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.

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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.

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