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Is Social Media Killing Music Journalism?
Some old-school rock critics would have you believe that it is. In an age when everyone has free publishing tools at their disposal, the people that used to dominate taste-making have now officially been marginalized by every day music nerds and community aggregates. But are these real-time micro-broadcasters really making things worse for music journalism? Not at all.
Freelance Journalist Chris Weingarten recently gave an interesting talk about the nature of bloggers and aggregates, which you can watch here. Some of his arguments, including that a lot of blogs suffer due to a lack of actual critical commentary and the need to be the first to get content, hold weight in my opinion. However, others like the idea that Twitter and Hype Machine ONLY present non-news scenarios and cater to the lowest common denominator, respectively, and that stumble-upons are dead, are ones I disagree with. I have received accurate news through Twitter and have stumbled upon some awesome music on Hype Machine and I consider myself to be an intelligent music fan.
I also do not agree with the notion that ALL bloggers are solely driven by the amount of clicks they get or that music fans are too stupid to search for content beyond the first few results that Google provides them. Yes, some are “only it for clicks” — just as radio stations have and still do subscribe to the “pay-to-play” model. The situation is not black and white. There will always be people in the music industry that are in it for the wrong reasons, but it only makes us appreciate those who are in it for the right reasons, like 20 Jazz Funk Greats and Fluxblog.
It’s understandable that the former purveyors of music criticism would feel somewhat threatened by community-based curation. After all, they are losing their influence to unseasoned writers — some of whom may be younger than the very publications that are struggling to keep up. However, the reality is that music culture and user habits have changed for the better. Thanks to the internet and Social Media, music is now back where it belongs — in the hands of the community. We are no longer at the mercy of the 20th century music critic and his/her rigid format.
Written by michael on 05/05/2010 in Blog | Editorial | Music
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