Case study research tasks
The basics
Your chosen industry: Music
Your chosen case study (i.e. text/institution etc.): Spotify
Have you received approval for this case study from your teacher? Yes
Research and answer the following tasks on your MEST3 exam blog:
Audience
1) How has new and digital media changed the audience experience in your chosen industry?
Spotify is a music streaming application which allows the audience to access a wide range of songs when connected to wi-fi or data. New and digital media has greatly affected audience experience in the music industry as streaming sites such as Spotify has allowed for audiences to have an easier accessibility to a variety of music converged into one single app on a phone. The services that are now offered through streaming apps such as spotify has become so advanced and developed that it is no longer a site that is purely for listening to music.
https://news.spotify.com/us/2015/05/20/say-hello-to-the-most-entertaining-spotify-ever/
- The Now start page - Offers recommendations which will adapt to suit users tastes and moods
- Spotify Running - Offers recommendations of songs that match the speed, beat and tempo that you are running at to you a harder, better, faster, stronger runner.
- More Than Music- Video Clips and podcasts will be added and will recommend based videos based on audio and video history.
- Spotify Originals - Variety of original, spotify exclusive playlists for running, dancing and radio shows
- Spotify now comes packed with entertainment, news and clips from the likes of ABC, BBC, Comedy Central, Condé Nast Entertainment, ESPN, Fusion, Maker Studios, NBC, TED and Vice News, with much more to come
2) Has new and digital media changed the way the audience consume your chosen product?
In order to listen to music, audience initially had to buy physical copies of records or CDs and be in an area where there was a CD/record player. However recently, people can download the songs online, whether it be through an illegal downloading site or from a legitimate seller such as iTunes. The music industry has further developed to allow audiences to access music free of charge through streaming sites such as Spotify,however, the content is limited and to gain full access, audiences only have to pay a small sum of money a month, which is still lets audience access music for a reasonable price in comparison to buying physical copies.
http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/
- People would hear a tune they liked on the radio, then go to a shop and buy the physical recording of it.
- (due to piracy) the majority of music consumption today generates little to no money for artists.
- (we are) proud to offer music fans a legal and paid service capable of generating for artists the royalties that they deserve.
- proud to offer music fans a legal and paid service capable of generating for artists the royalties that they deserve.
3) Has the size of the audience changed as a result of new and digital media?
As a result of new and digital media, the audiences size has drastically changed as more people realise the convenience of acquiring quality music at a cheap price (or sometimes without a price).
https://news.spotify.com/us/2015/05/20/say-hello-to-the-most-entertaining-spotify-ever/
- 25 billion listening hours under the hood since the launch seven years ago
- 1,693,755 monthly listeners
- Spotify released its updated active user figures, totalling more than 75 million accounts in 58 countries across the world. Of these, over 20 million are paid subscribers.
- some 30 million (tracks) at their disposal.
4) What are the positive changes new and digital media have brought to the audience of your case study? (E.g. greater choice, easier access etc.)
New and digital media has allowed for audiences to gain a greater choice of music by having apps such as spotify offering over 30 million tracks for the audience. Moreover the access to music has been made much easier with new and digital media such as Spotify as it allows you to access music wherever you are though your smartphone. As most smartphones have an allowance of data, this means that even without wifi access, users can still stream their music and personalize their playlists to fit their style and tastes as well as sharing with others. Also, by streaming music through Spotify, it makes accessing music much quicker in comparison to downloading music through Pirate websites and users do not have to worry about downloading viruses which will ruin their devices.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/11699117/Apple-Music-vs-Spotify-How-do-the-two-streaming-services-compare.html
- some 30 million at their disposal.
"I can see a time coming when the playlist creator becomes just as important an element in the process as the artists being featured," - Spotify user and Playlist maker Jonathon Good
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/revenue-streams
Spotify to better program the “moments” of a user’s day.The idea is to use song analytics and user data to help both human and A.I. curators select the right songs for certain activities or moods, and build playlists for those moments.Playlists can be customized according to an individual user’s “taste profile.” You just broke up with your boyfriend, you’re in a bad mood, and Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River,” from the “Better Off Without You” playlist, starts. Are you playing the music, or is the music playing you? Piracy was kind of hard. It took a few minutes to download a song, it was kind of cumbersome, you had to worry about viruses.
