Media Policy and Music Activity

Krister Malm, Roger Wallis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780415050197
• eBook ISBN: 9781134943074
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

How do people make music - and how does this activity relate to the policies of governments and the music industry? What is the relationship between live music and music we hear on the radio, or in music videos? How has the digital revolution affected music-making in industrialised and in developing nations? In Media Policy and Music Activity, Krister Malm and Roger Wallis look in depth at the relationships between policies governing the output of the music media and music activity in society. A practical base in case study material is combined with a broad theoretical framework for understanding the music media.

Chapter 1
The music industry and music media—an
introduction

PRESENTING THE MEDIA POLICY AND MUSIC ACTIVITY
PROJECT

Citizens of Kenya who woke up early on 1 August 1982 got a surprise when they turned on their radios. Instead of the normal, soothing fare of Jim Reeves and Boney M, the airwaves were full of the reverberating rhythms of East African pop. The reason; there was a coup attempt by rebels in the Air Force and one of their first actions had been to change music policy at the Voice of Kenya radio monopoly. The coup was short-lived, but the rebels did succeed, temporarily at least, where the government had failed on two occasions during the 1980s. Two separate edicts requiring far more local music to be featured on the VoK were formally issued, in 1980 and again in 1988. Neither had any substantial effect on output.

The Midsummer weekend is an important national holiday for the people of Sweden; it is the climax of a short hectic summer with long days and very little darkness. Midsummer is celebrated with many open-air festivities, including no small measure of Swedish music; a Midsummer without Swedish music is almost as unthinkable as a carnival in Trinidad without calypso or steelband. This, as one might expect, is reflected in the output of Swedish radio. In 1989 things were different. A composers’ strike forced both national radio and television channels to refrain from playing almost any Swedish songs that were not in the public domain. The reason for this somewhat unusual action was growing discontent with the amount of Swedish music which could be heard in the broadcasting media. Three years earlier, in 1986, the government had even ordered the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation to take effective counteraction ‘should the amount of Swedish music tend to decrease’. Three years in a row this was exactly what happened without any action being taken; composers used the legal possibilities open to them to force a change. The next year, 1990, statistics showed an increase of four percentage points in the Swedish music content of the country’s national light music channel.

The above are two good examples of pressure groups coming from ‘underneath’ and attempting to change or merely implement media policies where governments seemed to have failed. But national policymakers have also been coming under pressure from ‘above’, from the international level.

In Europe, the EC spent much of the 1980s pondering over policies which could serve to increase the amount of European material in audio and audio-visual media. This involved, in effect, decreasing the amount of programming from the normal source, the USA.

The policies which were adopted, including a generous move towards general deregulation of the media, actually led to an increase of the material intended for exclusion. The US-based (if not always US-owned) film industry lobbied successfully for a watering-down of quota regulations for European audio-visual media. A growing number of European nations had also begun to consider music quotas as a means of defending local content against the flood of Anglo-American hit music emanating from the giant media conglomerates. A US response to this came from the American copyright organizations representing composers and publishers (and thus, indirectly, even the media conglomerates). They warned that protective national measures in Europe that were seen to discriminate against US music could result in the Americans cancelling their traditional reciprocal relationships with their European national counterparts. There was even a threat of starting to negotiate directly with radio stations, which could result in US music being much cheaper to play than, say, Swedish or French. Such a scenario was also being aggravated by the increase in satellite radio and TV channels (channels which do not respect national frontiers) and the emergence of bigger and bigger media conglomerates which also live a global existence, floating up above sovereign national states.

With such developments on both the local and international levels, it is not surprising that national media policymakers have been experiencing numerous difficulties. Several more examples will follow in the course of this volume as we delve more deeply into the events of the 1980s on the national and local level in six different countries, comparing these to relevant happenings on the international scene.

Some readers may be familiar with our earlier study—MISC or the Music Industry in Small Countries project—of the music industry in a number of smaller nations and its development during the 1970s. The MISC report, Big Sounds from Small Peoples (Wallis and Malm 1984), charted the flow of music industry technology and products to virtually every corner of the globe, observing some of the ways in which this development assisted or came into conflict with national and local cultural interests. We observed how accessibility to technology at an affordable price had enabled groups of enthusiasts to establish local music industries. Such operations, however, were rarely isolated from the world at large. The Small lived in a strange form of symbiosis with the Big transnational giants and their subsidiaries, who were constantly expanding and controlling more and more of the available distribution and manufacturing resources.

