Music and Consumption in the Digital Age

MUSC20512 Music and Consumption in the Digital Age 20 Semester 2 Undergraduate Level 2 Roderick Hawkins Unit coordinator 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Middle part of Bachelors ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0 This course unit addresses some of the big questions, challenges and opportunities facing musicians and others working in the music industry since the turn of the millennium. It does so by focusing on changing technologies and patterns of consumption. Drawing on the rapid and recent development of scholarship on music and digital culture, and by aiming to situate recent changes in broader historical, political and cultural contexts, the course unit will introduce students to a range of concepts and methodologies that will enable a critical examination of how music is consumed and how consumption in turn shapes music and, by extension, the practices and discourses that produce music (and reproduce it). This course unit addresses some of the big questions, challenges and opportunities facing musicians and others working in the music industry since the turn of the millennium. It does so by focusing on changing technologies and patterns of consumption. Drawing on the rapid and recent development of scholarship on music and digital culture, and by aiming to situate recent changes in broader historical, political and cultural contexts, the course unit will introduce students to a range of concepts and methodologies that will enable a critical examination of how music is consumed and how consumption in turn shapes music and, by extension, the practices and discourses that produce music (and reproduce it).   By focusing on consumption the course unit does not engage only or exclusively with music as such, nor primarily on the myriad issues that flow from investigations into digital culture and music production, composition or performance. Nevertheless, it does provide an important foundation for and complement to analytical and interpretive work in those areas (e.g. developing close reading skills of media texts), especially in related dissertations at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Students will have the opportunity to implement and experiment with new intellectual tools through the examination of a number of case studies that cut across styles, genres and repertoires; although the examples focus on mediations of music that take place digitally, in case-study work students may focus upon both music produced specifically for digital consumption as well as music that has been adapted for a digital environment. Similarly, while the course unit focuses on digital culture it is not limited to popular culture; students may, for example, choose to investigate case studies from any music tradition or genre in the final project.In the middle of the course unit students will normally get to hear first-hand from a range of invited guest speakers, sometimes including former students who have taken this course unit. Although the course-unit does not attempt to provide students with specific practical preparation for the music industry this may be a happy side-effect given the nature of the topics covered. The course-unit, in other words, is primarily a ‘reading and writing’ course unit, and suitable for any student with an interest in the academic study of music today, or in the recent past, from the perspective of cultural critique.   The course-unit aims:<ul> <li>to improve students abilities at close reading and cultural critique in essay writing</li> <li>to introduce students to a range of music and music-related practices and texts; to the issues and meanings that might be heard and viewed therein; to debates and issues pertaining to the study of ‘the digital age’ and related categorisations; to methodological and theoretical debates concerning the study of music, technology and culture;</li> <li>to introduce students to popular music studies, media studies, cultural studies, sound studies and the sociology of music as they intersect with musicology in this course unit; to develop an awareness of different methods for the cultural analysis of popular music and music-related practices and texts; </li> <li>to enable students to develop confidence, critical engagement and originality in their approach to the study music, consumption and digital culture; to give students the tools to undertake an independent essay; to further develop the skills necessary for related independent projects at level three and beyond.  </li></ul> By the end of this course students will be able to:<ul> <li>demonstrate an awareness of the various topics and approaches pertaining to the study of music, consumption and music-related practices and texts in the ‘digital age’;</li> <li>demonstrate a sound understanding of recent industry changes and their relationship to socio-economic, political, technological and cultural contexts;</li> <li>demonstrate a developing fluency with the theories, concepts and debates in relevant literature and fields of study;</li> <li>demonstrate a firm understanding of ‘the digital age’ and ‘consumption’ as topics and concepts, placing them in historical and other contexts and with reference to relevant scholarly approaches and debates;</li> <li>demonstrate a critical and/or entrepreneurial awareness of the new directions and possibilities in scholarship and musical culture generated by changes in digital musical cultures;</li> <li>articulate and critique different tropes and cultural codes that recur in the existing scholarship and broader journalistic commentary on music and digital culture.   </li></ul> By the end of this course students will be able to:<ul> <li>explain the impact of digital technologies and their economic, political and socio-cultural contexts upon selected examples of music-based cultural practice;</li> <li>show an awareness of the complexity and nuance embedded in the visual, musical and discursive levels of music-based texts and practices;</li> <li>locate contemporary experiences and perspectives from within the music industry in a broader critical context;</li> <li>apply and critique relevant theories and bodies of knowledge, for example  in the study of genre, new media or neoliberalism;</li> <li>demonstrate critical engagement with a range of scholarly and non-scholarly discourses.  </li></ul> By the end of this course students will be able to:  <ul> <li> produce an independent project to a high standard of presentation and to a set deadline.</li> </ul> By the end of this course students will be able to:<ul><li>demonstrate the ability to synthesize and evaluate material systematically to produce arguments and solutions that are communicated clearly in both written and verbal form;</li><li>show an ability to produce good-quality work independently with developing critical self-awareness and within an increasingly self-directed environment;</li><li>demonstrate the ability to communicate ideas and information clearly in written and verbal form;</li><li>demonstrate developing data information and organisation skills especially for online materials and non-standard scholarly sources;</li><li>demonstrate developing team-working and collaboration skills by communicating clearly with peers in seminar discussion and small presentations.</li></ul> Other The course-unit requires students to engage critically with contemporary cultural industries, technologies and cultural meanings, improving self-awareness and independence, requiring analytical and problem-solving skills and strong communication (especially the ability to listen to and persuade others). The unit builds awareness of different industry discourses and thus the ability to understand and assess underlying causes, patterns and effects. The course-unit fosters an awareness of personal and cultural differences, improving students' emotional intelligence and collaboration skills. The list below is an indication of topics, which may be subject to change. Part 1: The Long View  <ul><li>The (Post)Digital Age and Digital Culture</li><li>Production, Consumption, Circulation and Capitalism    </li><li>The Music Industry, Recorded Music and ‘Mass Culture’  </li></ul>Part 2: The Music Industry and Neoliberalism<ul><li>Streaming, Platforms, Copyright and Data  </li><li>Branding, Marketing and Communication    </li></ul>Part 3: People and Organisations  <ul><li>Ensembles, Venues, Labels, Brands  </li><li>Musicians and Work in the Gig Economy  </li><li>Audiences, Consumers, Fans, Critics  </li></ul>Part 4: Practices and Reverberations  <ul><li>Genre 2.0</li><li>Old and New Media  </li><li>Listening and Being  </li></ul> <ul><li>Beyond the lectures, throughout the course-unit students are expected to prepare for weekly seminars, which may take the form of debates or reading groups. Students give a short group presentation in one allotted seminar.  </li><li>In order to gain feedback on set readings and lectures, students are required to complete online weekly tasks, in the form of seminar group blog posts within Blackboard.  </li><li>Students are also required to develop and share a diary of listening and viewing in order to expand their knowledge and engagement with music and contemporary culture.  </li><li>Working in small groups students will be offered the opportunity to produce and upload one episode of the unit podcast, undertaking a review of recent reading and listening. (Optional.) </li></ul> 0 Other 100%  <figure class="table"><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="662"><tbody><tr><td style="width:206px;">Assessment task</td><td>Formative or Summative</td><td style="width:243px;">Weighting within unit</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align:top;width:206px;">Weekly online task (seminar group blog post/Weekly Padlet posts)</td><td style="vertical-align:top;">Formative</td><td style="vertical-align:top;width:243px;">n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Individual online video essay or poster and peer review</td><td>Summative</td><td>25%</td></tr><tr><td>Coursework essay (formal essay or equivalent)</td><td>Summative</td><td>75%</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>  •    Peer feedback on blog posts •    Staff and peer feedback on presentations •    Staff feedback on coursework essay  •    Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hours or by making an appointment) Available as Free Choice (UG) or to other programmes (PG) BA(Hons) Music & Drama BA(Hons) Music & Drama Second Year Optional MusB(Hons) MusB (Hons) Music Second Year Optional MusB(Hons) (joint with RNCM) MusB(Hons) (joint with RNCM) Second Year Optional BA Film and Music BA Film and Music Second Year Optional Y <ul> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodard, Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen and Anne Danielsen, Digital Signatures: The Impact of Digitization on Popular Music Sound (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Jean Hogarty, Popular Music and Retro Culture in the Digital Era (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Brian J. Hracs, Michael Seman, and Tarek E. Virani (eds.), The Production and Consumption of Music in the Digital Age (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Leslie M. Meier, Popular Music as Promotion: Music and Branding in the Digital Age (Cambridge: Polity, 2016).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Mark Mulligan, Awakening:  The Music Industry in the Digital Age (MIDiA Research, 2015).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Raphaël Nowak and Andrew Whelan (eds.), Networked Music Cultures: Contemporary Approaches, Emerging Issues (London: Palgrave, 2016).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Nick Prior, Popular Music, Digital Technology and Society (London: Sage, 2018).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Richard Purcell and Richard Randall (eds.), 21st-Century Perspectives On Music, Technology, And Culture: Listening Spaces (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2016).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Jim Rogers, The Death and Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Steve Savage, Bytes and Backbeats: Repurposing Music in the Digital Age (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Robert Strachen, Sonic Technologies: Popular Music, Digital Culture and the Creative Process (London: Bloomsbury, 2017).</li> <li style="margin-left: 36pt;">Timothy Taylor, Music and Capitalism: A History of the Present (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015). See also the accompanying website: <a href="http://musicandcapitalism.org/">http://musicandcapitalism.org/</a></li></ul> Lectures 22 Seminars 11 0 167  Most years students benefit from invited guest speakers who works in the music industry.