5) What are the negative changes new and digital media have had on your chosen audience? (E.g. quality of product etc.)
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-consumers-give-boost-to-legal-downloading-and-streaming-for-tv-films-and-music
increase of more than 10% in take up of legal services since 2013 however, 1 in 5 still access content illegally
15.6 million UK internet users accessed music online. 26 per cent of users have accessed content illegally
YouTube, Amazon and Spotify were the top platforms used for downloading and streaming with 54 per cent of all music streaming and downloads were accessed via YouTube
Despite their being an increase in the number of people who legally download and stream music (A great percentage of the number belonging to Spotify), their is still a significant number of people who still downloads their music illegally, This may be due to the convenience and easiness of downloading things illegally of the internet.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/21/spotify-five-big-challenges-streaming-music
Spotify faces several key challenges to its business in the months and years ahead:
- Winning over musician sceptics in the musician : Some prominent musicians don't like Spotify at all, suggesting that the company is just another (unwanted) middleman in the music industry. Some criticise the size of per-stream payouts compared to the money they receive for sales of CDs and downloads, or plays of their music on the radio.
- Turning a profit from streaming music
- Appealing to a more mainstream audience
- Taking on bigger beasts: Apple and YouTube
- Moving beyond music if necessary
6) What about audience pleasures - have these changed as a result of new and digital media?
http://www.sidify.com/topic/what-you-like-and-dislike-about-spotify.html
- Spotify works on various of platforms
- Spotify is really simple to use
- offers free subscription
- large music catalog.
- Spotify does offer exclusive live sessions from artists
- Another benefit of Spotify is its family plan
7) What is the target audience for your chosen case study? Write a demographic/psychographic profile.
The Psychographic groups that Spotify users are most probably mainstreamers as the 30 million songs that Spotify consists of, would mainly contain the most popular artists and songs which mainstreamers would want to listen to.
Spotify's main demographic for their audience are probably C2DE where the the enjoyment of music would be a priority.
Institution
1) How has new and digital media had an impact on ownership or control in your chosen industry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
- Spotify was developed in 2006 by a team at Spotify AB, in Stockholm, Sweden.
- The company was founded by Daniel Ek, former CTO of Stardoll, and Martin Lorentzon, co-founder of TradeDoubler and Maria Giovani Anggasta Santosa.
- When it launched in October 2008, Spotify publicized music rights deals with Sony BMG Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI and Merlin.
- Combined, the record companies paid just €8,800 for an 18 percent share of Spotify's stock, according to financial filings obtained by Computer Sweden from the Trade Register of Luxembourg
- Spotify is about to close a round of investments from Hong-Kong based business tycoon Li Ka-shing and British venture capitalists Wellington Partners.
- Previous investors in Spotify include nordic venture capitalists Northzone Ventures and Creandum, which as of July 10 owns 11.9 percent and 5.9 percent of Spotify's shares respectively.
- The majority of the stock is controlled by Spotify founders Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek by proxy of companies registered in Cyprus.
3) How has new and digital media changed the way institutions produce texts?
4) How has new and digital media changed the way institutions distribute their product?
5) How might new and digital media threaten your chosen industry?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/revenue-streams
- Napster, the pioneering file-sharing service, which unleashed piracy on the record business and began the cataclysm that caused worldwide revenues to decline from a peak of twenty-seven billion dollars, in 1999, to fifteen billion, in 2013.
- by unbundling tracks from the album, so that buyers could cherry-pick their favorite songs, Apple arguably hastened the decline.
- I like this song, but not enough to buy it, Spotify solves this ideology
6) How has new and digital media changed the way your chosen industry is regulated?
UGC
1) What examples of user-generated content can you find in your case study?
2) How has UGC changed things for audiences or institutions in your chosen case study?
Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony
1) What would be a Marxist perspective of the impact of new and digital media on your chosen case study?
2) How would a pluralist view the impact of new and digital media in your chosen industry?
