Kai Arne Hansen: Interpreting Sound Recordings in a Time of Media Convergence: Aesthetics, Technologies, and the Migratory Behavior of Audiences
Abstract: While recent technological developments have led to a range of new possibilities for the recording, production, and distribution of sound recordings, equally significant changes have ensued with regard to audiences’ usages and experiences of music. These changes concern not only how we access and listen to sound recordings, but also how we make sense of them.
In light of what Henry Jenkins (2006) has described as the migratory behavior of media audiences, this paper considers the multi-modality of our present-day music experiences. By attending to the primacy of the artist persona in a contemporary pop music context, I call attention to how sound recordings are interpreted vis-á-vis other pop commodities and discourses surrounding the artist. I suggest that, as the representational strategies that promote and aestheticize the artist persona across multiple platforms become increasingly pervasive and sophisticated, listeners become accustomed to enriching their musical experiences by seeking out additional content and information through various media. By merging recent theories of intermediality and transmediality with a critical musicological approach to interpretation, I attempt to demonstrate how symbols and signs dispersed across multiple media platforms are aggregated in the experiences of listeners and fans. To this end, I focus on the recent output of one commercial pop artist to take up how recorded sound operates alongside other media content to imbue our musical experiences with various meanings.
Kar begins with a statement: present-day modes of consumption are now accessed mainly online, and he cites the recent increase in the proportion of streaming vs other formats, with streaming now being (per RIAA) the dominant distribution medium for music. He cites several scholars who point out that media convergence is not purely a technological defined phenomenon – it is effectively a form of ‘audience migration’.
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