Sunday, May 31, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
digital journalism
A couple of interesting links, courtesy of Lloyd. (Hey dude, send me yr blog address so I can link to it!)
Journalism work experience: what not to say #2
Why journalists deserve low pay
Journalism work experience: what not to say #2
Why journalists deserve low pay
"everyone a critic"
There's a post on the Plan B forum, made by the magazine's publisher Frances Morgan, that I want to reprint. I agree with an enormous amount of what she has to say here. (I've also reprinted the posting on my other blog, because I think it's directly relevant to both. It continues a conversation that we were having when we first discussed the possibility of Plan B shutting.)
Quote:
Quick question - any chance of the mag continuing in on-line form, a la Pfork, The Quietus or Good.is?
I just wanted to answer this question. For me, the answer is no. This is not to slight the sterling work of the above websites, because they're great examples of how web publishing can work. However, I feel very committed to print as a medium. There are many reasons for this, a lot of which can be picked apart and thrown aside as luddite, fetishistic, elitist, or just plain old-fashioned, and you're welcome to do so...but it's a commitment that I can't switch off just because making this particular print product is no longer viable.
It is not that I'm decrying the web for making "everyone a critic". I don't think the web has killed criticism, not at all. It's not that I am bemoaning the loss of "authority" of the critic - fuck authority, it's that which has kept music criticism entrenched in such narrow gender, race and class strictures for so long (and I'd argue, actually, that the web has done less than it should to change this, but the potential is there for sure). I like a plurality of voices, wherever it occurs, although I do think that plurality often results in a lack of space to think and consider and to reflect; it seems to have generated this need for a quick response, an instant appraisal or commentary.
One thing I like about print criticism is that there is an unavoidable temporal gap between writing and print. This may not suit everyone, but I think it suits me and it suits the music I am interested in, and actually it probably suits most music. I do sometimes wonder if there is more of a connection between the music that gets reviewed and the style of reviewing than we actually acknowledge. Bit of unformulated thought, that, but I'd like to ponder it a little.
Although it might not always seem like it, we do edit things at Plan B. If you've written something for us, it will go through a few hands and past a few pairs of eyes before it appears on the page. If there's time, we ask for rewrites and clarification. I like to have a little shout at everyone about punctuation. We have to stick to certain word lengths. I'm not saying web editors don't do this too, but often more content is required at a greater speed. Put simply, it's just different, and while I'd certainly work for online publications as a freelance writer, there's no way I'd have busted my ass for five years on a very, very low wage to set up and maintain a web magazine. That's not to say one shouldn't, or that others at Plan B won't. But it's not for me. It never has been.
The other big factor is the visual side of Plan B, which is so important to us. The web - and again, this is my opinion - is not the right place for all those amazing photos and illustrations and layouts that go into making up an issue of Plan B. They belong on paper, decent paper at that. Photographers deserve good post-production work (which Cat and Sarah should be enormously praised for); illustrators deserve to have similar care taken with their work (ditto Andrew).
Those are my thoughts on the matter at this point - they're not representative of Plan B as a whole. We are talking about archiving back issues online, because I think they're a great resource for everyone.
Quote:
Quick question - any chance of the mag continuing in on-line form, a la Pfork, The Quietus or Good.is?
I just wanted to answer this question. For me, the answer is no. This is not to slight the sterling work of the above websites, because they're great examples of how web publishing can work. However, I feel very committed to print as a medium. There are many reasons for this, a lot of which can be picked apart and thrown aside as luddite, fetishistic, elitist, or just plain old-fashioned, and you're welcome to do so...but it's a commitment that I can't switch off just because making this particular print product is no longer viable.
It is not that I'm decrying the web for making "everyone a critic". I don't think the web has killed criticism, not at all. It's not that I am bemoaning the loss of "authority" of the critic - fuck authority, it's that which has kept music criticism entrenched in such narrow gender, race and class strictures for so long (and I'd argue, actually, that the web has done less than it should to change this, but the potential is there for sure). I like a plurality of voices, wherever it occurs, although I do think that plurality often results in a lack of space to think and consider and to reflect; it seems to have generated this need for a quick response, an instant appraisal or commentary.
One thing I like about print criticism is that there is an unavoidable temporal gap between writing and print. This may not suit everyone, but I think it suits me and it suits the music I am interested in, and actually it probably suits most music. I do sometimes wonder if there is more of a connection between the music that gets reviewed and the style of reviewing than we actually acknowledge. Bit of unformulated thought, that, but I'd like to ponder it a little.