3) Are there any examples of hegemony in your chosen industry or case study?
Globalisation
1) How has globalisation impacted on your chosen industry or case study?
2) In your opinion, has globalisation had a positive or negative impact on your chosen industry and case study? Why?
3) Can you find examples of cultural imperialism in your case study or industry? (The 'Americanisation' of the world)
Social media
1) How has your industry or case study used social media to promote its products?
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/03/facebook-messenger-spotify/
- Facebook Messenger is launching “its very first music integration” with Spotify.Inside the Messenger “More” section in chat threads, all iOS and Android users will now find a Spotify option. Tap it and they’ll be shuttled into Spotify’s app where they can “Search for something to share.”
- Once they select a song, artist or playlist, they’ll be popped back to Messenger with the option to share the photo of the cover artwork. When a friend taps that photo, they’ll be bounced over to Spotify to listen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/11978389/Facebook-lets-you-share-Spotify-and-Apple-Music-clips-in-your-News-Feed.html
- Facebook has introduced a new feature that allows users who are also subscribers to Spotify or Apple Music to share 30-second clips of their favourite songs, known as "music stories", in their news feeds.
- The clips are streamed from either Apple Music or Spotify The feature is currently only available through the Facebook app on iPhone.
- alliance between Facebook and Spotify turns out to be a much better deal for Facebook than Spotify - New sign-ups to Spotify must be Facebook members - the non-Facebook world will have to go somewhere else.
- Spotify obviously needs the attention that Facebook's distribution channel can bring.
- Spotify's new users, who wander in from Facebook, will get six months of free streaming.
2) Provide examples of how your case study has used social media and explain the impact this would have on audiences.
3) Is social media an opportunity or a threat to your industry and case study?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/11728422/Facebook-Music-Social-network-may-rival-Spotify-and-Apple-with-its-own-streaming-service.html
- Facebook is reported to be considering an audio streaming service, potentially creating a rival to Apple and Spotify's music services.
- launching a music video service similar to YouTube that will pay artists for video streams using advertising revenue.
- As well as Apple Music, which launched last week, and Spotify; Jay-Z's Tidal, Rdio, Deezer, Google and Microsoft are all competing for users. However, Facebook may believe it has a role to play.
Facebook has several differences with other technology companies that make a streaming service an interesting proposition.
Firstly, it is a free service: Unlike Apple, for example, people are not used to handing over their credit card details to the company.
Statistics
1) What statistics can you find to illustrate the impact new and digital media has had on your industry or case study? For example, in news, the UK newspaper industry sold more than 12m copies a day in 2001 but in 2014 it was below 7m.
http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/10/spotify-now-has-20m-paying-subscribers-a-100-year-on-year-increase/
- Spotify now has 20 million paying subscribers, from a total active user base of 75 million people.
- This represents an increase of 5 million and 15 million respectively since Spotify last provided figures back in January
- Spotify also says that it has now paid more than $3 billion in royalties to artists and rightsholders
- Spotify’s paid-to-unpaid ratio has typically always been 1-to-4, or 25 percent. It now sits at closer to 27 percent, which means its ratio of paid users is edging upwards, though admittedly only slightly.
- PlayStation 4 users are soundtracking their gaming sessions with their favorite music, from a library of over 30 million songs.
- Spotify users on PlayStation are in the zone, streaming over 1.5 billion tracks to date and listening an average of 88 minutes per day.
http://www.statista.com/topics/2075/spotify/
- Spotify's revenue amounted to 1.08 billion euros, up from 747 million euros in the previous year. The company's net loss amounted to 162 million euros in 2014.
- Spotify's revenue amounted to 1.08 billion euros, up from 747 million euros in the previous year. The company's net loss amounted to 162 million euros in 2014.
- the music streaming platform generated 982.9 million euros in subscription revenues.
- the total number of employees at the music streaming service was 1,354.
- In 2013, more than 4.5 billion hours of music were streamed via Spotify.
2) Looking at these statistics, what impact has new/digital media had on institutions in your chosen industry?
3) What has the impact been for audiences? These may be positive and negative.
