New Technology: Should Publishing Houses and Record Companies jump ship?

While consumers are in awe with the amount of “free stuff” they can obtain, the quantity of informational tit-bits rising substantially with each year of World Wide Web-mania, the old guardians of what is supposed to be high art and what is supposed to be free (and thus worthless) are becoming vastly more concerned with each “Download” button being clicked.  Where publishing houses and record companies used to have the final say regarding what information the public has access to, the scenario now looks bleak where the public, in their gluttonous pursuit for individuality, can now not only gain access to an array of information, but can also freely contribute to the pool of public information on the web.  What will happen to the ’old favourites’, quickly only becoming nostalgic specimens regarded as “old school”: Novels, Newspapers, Television, and especially Record Albums?  Let us quickly examine each of these traditional media genres (although there are other genres viewed as ‘traditional’ like the radio) from a subjective culturally-based perspective.

In a world where information must be at the fingertips of the individual, and the accumulation of knowledge is becoming a skill where speed and specialized subject matter are the keywords, the novel seems to be the weakest link when considering the sustainability of traditional media.  Considering that the novel has its true roots in the 19^th Century, thus not that long ago, and it only became a respected genre in the later 20^th Century, for some reason erroneously equating ‘length of text’ to ‘quality of text’, the demise of the novel suddenly does not seem like such a catastrophe anymore.  Yes, the novel does create a fantasy world for the modernist, individuality-obsessed public to indulge in, but the time taken to read a novel from cover to cover and the dedication it requires are simply not congruent to the demands of a face-paced 21^st Century society.  It is thus not new technology that is causing the demise of the novel, but society itself.  Amazon and others did manage to create a new technological substitute for the novel with their introduction of the “Kindell”, but it almost seems like a superfluous, melancholic accessory when evaluating the diminishing relevance of the novel in general.  In today’s society Jane simply does not have the time to walk to Rochester’s mansion to deliver a letter - she flies there, or sends an e-mail… or just Googles “mansion rochester”.

Newspapers contribute to a traditionally rushed ritual which seems to be seemingly indestructible, but, with expansion of Wi-Fi hotspots, and the ever decreasing prices of laptops and other online devices, may soon be just a remnant from a not so distant past.  The clichéd ritual of grabbing a newspaper, sitting in your favourite coffee shop, and drinking a litre of Starbucks, seems to contribute to the public’s appeal for individuality (although everybody seems to be doing it).  The availability of newspapers with its solid distributional system, along with its inexpensive production seem to be what keeps the newspaper industry afloat.  But soon this ritual will be replaced with Wi-Fi hot-“cities”, your favourite coffee shop, a bottomless cup of Starbucks, and going onto News24 with the help a laptop or an iPhone (I do not endorse any products, especially not “Blackberry”).  In the case of newspapers, new technology is thus killing the newspaper-star.

Television has for long been seen as one of the most influential political tools.  With government subsidies providing political players with full control over what the general public views, the television clashes with the public’s perception of what “free will” should be.  The same can be said about radio or any other publically broadcasted media genre.  Then satellite television provided hope for the budding Sartre-fanatic, but it has soon been discovered that authorities still manage to subtly influence what we watch.  Publically broadcasted media are thus in jeopardy not only because of the availability of entertainment and news sources on the web. DSTV desperately releases new product after new product in order to assure the public that they can actually watch what they want when they want to, but it is becoming increasingly less expensive (and legal) to simply download the whole season of “Firefly”, whether M-Net is still struggling to obtain the rights to the fourteenth episode or not, watch it when you want to, and then simply pause it without trying to figure out how you have now corrupted the space-time continuum of Multichoice.  Turn that old television into a monitor with wonderful CRT-contrast, but unplug that decoder so that you never have to be afraid that you might accidentally hear the “7de Laan” theme song again. 

And now for the record companies...

It seems like we just got used to the impeccable quality of the CD-ROM in the music industry, when the MP3, with its much lower quality ironically satisfied the public.  Alas, not all of us have biotechnologically engineered ears, so the MP3 (and its variants) is here to stay.  But where does that leave the old school record companies when it comes to record sales?  Less and less people are using CD’s, let alone buy them anymore, which has been, until recently, the only way in which record companies could cash in on their artists apart from live performances (which took a tremendous knock in quality in the 1990’s, thanks to the booming digital recording industry), selling of intellectual property rights (which is becoming a laughable prospect these days), and promotional material.  But the big question, although it seems improbable to our culturally indoctrinated minds, is actually: should we pay for the music we listen to in our private homes at all?  Before the recording industry, music was enjoyed (and paid for) only when performed in public by the musicians – sales of sheet music by the very slowly rising publishing industry went to a few privileged COMPOSERS, and not to the musician. 

With the extent of manipulation involved in the recording process, there is no way to gauge to what extent the musician is worth the money the public pays for the recording, and why pay money to a company which charges the public for distribution rights, legal fees, and other services which only exist due to the existence of the company itself?  As “Die Antwoord” showed us, use the internet to gain maximum exposure (free advertising, one huge expense obliterated!), give the music to the people on the web, then lure your new audience to a fantastic live performance, where the musicians can show how good they are in reality like it had been done long before the monopoly of commercial record companies corrupted the public’s perception of “good music”.  Then pay the composers and producers out of ticket sales (which should increase due to increased exposure on the web) and promotional material.  The whole group of artists is thus then rewarded according to how good they were in their last performance. The internet can thus decrease the amount of executive bloodhounds at play within the music industry, and thus the money allocated to the actual musici can increase.  And breathe…  

So should publishers and record companies jump ship?  Not at all.  It is time for the traditional publisher to start with the exodus from tactile, traditional media, to the virtual world of the web and new technology.  The best solution is to keep the traditional media genre afloat, like the still popular magazine, popular due to its convenience and it individualist approaches, but to quickly move the emphasis to the web.  This could be to the advantage of the publisher and the web: the publisher can gain wider exposure and increase revenue through selling advertising space, while the sea of useless, inaccurate and badly presented information can be slowly diminished through the expertise of the publishing company moving its focus toward online information sources.  If there is one thing missing on the internet, it is the adequate review of information by experts.  Record companies can focus on producing better quality live performances, while providing the masses with free music on the web in order to attract potential audiences.  Publishing houses can also involve themselves in gaining revenue through “live” attractions, for, although the internet can provide entertainment on a multimedia scale, the activation of all senses are not (yet) engaged. This means that the “surfing” individual, who longs for the now fashionable “maximum experience”, will be left wanting more time after time.