statistics suggest that shock tactics are not working, and that enforcement is not proving effective." The Pew Internet Project, extrapolating data from phone surveys in April 2004, estimated that the [RIAA] lawsuits convinced around 6 million former downloaders to stop, but also estimated that 5 million new users started up in same period" (Rainie et al., 2004). "Companies that track the volume of traffic and number of downloads report a slight dip after the summer 2003 publicity surrounding the lawsuits, but numbers quickly returned to pre-lawsuit levels, and still represent about 20 times the volume of legal downloads (Banerjee, 2004)" quoted in (Condry:2004:350)

For SEO Seo Experts KrishaWeb Technologies, India based firm is providing services like web designing, whois domain, web development, search engine optimization and internet marketing at affordable rate.Lawsuits are mainly just propaganda tools, used by the RIAA to instill fear and doubt in music file sharers and make them think hard before downloading. video conferencing The purpose of these punitive measures is to reinforce dominant ideologies about music consumption, rather than recoup lost revenue. The industry is also attempting to stop individuals being able to copy music in the first place by investigating and introducing copy protection methods on C.d.’s and in legal downloads. Collectively known as digital rights management these methods are "aimed at managing consumers' access and uses of entertainment products." (Condry: 367) The effectiveness of these methods are contested (Biddle et al: 2002, Condry: 2004), normally working for short periods of time before they are subverted by interested parties. It is clear that the industry has a difficult task in stopping piracy and will need to adopt if it is to stay profitable in an online marketplace. At the moment it relies heavily on selling tangible digital commodities and it is easy to see the potential dangers of Mp3 and online distribution methods for the music industry if it doesn’t gain control of this marketplace. There are clearly many technological and social factors which affect new technologies, and when these are factored into Winstons model it would seem to suggest there is much Supervening social necessity for new distribution methods such as p2p, whilst suppression of radical potential is difficult. This makes it likely that online delivery is here to stay and may transform musical consumption. Whether p2p will mean the death of the industry or whether the big 5 will take over cyberspace, is unclear, (microphone quote-those who moved to the microphone survived those that didn’t were forgotten)

Adorno enlightenment as mass deception, for Web designing india Brainpulse is a website designing company in India, offering cheap web designing services for corporate with quality web designing India, UK, Canada, Australia and USA.

 

Williams in Longhurst: 95: 82

 

 

www.RIAA.com

 

Oberholzer & Strumpf: 2004

 

Condry: 2004

 

Lebkowsky: 2004: 1