Theories
1) What media theories can you apply to your chosen industry and case study? Select THREE media theories and explain how they are relevant to your case study. Note: these can be ANY of the theories we have learned over the whole of Year 12 and 13.
Issues/debates
1) What media issues and debates can you apply to your chosen industry and case study? Select THREE media issues/debates and explain how they are relevant to your case study.
Wider examples and secondary texts
1) What other texts or institutions are also relevant to your case study? What would be good secondary texts or examples to use to support the findings of your independent case study?
Media Magazine
MM 53 - Spot(ify) the Difference pg.54
the free tier that 75% of users are experiencing contains adverts, all of which advertisers have paid to place there.
pays 70% of the overall revenue they collect to rights holders – in other words, to the artists.
the amount of royalties that Spotify pays to artists doubled from 2013 to 2014, from half a billion to a cool billion US dollars.
Spotify has finally seized upon a working business model that does return some real money to artists and rights-holders.
As of December 2014, 75% of Spotify’s 60 million users worldwide (up 20 million in a month!) were using the free tier, with just 25% paying the subscription of £9.99 per month.
The article shows how Spotify has developed since its release and the breakdown of how artists are paid. Although it may seem that it is difficult to make profit due to there only being 25% of the users being subscription customers however it has been proven that the amount of royalties that Spotify pay to artists are receiving are massively increasing. With 70% of the revenue being given to the artists, this is a new way of musicians gaining profit for releasing their songs, differently to the traditional physical album sales.
MM 34 - Changes in the Music Industry: From Labels to Laptops
- In the old days, working musicians would hope (ultimately) to be signed to a record label.
- The emergence of
- new technologies and new ways for music
- lovers to listen to, and own, the music they
- love.
- With the emergence of Napster and other file-sharing sites more than ten years ago, it became obvious that the internet offers a perfect way for artists to distribute music.
- In this new world, there would be no place for physical records; instead music would live as data on people’s computers.
- the artist would start to get a cut of the profits (usually about 15%).
- the publishing arm of the label (or an independent publisher) would collect royalties from all the airplay and other usage of the artist’s materials, taking a cut themselves.
- It’s only in recent years that a semi-professional ‘project studio’ setup powerful enough to produce commercially releasable results
- CD and DVD revenues fell by £8.7 million in 2009, but digital revenues grew by £12.8 million.
The music industry was once widely reliant on the sales of concert and performance tickets but as time went on, physical albums played a heavier role in an artists revenue. Audiences would be able to listen to records from the comfort of their own home and collect the records, however, now the internet has allowed for file sharing sites and illegal downloading sites to take over the music industry. For example, Napster has been emerging and audience view that this is better way for artists to distribute their music as music now lives on people's computers, phones and other devices rather than in the form of physical copies.
MM 35 - From ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ to Arcade Fire: 25 Years of Change in the Music Business – the Culture of Today and Tomorrow
- The music industry has turned 180 degrees,
- and gone back to how it was in the 70’s. Live
- music is key to a band’s success, with the
- records becoming less important.
- Apple has devoured the open space with its digital offering, iTunes.
- Most majors have rushed to own shares in the digital provisions, such as Spotify.
The music industry, like the 70's, think that the key to success is through live music as audiences world wide no longer need to buy physical albums as they can easily access music through downloading or streaming sites. With Spotify gaining great popularity in the music industry, people believe that owning shares with Spotify will prove to be greatly useful. It is possible that eventually, with streaming sites gaining a lot of popularity, artists would solely rely on the live performance earnings.
MM 55 - Music in Ads: How Does it Work? Mike Hobbs interviewed musicians and marketers to investigate how advertisers hit the magic combination of music and imagery that will generate the emotions that melt consumers’ hearts.
- To have your song on an ad can represent the peak
- of success for many musicians
- Every time I hear a piece of music on the radio or in a film I think my brain subconsciously logs it and the
- emotion attached.
