Friday 20 May 2016

Music industry: is vinyl more important than Youtube?

While sites like Youtube and Spotify allow artists to attract enormous amounts of fans, clocking up potential millions of listens, there has been some controversy regarding how much money this actually generates for the artists. If we factor in contemporary debates regarding music piracy, then the revenue from digital methods of distribution is potentially very small indeed. Even 'dead' formats such as vinyl records are potentially more valuable than these new media.

This Guardian article suggests that digital distribution may be yielding surprisingly little money for artists working in the music industry. This would be an excellent example for questions regarding the importance of distribution, marketing, digital media and the internet. Perhaps you would like to argue the internet is really not that important anymore!

Remember; it is essential to conduct your own wider reading in Media Studies. As a bare minimum, you should be consulting several online news sources every day. With something like the music industry, you could potentially find a grand changing article the day before the exam!