The problems faced by cultural policymakers in the 1970s were mainly concerned with the availability of music industry technology, nationally and locally, and the uses to which it was put. The uncertainties and difficulties of the 1980s, however, tended to focus more on the broader issues of media policy. Unfortunately, awareness of the importance of this field often came too late. Action came even later, if at all. International organizations such as Unesco, the Council of Europe or the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) could provide few universal patent solutions. Traditional concepts of broadcasting were under attack from those whose stated aims were to shift the emphasis from elitist control to consumer sovereignty. The concept of the ‘Public Service’ brief, encompassing some measure of obligation towards minority cultural interests and activities, was being declared redundant. At the same time, new communications technologies such as satellites, and the growth of huge transnational conglomerates involved in cultural industry activities, were weakening the ability of many countries to exert sovereign control over national policies in the media and cultural field. All too often, politicians seemed content to sit on the fence and ‘wait and see what happens’ whilst technological and economic factors enjoyed a free-for-all, mapping out new media landscapes.

This book is based on a research project that has encompassed studies throughout the 1980s in six small nations coupled with studies of international developments. Our aim has been to map out the interaction between music in the mass media and music activities in society at large in this sample of countries, all of which have been represented in our previous MISC project. The six were: Jamaica and Trinidad in the Caribbean; Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa; and Sweden and Wales in Europe. The investigation also attempted to cover the international music and media industry and its role in moulding the music life of small nations.

The type of questions we were seeking answers to were:

_How and by whom are policies formulated for music in mass media?

_What are the actual policies? What means of implementation are used?

_How dynamic are such policies? Why and how do they change?

_How have different kinds of music changed their character when incorporated into mass media (a process we previously termed ‘mediaization’)?

_How does the music content of mass media influence music activities on the local level?

_Which are the main factors and phenomena and who are the most influential actors involved in the interaction between the music media and music life at large?

_What is the role in different economical/political contexts of new technologies and production modes such as digital technology (CDs), satellite and cable distribution, music video clips, etc.?

_How effective have different policy measures aimed at supporting local music been?

Several reasons lie behind the choice of the six sample nations in this study. That they were originally part of the larger sample of twelve countries in the MISC project was an important aspect; the research team was already familiar with the media structure and music life of these nations. Indeed, for a general overview of the music and media scene in the six nations, we propose to refer the reader to our 1984 report (see Malm and Wallis 1984). Other factors supporting the make-up of the sample can also be noted. Kenya, Tanzania, Jamaica and Trinidad have a common historical background. They have all been under British colonial rule and have the British legacy of public service broadcasting. Of course, this is also the case with Sweden and Wales. Jamaica and Trinidad have a long history of supplying the international music industry with source material (reggae and calypso). In recent years, there has been growing interest within the industrialized world in the musicians and sounds of countries in Africa, such as Kenya and Tanzania.

All four African and Caribbean countries are classified as developing Third World nations. There are, however, considerable differences. Kenya and Tanzania are among the poorest countries in the world. They share a similar general pre-colonial background. During the post-independence period, on the other hand, their development has been governed by different political ideologies (though within one-party political systems). While market economy principles have been applied in Kenya, Tanzania opted for an African brand of socialist planned economy.

The economies of Jamaica and especially Trinidad are in what the World Bank would term ‘better health’ than those of Kenya and Tanzania. Both Caribbean nations have a multi-party political system and market economies. Both share a common language with their powerful northern neighbour, the United States of America; their proximity puts them in the footprints of scores of US broadcasting satellites.

Wales and Sweden are industrialized, comparatively wealthy nations in Europe. Wales contains a minority culture within a larger country. The parallels between this situation and the situation of a small independent country like Sweden are of obvious interest.This sample of nations clearly has enough in common to provide a foundation for meaningful comparison. At the same time, their different political and economic situations allow an assessment of how media poli- cies and music activities develop under very different circumstances.

This volume is divided into four main parts. The first provides a general introduction to the area under scrutiny. In the second, the research framework is laid down; major concepts, postulates and methods are presented. Part three is devoted to six case studies describing developments and processes concerning media policy and local music activities in each of the sample nations. The final section sums up observable patterns and trends, and suggests conclusions that can be drawn from the previous data.

The music industry is the hub around which much of the music scene today revolves in most countries. Thus it seems logical to continue with an introduction to the workings of this industry, an introduction which will lead into a theoretical and conceptual framework for the presentation and interpretation of our practical data.

INTRODUCING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, GLOBALIZATION AND COUNTER-MOVEMENTS

The music industry is a complex animal. It encompasses all those artists, composers, individuals and organizations that are involved in the process of producing, performing, manufacturing and disseminating music for a mass audience. The industrial process most of us associate with the music industry is the production and distribution of software, the most common sound-carriers being vinyl records, CDs or audio cassettes, known collectively as phonograms. Software also includes other sound and image carriers with their recorded music and their packaging, such as videograms and films.