- music works with visuals to enhance the viewers’ experience and emotion,
This article shows that how an artists status and success used to be measured on whether their music was popular enough to be featured on an advertisement. If the artists song was used for an advert, it could suggest that they would be widely successful as many people would hear the song and may be inclined to listen to it. Also, it suggests that music videos aren't purely used for audiences to listen to the song alone. It offers a variety of components to accentuate the audiences experience with the music. In terms of Spotify, initially, the sound component of the music was the only thing offered however Spotify have recently announced that they would be offering more videos to further enhance the viewers emotion.
Media Factsheet
24 Music Industry
- The music industry is a global business that generates profit by selling musical recordings in both physical and digital formats to media audiences.
- labels are continually devising new ways of attracting audiences to consume their products
- The term music industry refers to all the businesses that are responsible for the creation and the marketing of music
- The Internet has now provided artists and individuals the opportunity to launch independent record labels known as Net Labels.
- Synergy is another way in which record companies generate income via advertising and marketing their artists in association with other brands or products.
- Adorno built his theory of the culture industries on Marxist principles. He was a critic of the capitalist system and argued that popular culture or the culture industries maintained capitalism.
- Peterson and Berger examine the concept of authenticity and ideology within popular music. They identify that historically popular music had come from a place of resistance to dominant ideologies and values and provided a creative outlet for people that allowed expression of counter-cultural positions.
The music industry has massively developed with the continuous advancements in new and digital media such as the internet and spotify. It has provided for a new way for artists to gain profit and no longer needs to be from a reputable company to be successful.
54 A2 Post Modernism
- There once was a time when high art was removed from popular
culture.
- Pop music (low art) often samples classical music (high art)
- Advertising (low art) often makes reference to visual art (high
art) or uses classical music (high art) to help sell its products
Spotify can be considered as a form of low art as they are advertising the music artists.
55 Twilight Case Study
- The video used scenes from the film to promote its
release and was screened on MTV as well as being available on
www.twilightthemovie.com.
- The official Twilight website:
www.twilightthemovie.com, featured
key images used in the poster
campaigns and hosted the trailers and
music video, creating a link between
all three media platforms.
Music videos are an effective way to advertise for movies, artists or other products. As the visual aspects that music videos provide can be considered to be much more impacting than audio alone, this may be a reason why Spotify has decided to expand their horizons from streaming only audio to streaming music videos and other entertainment clips.
56 Gaming and Audiences
- Whilst other areas of entertainment such as the film and
music industries have found themselves struggling to maintain and
increase profits, gaming has proved itself to be popular and profitable
(making $57bn in 2009).
- Like other media industries, it is having to
adapt to technological changes in the rise of emedia
- the threat of
piracy and the challenges offered by changing audience behaviours.
- Nintendo Wii has specifically focussed its marketing on child and
family target audiences with simple platform games, music and
exergame titles being its mainstay.
With the gaming industry being very popular, Spotify may choose to stream songs from games and game clips to appeal to a wider audience.
67 Lady Gaga and The Music Industry
- The global music industry is dominated by four major record labels,
also known as conglomerates. These are Warner Music Group,
Universal, EMI & SONY.
- aim to attract a mass audience
through the production of mainstream, ‘popular’ products.
- The growth and popularity of the internet has challenged the power
of conglomerate control within the industry in a number of ways
- The music industry has had to respond to the advent of the digital
revolution due to its impact on production, distribution, artists and
audiences.
- The rapidly increasing trend of internet file-sharing has
resulted in both positive and negative outcomes for both artists
and fans.
- Artists are rewarded with free ‘viral marketing’ where
word of mouth spreads ‘like a virus’ amongst users, generating free
publicity and ‘buzz’ around an artist, video, album or single.
- Artists have taken
ownership of key industry processes such as marketing and
distribution, processes usually carried out by the record labels
themselves.
- As conglomerates
becomes less dominant, audiences gain more choice over the types
of music they want to hear and access, rather than being restricted
by the type of music distributed by record labels.
- The digital revolution has enabled audiences to move from passive
to active, leading to a participatory culture as audiences get more
of a say in what music is produced and which music succeeds
- By embracing social network media platforms, musicians and record
labels are able to utilise an interactive relationship with fans that is
beneficial to both producers and audiences.
