Dear readers, your loving blogger is an intern at a music management/PR comp and is also in exam season and is also in a constant state of academics, hospitality or party and is also in love with life and the people around her, etc. Diaries are in the making, rest assured. For now, here’s a tiny, shoddy academic essay that I wrote in a day about how shithaus the music press is and why I’ll probably never earn a liveable wage. There’s Australian sources in this one (that I totally manipulated for context because they were compulsory but I insisted upon making a media essay about the music industry). There’s also more fun sources like The/My Bible Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me In The Bathroom, cool journal article Writing about Listening and a student thesis Rocking and Reeling that I somehow avoided getting mark deductions for using.
So buy a music mag! Read an album review! Watch a documentary! You rock fans who only care for music will be the death of the industry (and my career prospects). Like I said, diaries on the way.
Just let me finish off this sem and turn 20 and a couple other ridiculous things. Lots of love. (RIP Steve Riley).
Alongside the disruption of established music business models and the worsening livability of being a working musician, traditional practices and once abundant job prospects of music journalists have been fundamentally shaken by the emergence of the internet and the rise of platform media. The authority of arts and culture critics has been significantly diluted and buried in online social platforms, while the rise of streaming and digital availability of music has virtually rendered professional opinions redundant. With the gig-work nature of online publishing overriding the expectation of job permanence in publications, the disturbance of traditional business models of media has contributed to the uncertainty of the sector.
The dawn of the internet enabled the public availability of self-publishing upon media platforms, where informal consumer-turned-creator opinions undermined the previously established authority of the arts critic and music journalist. Early forms of music coverage consisted of demotic internet blogs which preceded the establishment of online locations for existing publications such as “pitchfork.com” and “SPIN.com” (Goodman, 2017). Generally, unpaid and inexperienced bloggers became an “interesting mix of fan, reporter, cool hunter, and authority” replacing the critical voice that has traditionally come from the professional media communicator (Goodman, personal communication, 2017). Only furthered by costless and easily distributed microblogging present on social media platforms such as Tumblr and X (formerly Twitter) which favours short-form structures, The Digital Platform Inquiry reports that the “significant up-front fixed costs” of high-quality journalism lends implications to the “levels of quality and choice of journalism available to Australian consumers” (ACCC, 2019). This online platform relocation of demotic voice and “personality journalists” that originally occupied a paid position within the arts journalism sector is further undermined in these circumstances, simultaneously leading to the homogenisation of critical voice within professional music media coverage (Atton, 2009).
The interruption of online availability of music files via streaming platforms that proved temporarily detrimental to the music industry in record sales and piracy, and more long term in the full “album” as a product, similarly disrupted the purpose and position of the music journalist. The original intention of the blooming arts sector was to promote and critique cultural offerings in an attempt to persuade the public opinion and often lead to the purchase of whole albums or the promotion of artist tours (Goolrick, 2011). Labour Market Insights (2021) explicate the diminishment of this once thriving sector with snapshot employment statistics for the professions of “Bloggers, Critics, Sports and Other Writers…” at 2,000, paling compared to “Journalists and Other Writers” that “research and compile news stories…” at 27,200. These employment statistics detail the soft news industry shrink that’s original function is rendered “obsolete” by the instantaneous availability of single tracks and entire discographies often for free or at a lower subscription price than the publication (Goolrick, 2011). Although the development of streaming platforms have undermined the specialist knowledge and taste-making positions of the music journalist, it can be argued that this accessibility enhances the researching capabilities of critics and encourages the development of more engaging, creative, and multimodal content beyond the simple album review or song ranking.
Like other sectors of professional journalism, the recession of print and physical subscriptions to online platforms encouraged the entire reworking of the media business model. The ACCC (2019) reports that print profits from classified advertisements, a key source of revenue for print, was at a significant low of 0.5 billion in 2016, compared to over 2 billion before the largely internet relocation in 2001. Low rates of physical subscriptions and early attempts at monetising online content left music magazines floundering to make revenue (Goodman, 2017). Given the current instability of revenue in the music media industry on account of erratic variables of internet traffic and the use of online space for advertisements in articles and before/during video content, the nature of arts communication work is unpredictable. The FYA (2020) New Industry Standard’s assessment of modern journalism, abandoning traditional expectation of full-time employment and high pay, is of a rise to 30% flexible work, which includes “part-time, casual, self-employed workers with no employees [and] gig work.” The lack of job permanence can be argued to it benefits of customisable commitments, contractor independence and access to overseas publications on account of a globalised industry but disturbs the previous reliability of legal benefits such as “minimum wage standards, paid leave or superannuation entitlements” (FYA, 2020).
From the inception of the internet to the modern-day ubiquity of authoritative culture microblogging on social media platforms and accessibility of mass catalogue music via streaming platforms, the traditional prospects of the music journalist and the business systems that enshrine the arts and culture section have faced significant disruptions. With the shift away from print forcing a redirection of revenue and the minimisation and homogenisation of a once notably diverse sector, music journalism is evidently grappling with a restructure and repurposing essential to its assured longevity in a digital industry.
REFERENCE LIST
Atton, C. (2009). Writing about Listening: Alternative Discourses in Rock Journalism. Popular Music, 28(1), 53-67. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40212426
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2019). Digital Platforms Inquiry. https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/publications/digital-platforms-inquiry-final-report
FYA. (2020). The New Work Standard. https://www.fya.org.au/app/uploads/2021/09/FYA-New-Work-Standard-2020.pdf
Goodman, E. (2017). “I Like This Internet Thing”, In Meet Me In The Bathroom (pp. 335-344). Faber & Faber.
Goolrick, A. (2011). Rocking and Reeling: The Death and Rebirth of Rock Criticism In The Digital Age. [Master of Arts Thesis, The University of Georgia.] Athens, Georgia.
Labour Market Insights. (2021, February 10). Bloggers, Critics, Sports and Other Writers (not covered elsewhere). https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/occupation-profile/bloggers-critics-sports-and-other-writers-not-covered-elsewhere?occupationCode=212499
Labour Market Insights. (2021, February 10). Journalists and Other Writers. https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/occupation-profile/bloggers-critics-sports-and-other-writers-not-covered-elsewhere?occupationCode=212499