The online place of popular music: Exploring the impact of geography and social media on pop artists’ mainstream media attention

Abstract

Many authors have pointed to the internet's potential to increase connectivity across the world, which would imply an equalizing effect, yet few researchers have examined this. At the same time, the increasing usage of social media by popular culture celebrities for self-promotion has been signaled. We study the extent to which social media can reduce inequalities in mainstream media attention between artists from central cities in popular music production (e.g., New York, London) versus more peripheral cities. We distinguish between media attention by institutionally embedded music critics and lay users on the internet. The results show that artists coming from more central cities have higher chances to get attention in mainstream media-both by institutional critics and lay users-than artists from peripheral cities. Building a fan base on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace can compensate for some of this inequality, but not for all of it. IntroductionRock 'n roll, and popular music in general, have traditionally been associated strongly with cities as loci of where new music is conceived, as is exemplified by the title of one of the earliest-and now classichistories of rock music: "The Sound of the City" (Gillett, 1970). Since then, scholars have shown how places matter in bringing together people (e.g., Connell & Gibson, 2003, 90ff;Lena, 2012), sounds and styles (Phillips, 2011), and businesses (Negus, 1992;Scott, 2000) to produce both artistically innovative and commercially viable music. However, the increasing popularity of the internet in the past decades has diminished the importance of geographical positioning. Or has it? A large body of authors has pointed to the internet's potential to increase connectivity across the world which would imply an equalizing effect (e.g., Anderson, 2006;Connell & Gibson, 2003), yet few authors have examined this. This article aims to study the extent to which various, different internet-based media 1 help reducing inequality between artists from central locations in popular music production versus more peripheral locations. More concretely, we examine how differences in mainstream media attention (both by institutional music critics and lay users) compare to pop artists' usage of social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), and how this differs for artists of different geographical origin.It is evident that digitalization processes changed the structure and organization of the field of popular music significantly (e.g., Hesmondhalgh, 2012;Leyshon, 2009). The internet and especially social media platforms have made it easier to produce, disseminate, and consume popular music from all over the world (Baym & Ledbetter, 2009). This has led Wikström (2009, p. 10) to conclude that the current music industry is "characterized by high connectivity and little control; music is provided as a For the sake of readability we will also use the term "the internet" when we refer to internet-based media. However, we are aware that it is debatable whether the internet can b...

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