- Richard
Dyer (1985) offers a definition of escapism stating that ‘entertainment offers the
image of ‘something better’ to escape into or something we want deeply that our
day to day lives don’t provide’.
Spotify can be considered to support Dyer's theory that entertainment (in this case, music) offers an opportunity to escape from life's mundane problems and enjoy 'something better'. Also, as artists have recently been using social media in order to advertise their music and other activities, Spotify may become a similar platform for artists to showcase their new content on.
69 Music Video
- The purpose of a music video is to sell products, the most obvious
of which is the song featured in the video
- However, other connected
products are also marketed by a music video.
- When a music video is shown, the audience is able to hear the song
the video is for so they are ‘getting’ the product that is being
promoted
- However,
the development of new media technologies meant that music
videos, and the songs along with them, were more widely available
at any time.
- The advent of such technologies proved to be problematic for the
music industry as audiences were less inclined to buy a physical
copy of a song if they could listen to it online for free.
- Initially, most
record companies fought against their artists’ music videos being
available online and attempted to prosecute those who uploaded
videos to YouTube for copyright infringement.
- However, more
recently, the music industry has come to realise that attempts to
monitor sites like YouTube are time consuming, expensive and often
futile.
73 Glee
- The music
from Glee is a huge commercial success with digital single and
album downloads passing the 20 million mark (January 2011).
- Fox’s
partnership with music conglomerate Sony has generated mass chart
success not only for the songs covered by the Glee cast within the
show, but also the recordings by the original artists
- Songs from the show are available to download on iTunes shortly
after the episodes are broadcast but opportunities for further
revenue are extensive.
- Audience interest in music generates further interest and activity in other musical themed media platforms such as Glee ringtones or the
karaoke themed app for the iPhone and iPad.
104 Digital Age
- Music video could only be seen when broadcast or if purchased
on video/DVD collections
- Music could only be bought as ‘hard copy’, the most
successful being vinyl records, cassettes and then CDs
- Spotify offers a vast library of music that is available at any time.
- Music videos are available anytime on YouTube and can be
downloaded and played on mobile devices.
- Digital radio can be listened to on computers
- Music can be produced at home and made available via social
networking where it can be sold or offered for free download
- Radio and music TV would be
available only at the time of
broadcast.
122 The Changing Face of Music
- The music industry is a complex
industry which is made up of
conglomerates such as those
identified above as well as record
labels, some of which are owned
by the big 4, others which are
considered to be ‘indie’
(independent) labels
- The music industry wants to protect their position of dominance
- According to www.songrights.com music companies
give between 9% and 12% to the artist and the rest is profit for their
company.
- So, for many decades the music industry had a relatively
uncomplicated business model: band or artist records song, record
label sells song and then artist and record label make money
- Developments in
technology and the emergence of the Internet mean that artists
have the potential to reach audiences without the need for a major
company and where once recording equipment was expensive it
was out of reach for the average person; it is now widely available
at a low cost.
- In an era of fragmented platforms, file sharing, and non-traditional
routes to market, the music industry is facing various challenges.
- How audiences are purchasing and consuming music has changed
dramatically with the emergence of digital technology and the music
industry has struggled to keep up at times
- One of the
most problematic issues that the industry is facing is the ‘culture of
free’.
- In recent years consumers are less willing to pay for their
music and as a consequence piracy and file-sharing have seen the
industry lose billions over the last decade
- According to the Institute
for Policy Innovation global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of
economic losses every year.
- In order to combat this music streaming
services such as Spotify have worked in conjunction with the
industry to try offer audiences the opportunity to listen to music
but not actually download it
- superstars are
capturing the vast majority of music revenues and their share is
increasing – not decreasing – because of the rise of digital services
like iTunes and Spotify.
- ‘Don’t make people pay for music, let them.’ - Amanda Palmer
- Artists like Amanda Palmer are trying to circumvent the big labels
and do things differently by using the idea of crowdsourcing. This
is where an artist asks their fans or anyone who may be interested
to fund their project and be given something special in return
- What is clear is that in a trans-media age where changes are brought
about by the developments in technology at a rapid pace the interrelationship
between the artist and consumer is evolving beyond
the traditional models