Phonograms and videograms can be regarded as constituting the primary music mass media which make up the better part of the music content in secondary music mass media, e.g. radio and television. An important and specific case of mass media software is the content of live broadcasts (where the broadcaster is responsible for the synchronization of the sound on to a carrier or for direct dissemination).

Mass dissemination of information about music is also closely linked to the music industry. Here the software embraces books, papers, magazines, posters and so on, as well as radio and TV programmes where music forms the basis of speech content.

A prerequisite for phonogram activities, of course, is the production and distribution of related hardware. The hardware sector of the music industry provides music consumers with machines that play their phonograms and videograms, either directly or via dissemination from secondary music mass media. Another hardware activity involves designing and manufacturing for musicians machines that produce sounds, usually with an ever-increasing degree of dependence on electronic components. Equipment is also manufactured with various degrees of sophistication for the recording of musical performances, ranging from the most simple built-in microphone with associated circuits in a cassette recorder to the most advanced multi-channel recorders. Hardware also includes studio equipment, mass duplication equipment, transmitters, etc.

Throughout this century, the phonogram industry has alternated between being hardware- and software-led. Each time a new sound carrier has been introduced, this has required consumers to purchase new hardware, with accompanying re-releases of older recordings in the new format. Once the new carrier and associated playback equipment is widely available, then the emphasis is once again on the supply of a new range of software. Those who cannot keep up with technological developments in primary music mass media run the risk of being excluded from secondary sources; if radio stations implement a policy of using only CDs for quality reasons, then a phonogram producer who for technical or economic reasons can only produce analogue cassettes will suffer a disadvantage as regards media access.

Broadcasting has witnessed a veritable explosion during the past two decades. Most of the new programmes have been music-based. Indeed, without software from the phonogram industry, this tremendous expansion of broadcasting would have been impossible. As radio has expanded, broadcasting organizations in most countries have not increased their own music recording activities. Recordings from the commercial phonogram industry have been the main fillers of increased hours of transmission. Since the early 1980s, the audio-visual equivalent of the phonogram, the video clip, has performed a similar function for television, providing cheap programme material and comprising the prerequisite for 24-hour-a-day music video TV (e.g. the MTV satellite channel). The policies that determine the way in which such media develop and function can thus be expected to have important relevance for both music consumption and music-making in society.

The phonogram has been with us for over a century. In common with most cultural industries, the phonogram industry operates on a transnational level. From the early 1900s, a few major companies have produced phonograms for consumption in a global market, with Anglo-American material enjoying a dominant position. The parallel with the film industry, including a strong measure of mutual dependency, can be noted ever since the introduction of sound movies. Films served to publicize songs on phonograms and vice versa (Hamm 1979:334_48; Edström 1989:38ff.). Internationally distributed television series were later to play a similar role. The international spread of MTV-style television via satellites during the 1980s provides yet another example of global integration through the mutual dependence of the phonogram and audio-visual industries.

The music industry, like the film or television industry, also operates on national and local levels. Where markets linked to language areas are deemed sufficiently large, specific versions of international cultural products are sometimes produced. The Swedish pop-group ABBA, for instance, produced extra versions of some of their hit songs in Swedish, Spanish and even Russian during their period of global success in the 1970s, in order to facilitate marketing in relevant sales territories. Whereas most films and imported TV programmes are still dubbed or subtitled for different language markets, the general emphasis in the music industry’s global marketing and distribution strategy as we enter the 1990s is on the combination of specific artists and musical material. The goal is global sales of products, featuring superstars performing particular musical works, rather than on the spread of pieces of music which are then reproduced in different national versions (unlike, say, the global market for newspaper cartoons and comic strips).

The music industry is thus at the forefront of a move towards global standardization of cultural products, further ahead than, say, the international pocket-book industry which still relies on language versions for increasing sales. A handful of global phonogram companies are constantly increasing their degree of control over manufacturing and distribution resources (even those used by smaller creative units not owned by the transnationals, so-called ‘independents’).

The music industry, in other words, is very much part of the future glo...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• TABLES
• PLATES AND FIGURES
• ABBREVIATIONS
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER 1: THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND MUSIC MEDIA—AN INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTS, POSTULATES, CONSTRAINTS AND METHODS
• CHAPTER 3: CASE STUDY: JAMAICA
• CHAPTER 4: CASE STUDY: TRINIDAD
• CHAPTER 5: CASE STUDY: KENYA
• CHAPTER 6: CASE STUDY: TANZANIA
• CHAPTER 7: CASE STUDY: CYMRU—WALES
• CHAPTER 8: CASE STUDY: SWEDEN
• CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES