jour net 2004 conference title: music radio journalism on the internet andrea baker, lecturer in...

Jour Net 2004Conference

Title: Music Radio Journalism on the Internet

Andrea Baker, Lecturer in Journalism

Monash University, Melbourne

The University of Newcastle 2004

Abstract: This paper explores a new and alternative form of journalism teaching and

practice in Australian universities:

development of two Internet only radio stations, primary output is music journalism: QUT’s emit & Monash’s DIY. critique traditional ways of measuring radio audiences offer a fresh approach to Internet radio audience methodologies. Introduce new research, 1st stage: quantitative survey to tertiary students of journalism, media and communications in Australia. 2nd stage, qualitative method associated with reception studies and ethnographic in nature, in depth interviews and observational notes.

History

1890’s Morse code and Marconi1900s Wireless 1905 ‘Wireless and Telegraphy Act’1920s AM, analogue radio stations in the USA and UK1930s Australian Broadcasting Corporation1930s Government regulations for radio licenses1935 24 hour broadcasting1939 War of the Worlds radio play1940s Nearly every living room in Australia had a wireless 1950 Radio Australia1950s Golden years of Commercial radio

History

1954 -7 Television1960’s Internet 1967 Talkback radio 1970s Community Radio 1974 Public broadcasting1975 ABC rock, JJ1975 SBS radio 1970s CAAMA radio 1980s FM radio1980s JJJ national1980s Pirate radio 1992 Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA)

History

1990s World Wide Web1990s Digital Radio 1990s Traditional Radio goes online1990s ‘Internet audio and video streaming is not

broadcasting’ (ABA)1996 Internet radio in Australia1998 Digitalone.org.au (ceased) ‘commercially funded’1999 thebasement.com.au (operational)

• ‘commercially funded’ • corporate body, Telstra • 30 – 50 years • contemporary; rock, blues, jazz/world music• linked to ABC TV for live concerts• linked to Pay TV, Music Max

History

1999 pulseradio.com.au (operational) • ‘community, free, public’• 17-30 years, anyone interested in dance music

2000 bigfatradio.com.au (now ceased) • ‘commercially funded’

2001 DIY Monash radio (operational)www.diyradio.msa.monash.edu.au

• ‘student radio’• Monash students or anyone interested in• indie, grunge or garage music

2002 ABC’s DIG (operational) July www.abc.net.au/dig

• ‘public radio’• Baby boomers, 30-50 years• Contemporary rock; blues; jazz & world music.• Linked to ABC Digital TV channel 200l,

History

• Primary – secondary - tertiary • Media (radio) • Telecomm unions (telephone) • Internet • E commerce (music)

Convergence

2002 QUT’s emit (operational) Augustwww.emit.qut.com/

• ‘student radio’• tertiary students• lovers of electronic music

Radio, music and the NET

(Priestman, 2002: 33)

Radio, music and the NET

1917 Marconi’s term,’ radio music box’1930s Music aided relaxation between live, dance, band

music 1940s ‘Top forty playlist’ / format-50s ‘mass audience’ 1950s USA, commercial stations devoted entirely to

music, response to loss of audience to TV 1970s FM and community radio, new music formats-80s

• CHR – contemporary hits radio• AOR - album orientated rock • AC- Adult contemporary• ‘easy listening’- ‘classics’• ‘country’ - ‘indie music’ etc• ‘niche/ fragmented audiences • gatekeepers, APRA (royalties) • various Music Copyright Acts

Radio, Music and the NET

1970 etc radio provided a shop window to musicrecording industry, most profitable$38.6 billion in 1999 (Priestman, 2002:31)

1990s Internet turned the music industry ‘upside down’

2000, New and alternative area ‘Online Journalism’,Journalism production and practice

2000 Napster, downloading of music to CD quality - 2001 ‘free exchange/ music piracy’

2001 end of the ‘Top 40 playlist’ & end of ‘the single’

Radio, Music and the NET

2001 US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, all USA stations transmitting digitally has to pay copyright fees dating back to 1998. not here in Australia yet.

2001 Warner, BMG and EMI agreed to launch MusicNet to distribute music recordings

2003 Many Internet only stations in the USA collapse

2003 Internet music only cafes in Australia

Features of Radio: Old - New



OldTraditional radio

Terrestrial Real time

Space

Nationhood

Blind

Portable

Cheap

New

Internet radio

Extra terrestrial Shifts in time

A lot of space

Innovation

Visual Portable?

Expensive


Accessible Accessible?1998-2002, net access

dropped from 11th to 19th

(International Telecommunications

Union Digital Access Index, 20th November, 2003)


Disembodied voiceOne channel

Communication1 way

Push technology Inactive? Talkback

Embodied voice

Multi channel

2 way –

Pull technology

Interactive

email, chat room,

Online quiz’s, be IJ!

(Priestman, 2002)


Sound quality

Business modelsVertical institutionLinear Centralised

Large organization

Economies of scale

Broadband Access Ranked 11th

(Australian, Media, 2001)

HorizontalNon linearDe-centralised Smaller units

Features of Radio: Old - NewNature of advertising?

Radio call outs

Top –down management

Producer centrally controls content, distance from listeners

Web pagesE commerceSell CD’s, concerts, and books

Bottom up management

Listeners directly involved programs/policy


Mass audience

Large/local audiences

Appeal to majorityMedia texts power over the audience ‘hypodermic needle’passive audiencebroadcaster

Niche/fragmented audienceSmall/ global audiences Serve minorityGroups/communitiesMedia texts are interpreted in many ways‘Uses and gratification’ active audienceWeb-caster

(Priestman, 2002; Mc Leish, 2001; Barnard, 2002, Tacchi, 2002; Mc Quail, 1997)

Webcasting


Case study 1: QUT EMIT

Net station from the startQUT, Creative IndustriesFunded by QUTStart up fee, $50,000- $80,000Web site, March 2002, Built studio Launch 1st August & CD launchAnother CD launch Dec 2003Youth Radio Network in QLD, 2004Ethnographic study ARC grant

Case study 1: QUT EMIT

Case Study 2: DIY Monash University

DIY Student Radio began in the 1960sPirate radio station, 3DR, Draft Resistance Radio1972, 3MU, part of Monash University Union1980s, low power AM broadcast license from Dept of Communications3MU outside normal AM broadcast band, hard to listen to1989, FM transmission, 95.7 FM, student broadcast to Melbourne1992-1997 studio built, capital grant from Monash University Union. Highly successful, running 3 days a week1999, live music shows

Case Study 2: DIY Monash University

2000, 3MU’s first CD then changed to 3MR2001, 1st student radio station to have a stage at a major music festival. Offshore festival. Temporary broadcast license abolished. One of many student radio stations2001, DIY Student Radio Internet Broadcaster 2003, grant to Faculty of Arts for intercampus streaming site2 Mac computers $5,000, Gippsland Campus 2004, DIY radio station streaming indie, grunge, garage music from its campus sites in Melbourne.2005 Overseas links to South Africa, Malaysia, and London etc

Case Study 2: DIY Monash

Why Net radio? See how this technology workTesting and learning new technologiesAffordable and existingMusic and Net most viable, What’s its potential?Use across disciplines, music, design, multi media, media, communications, journalism What’s its relation to print and TV, Is it useful?Assess different ways of using it?Engagement from an academic point of viewEngagement from an applications point of viewApplied practice and theoryLocal, national and global diffusion

Student’s perspective

Traditional radio was dullNiche audience 18-24 yearsRadio continues to develop new radio services with emphasis on internet digital radioMarket neglect Difficult to get radio licenseNeed to explore streaming technologiesSo far music and Net- viable music as source of news, information and entertainmentCultural differences

Journalism skills

Core journalism skills, Alternative area: Music

Managing an innovative music station

Researching- reporting-writing across the medias

Interviews

Digital editing

News- Reviews

Future interactive with print and TV

Journalism/Cyber-culture skills


Cyber-culture skills

How to do it? Web page design Use of Windows Player, Quicktime or Real player Broadband Upload content 3MP files Manage server Hyperlinks Live VS streamed archives -stream live concerts On demand services

Cyber-culture skills

Interactive services List-serves Registered User options Online forums Chat rooms Email Mobile phone and SMS Guest books Quizzes etc

Academic

Measure audiences

Quantitative and qualitative studies

Media, Net Theory & practice

Internet Radio Audience

Audience, hard to define ‘receivers of a source, channel or message, a one to one form of communication.

(Mc Quail, 1997:1) Radio is an audience lead medium

‘Know your audience’

‘Audience as ‘market’ OR Audience as ‘public’ (Ang, 1991)

‘Object to be controlled – point of view from management’(Ang, 1991)

Internet Radio Audience

BUT ‘amorphous, shifting, an unknown social entity’. (Mc Quail, 1997: 19)

‘invisible fictions’ ‘circumscribed discursive figures’, an invisible mass audience.

(Hartley,1997)

‘audience in flux’, from mass to fragmented audience’. (Mc Quail: 1997:133).

‘audience’ , hard to research. (Ang, 1991); (Moore, 1993); (Hartley, 1987) & (Mc Quail, 1997).

Quantitative Research

Structural Approach (Mc Quail, 1997) Aim: describe the composition Data: Social demographic etc Method: surveys etc

‘Streamlined surveillance techniques’ (Tacchi, 2001) Surveys - Telephone polls- Diaries- electronic meters in TV & radio sets

Ratings, ‘ratings’ as a system of statistical analysis devised to estimate the size of the audience only; it is not a serious reflection of public taste or cultural consumption’.

(Nightingale, 1997: 360)


Ratings Crossley (USA) Edison Media Research Company (USA) A.C. Nielson Ratings Company (AUST) Mc Nair RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) with GWR Research

group. (UK)

Internet radio software surveillance Which country or region they have tuned in from Which programmes they are listening to and for how long Which archive clips they requested most and which is not at all Which connection speeds they selected or was detected Any transmission errors they encountered.


careless viewing - poor memory- incomplete diaries - technical breakdowns of set meters

HOWEVER

‘ongoing crisis in quantitative audience research, which fails to look at the cultural implications of media consumption and ongoing ‘creative tension’ between ‘the markets sought by radio stations’, and the ‘actual, real audiences’.

Mc Quail (1997), Hartley (1986); Ang (1991) & Moores (1993)

Qualitative

Cultural Studies/ Reception Analysis (Mc Quail, 1997)

Main aim: Ethnographic/Cultural Studies/ Reception analysis.

Main data: Perceptions and meanings of Internet only radio within a social and cultural context.

Main methodology: Ethnographic, Qualitative.

Main subjects: tertiary students from media, communications, and journalism courses in Australia.

Techniques: In depth interviews- Listener panels - Group interviews- Observational field work

Qualitative

Stage 1: Quantitative: A large survey of the tertiary student population who study media, communications and journalism to access Internet-only radio use. Aims: Construct a general overview of Internet radio reception

within the tertiary student sector. Investigate the media industry goals of these Internet only

radio users, ‘view from above’- ‘institutional point of view’. (Ang, 1991)

Investigate the media user’s habits, ‘view from below’- ‘native point of view’. (Ang, 1991)

Locate 15 Internet radio users/ subjects for in depth interviews.

Critique current methods employed in measuring traditional media use.

Qualitative

1- In-depth individual interviews of 15 Internet only radio station users, tertiary students who study media, communications and journalism, age group, 18-24 years; both genders; diverse socio economic backgrounds from rural and urban areas. 2- Group/panel interviews with these 15 media users Aims: Construct a cultural map of Internet radio users from the

tertiary student population. Interpret the perspective, the side of the audience, ‘view

from below’, locate the ‘unique voice from below’- the media user of Internet –only radio stations.

Identify a subculture of Internet only radio users.

Conclusion

Aim of this Research: ‘locate and identify audience behavior’ of a subculture (tertiary students of media, communications and journalism courses in Australia) of Internet only radio users.

Conclusion: Overall this research paints a picture and provides a unique cultural, socio-economic map this subculture. This landmark study provides pivotal outcomes for any further research into audience behavior on the Internet, both in Australia and abroad. It will also factor in the changing nature of converging media, which is currently a new research area.

jour net 2004 conference title: music radio journalism on the internet andrea baker, lecturer in...

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