Yngvar Kjus

Everyone Needs Idols Reality Television and Transformations in Media Structure, Production and Output

■ The rise of digital media has generally been accompanied by audience fragmentation, but the trend of reality-TV has helped television enterprises around the world retain their audience’s attention. One obvious reason for this is reality-TV’s increased social interaction with the audience. Also important, however, are the rapidly evolving interactions between media sectors, companies and departments on the production side of reality-TV. This article studies these interactions, demonstrating that the reality TV phenomenon in fact does not promote the status quo in commercial television but gradually reinvents its value chains in digital environments. Spectacular events and live content are more essential than ever for extending audience reach and developing new revenues. The article relates their production to developments in television tabloidization and commodification through a case analysis of the production of Idols in Norway. ■

Musical exploration via streaming services: The Norwegian experience

ABSTRACT Streaming services for music are growing worldwide, and the Nordic countries are leading the way. In Norway, streaming represented 88% of digital music revenues in 2014 versus just 23% globally. In essence, streaming services offer subscribers access to vast databases of music and offer artists new means of exposure and sources of revenue. This article argues that the possibility of musical discovery is essential to these services’ distribution model. It examines the provisions for exploration through streaming, pointing to automated algorithms and human curation as key devices. It then collects quantitative data on the presentation of music via a Norwegian service (WiMP/Tidal) and qualitative findings from interviews with consumers about their experiences with music streaming. Key discrepancies arise between the promise and the reality of streamed-music discovery, both for artists seeking new fans (and funds) and for audiences expecting streaming to supersede existing forms of musical exploration.

Live Islands in the Seas of Recordings: The Music Experience of Visitors at the Øya Festival

Live music remains popular in the digital age, as reflected in the growth in music festivals in the 2000s. The increased availability of music online highlights the issue of what sets live music apart but also raises the question of whether the use of new music media changes the experience of live music. This article explores perceptual, psychological, and social aspects of the music experience of visitors at the Øya festival in Norway. It finds that new music media can in fact enhance the live music experience but also uncovers fresh dilemmas regarding the fundamental pleasures of attending performances.

Impact of prestige programs on production practices: the case of crossmedia and audience participation in public service organizations

Abstract The 21st century and the rise of new media have accentuated socio-political as well as organizational/practical challenges to public service broadcasters. New political vision is needed to address fragmenting and pluralizing societies; however, the challenge in turn lies in program production. This article examines and relates developments in both areas via a seldom-applied approach to transformations in traditional media organizations, namely close-range production study of large, prestige programs. An underlying assumption is that prestige projects can highlight key institutional ambitions, dilemmas and obstacles of change, and it is brought to bear on a national participatory event in the Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK. The article studies how institutional practices can be twisted into a new course due to internal and external pressures condensed in large projects, and thus assesses the pace at which public service broadcasters are exploring their remit, a pace to which academics and policy makers alike need to be closely attuned.

Reclaiming the music: The power of local and physical music distribution in the age of global online services

Despite the rise of global online music services like iTunes and Spotify, local and physical music retailers are not extinct. Although many have faced redundancy, others are turning their local presence and technological platforms into assets in regaining customer favour. This article presents an interview-based study of the transformations of two Norwegian record stores in the 2000s, one of which invested in vinyl records, and the other in online streaming with a local profile. These distributors are found not only to have changed the way in which they make records available, but also to have cultivated specific forms of musical communication, in perceptual, psychological and social terms. In doing so, they have developed crucial tools, such as the retailing of high-fidelity sound systems and the hosting of local concert events.

The mediated festival: Live music as trigger of streaming and social media engagement

Live music events are increasingly saturated with and mediated via the online and mobile devices of the audience. This article explores patterns in this media use surrounding the Øya festival in Norway and focuses, in particular, on music streaming and social media activity. It presents statistical analysis of listening sessions via the streaming service Wimp and social interactions via the micro-blogging platform Twitter. The juxtaposition of these unique access points allows the analysis to explore the impact of physical live concerts on the digital music experience. It also enables a nuanced examination of how the festival audience responds to different artist segments, from international headliners to local acts. One key finding is that local artists that are positively evaluated via Twitter have the greatest boost in subsequent music streaming. The article argues that in-depth studies of the intersection of live and mediated music are essential to understanding the encounter between artists and audiences that is facilitated by contemporary live music events.

Live Mediation. Performing Concerts Using Studio Technology

The use of computers is continuously changing the sound of records but also increasingly challenging established forms of live concert aesthetics. So what becomes of creativity and expressivity in the live performance? In this study, we present an artist-oriented approach to this question through interviews with artists invested in performing studio works on stage, as well as improvising musicians using studio technology in their concerts. We find that challenges to creative authorship and expressive agency are constantly negotiated through evolving practices of up- and down-scaling particular aspects of studio works on stage, as well as designing technological setups tailored to individual forms of improvisation. While these practices challenge deep-rooted notions of the ‘right’ or appropriate bond between musician and music, the appropriation of studio technology in live performance has clearly become an integral part of many artists’ continual exploration of their musical agency.

Immersing in Performances and Recordings

This chapter studies new forms of audience involvement and experience with music. On the one hand, people are accessing and sharing recorded music with more speed in more places, thereby joining the experiential pleasures of recorded music with live music events in new ways. On the other hand, concert visitors are using their increasingly advanced mobile media (i.e., cellphones and tablets) to make their own recordings of live performances and bring the experience home with them in new ways. The chapter specifically addresses evolving forms of listening to recorded music in relation to live concerts, including prospective modes of pre-event listening and retrospective modes of post-event listening. In so doing, it focuses on the music experience of fans of different genres, including jazz, heavy metal, and electronica.

Bridging Concerts and Records

This chapter reveals how digital media can bridge artists’ concerts and the growing recorded archives of the new online music services, thereby facilitating novel music experiences. It identifies evolving practices through which live-music organizers tap into online music archives to contextualize performances, and online music services bring their archives to life through various forms of interaction with concerts and festivals. The chapter studies the efforts and techniques of intermediaries (primarily the Oya festival and WiMP/Tidal) with regard to (re)gaining a powerful connection with artists and audiences. It assesses the power of live and recorded music intermediaries in terms of how people receive and experience music, considering, among other things, the new intersections between the curatorial work conducted by humans and the guidance offered by the machines and algorithms of digital music archives.

Creating Studios on Stage

This chapter looks at artists’ experiences of combining live and recorded music production practices. It shows how the use of digital technology allows recordings to be altered (and remixed) quickly in new places, allowing them to be colored by shifting circumstances and to incorporate various “live” elements. On the flip side, live concert performances are now increasingly encompassing preproduced elements, as well as various studio-related practices (recording, composing‚ processing). The relationship between artists’ actions and the sounds they produce is reckoned against the ways in which audiences might perceive, interpret, and interact with artists and their music. The chapter also engages with two challenges of contemporary musicianship, in genres ranging from pop to jazz: translating studio works into a persuasive live performance, and improvising and creating something new by recording, editing, and mixing music live on stage.