The Online Place of Popular Music. Explaining Pop Artists' Media Attention in the Digital Age

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Cultural Consumption

Abstract

Many publicists and scholars have pointed to internet’s potential to increase connectivity across the world which would imply an equalizing effect, yet few have examined this. This article studies the importance of geographical origin in the digital age for the case of popular music production. More concretely, we study the extent to which the internet helps reducing inequality between artists from central cities in popular music production (e.g. New York, London) versus more peripheral cities. Our focus is on differences in media attention both by professional music critics and consumers, and how this is related to (a) the cities in which artists are located, and (b) the social media resources artists have at their disposal. Our analysis concerns one month of new pop album releases. The results show that artists coming from more central cities have higher chances to get media attention -- both by professional and amateur critics -- than artists from peripheral cities. Building a fan base on social media such as Facebook, Twitter or MySpace can compensate some of this inequality, but not all.

Authors

• Marc Verboord, Erasmus University-Rotterdam

• Sharon Van Noord, Independent Scholar