Although it might not always seem like it, we do edit things at Plan B. If you've written something for us, it will go through a few hands and past a few pairs of eyes before it appears on the page. If there's time, we ask for rewrites and clarification. I like to have a little shout at everyone about punctuation. We have to stick to certain word lengths. I'm not saying web editors don't do this too, but often more content is required at a greater speed. Put simply, it's just different, and while I'd certainly work for online publications as a freelance writer, there's no way I'd have busted my ass for five years on a very, very low wage to set up and maintain a web magazine. That's not to say one shouldn't, or that others at Plan B won't. But it's not for me. It never has been.
The other big factor is the visual side of Plan B, which is so important to us. The web - and again, this is my opinion - is not the right place for all those amazing photos and illustrations and layouts that go into making up an issue of Plan B. They belong on paper, decent paper at that. Photographers deserve good post-production work (which Cat and Sarah should be enormously praised for); illustrators deserve to have similar care taken with their work (ditto Andrew).
Those are my thoughts on the matter at this point - they're not representative of Plan B as a whole. We are talking about archiving back issues online, because I think they're a great resource for everyone.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
the immediate aftermath
...and now, of course, the two most popular posts on my music blog are this and this - proving, if nothing else, the old adage that sex and death sells. I haven't had enough to time to assimiliate the barrage of comment that has followed Plan B's demise...but it's interesting to note that the overwhelming majority of it is occuring within specifically web 2.0 environments, particularly on Twitter and in the blogosphere - none from the mainstream whatsoever (aside from a cursory mention or two in trade journals).
There again, why should The Guardian (for example) write about Plan B's demise? They weren't exactly quick to pick up on the death of this guy, either.
There again, why should The Guardian (for example) write about Plan B's demise? They weren't exactly quick to pick up on the death of this guy, either.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
a salutory lesson
The most popular recent posting on my music blog is this. The least popular is this. Call me a cynic, but somehow I think it has little to do with the music or level of criticism, and everything to do with marketing (i.e. presentation). I'm falling into the classic critics' trap of thinking people want to read words for their own merits. It wasn't true in print environments, and it isn't true in web 2.0 environments.
Monday, May 18, 2009
sociology vs consumer guides
I wonder. Is my other blog an attempt to change my critical style, in response to the fact the entire blogosphere now seems to take a sociological approach to music criticism? (i.e. It's all about the interaction with the audience, specifically the individual writing the blog.) Or is my style of writing mutating because of the physical demands of blogging, and the way it almost forces you to link to other sites?
Either way, it's starting to look worryingly close to...no, don't be too concerned, not criticism viewing rock-as-art...but a consumer guide, what with the overload of hypertext.
Either way, it's starting to look worryingly close to...no, don't be too concerned, not criticism viewing rock-as-art...but a consumer guide, what with the overload of hypertext.
the music critic is defined by her audience
Gentle reader. You are part of a very select bunch. Very select. Perhaps too select.
I feel a need to spread the word. An urge to spread the word. A pressing, downright depraved, desire to spread the word. And this is where you can help me, gentle reader. I cannot do this alone. Please. I know that from the very fact you’re here – part of a very select bunch, remember? – you must be a dedicated blog reader. If you enjoy this (or my other) blog, please spread the word. Everett True cannot exist in a vacuum. The music critic is defined by her audience. If there is no audience to define her then – like the Gods of old – she will wither and die.
If you believe that Gods should still exist, please send links out, post messages on forums, pingback to other blogs, Twitter incessantly…if only for a day or so. Contact big alternate indie sites! Contact itsy-wisty teenie-weenie PhD sites! Irritate the hell out of Pitchfork!
And you will also be helping my PhD research, to see how easy (or otherwise) it is to spread word-of-mouth about taste-maker critics from zero in web 2.0 environments.
Bless you, gentle reader.
I feel a need to spread the word. An urge to spread the word. A pressing, downright depraved, desire to spread the word. And this is where you can help me, gentle reader. I cannot do this alone. Please. I know that from the very fact you’re here – part of a very select bunch, remember? – you must be a dedicated blog reader. If you enjoy this (or my other) blog, please spread the word. Everett True cannot exist in a vacuum. The music critic is defined by her audience. If there is no audience to define her then – like the Gods of old – she will wither and die.
If you believe that Gods should still exist, please send links out, post messages on forums, pingback to other blogs, Twitter incessantly…if only for a day or so. Contact big alternate indie sites! Contact itsy-wisty teenie-weenie PhD sites! Irritate the hell out of Pitchfork!
And you will also be helping my PhD research, to see how easy (or otherwise) it is to spread word-of-mouth about taste-maker critics from zero in web 2.0 environments.
Bless you, gentle reader.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
sociology
I favour a sociological approach to rock (criticism).I'm not concerned with rock-as-art, not really. I've always been far more interested in the effect that rock music has upon its audience - specifically, me. I don't see what I do as a consumer guide. I'm about placing music within the context that it's being experienced, specifically the way I experience it. That is sociological, right?
A few weeks back, I was interviewed for a dissertation concerning the way rock critics are perceived by other critics, bloggers, musicians (etc) and I was the only expert who felt that notions of honesty had nothing to do with my craft. Commentators are too confused by the similarities between journalism and criticism. They are not the same craft. The latter is taught at QUT under the guise of 'creative writing', and the more I think about that categorisation the more I like it. 'Creative writing'. Is that all criticism boils down to?
And I really don't see that what I do has anything to do with 'Gonzo' either.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
post-Stage 2 proposal blues
I'm suffering from post-Stage 2 proposal blues. Everything seems to weigh very heavy: I think my roommate hates me, that the academic language is biased against clarity, that I'm a non-starter as a PhD student and that - ultimately - my literature review is crap and will result in an early dismissal from these hallowed grounds for me. It doesn't matter that I got sent a lovely present from Go Mag this morning (the cover CD was compiled by me in honour of their 100th issue - I'll write more about that on my other blog shortly) or that I met up with an extremely smart journalism student who wants to intern my forthcoming book or that shortly my life will change out of all recognition again, with the impending birth of our second child...I feel bone-tired, and brain-tired, and unable to be even 1% smart.
Plus, I have 30 first year Digital Journalism background reports to look forward to marking on Friday, and no one responds to this bloody blog anymore because my dialogue is so flat. Fuck it. It's too late to play the music I'd like to play and no one knows I exist.
Man, I gotta snap out of this funk!
Plus, I have 30 first year Digital Journalism background reports to look forward to marking on Friday, and no one responds to this bloody blog anymore because my dialogue is so flat. Fuck it. It's too late to play the music I'd like to play and no one knows I exist.
Man, I gotta snap out of this funk!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
stage 2 (3)
and...
5. Anderson – while welcoming the democratisation of the marketplace that digital sales in web 2.0 environments have caused – warns against becoming too reliant upon user-generated content. Writing about the most famous example of citizen journalism, Wikipedia, he says, "It should be a site for information exploration, not the definite source of fact" (Anderson, 2008, pp. 69). He explains the same criteria applies to [music] blogs – another potent example of The Long Tail - that no single blog is authoritative, and you "just need to read more than one of them before making up your mind" (Anderson, 2008, pp. 69).
5. Anderson – while welcoming the democratisation of the marketplace that digital sales in web 2.0 environments have caused – warns against becoming too reliant upon user-generated content. Writing about the most famous example of citizen journalism, Wikipedia, he says, "It should be a site for information exploration, not the definite source of fact" (Anderson, 2008, pp. 69). He explains the same criteria applies to [music] blogs – another potent example of The Long Tail - that no single blog is authoritative, and you "just need to read more than one of them before making up your mind" (Anderson, 2008, pp. 69).
stage 2 (2)
Also left out...
4. "Does mainstream music criticism and journalism really matter much?...If criticism is so well-articulated and implicated within the commodification of culture that anyone can perform its functions, then maybe we are all, to a certain degree critics” (Fenster, 2002, pp. 89, taken from Pop Music and the Press, ed. S. Jones).
Maybe draw comparison with games criticism which is developing its own language and value systems. Maybe draw comparison with the alternative construct Riot Grrrl and certain female writers were attempting to create at the start of the 90.
4. "Does mainstream music criticism and journalism really matter much?...If criticism is so well-articulated and implicated within the commodification of culture that anyone can perform its functions, then maybe we are all, to a certain degree critics” (Fenster, 2002, pp. 89, taken from Pop Music and the Press, ed. S. Jones).
Maybe draw comparison with games criticism which is developing its own language and value systems. Maybe draw comparison with the alternative construct Riot Grrrl and certain female writers were attempting to create at the start of the 90.
Friday, May 8, 2009
stage 2
More stuff that's been left out of my stage 2 proposal...
1. ...also problematic is that both Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital and Chris Anderson’s concept of the infinite marketplace (Anderson, 2006) only hold true if applied to a certain social group – the cultural bourgeoisie. Outside this group, consumers aren’t concerned with conferring social distinction and would rather tap into the hits-orientated market of the mega-corporations.
2. Is music criticism an inherently parasitic trade? George Bernard Shaw did not believe so. “I could make deaf stockbrokers read my two pages on music,” he wrote about his own column on criticism in The Scottish Musical Monthly (Shaw, 1961), neatly summarising the odd dichotomy that often takes place when music critics practise their craft with skill: it no longer becomes necessary to hear the piece of music under discussion, the descriptive passage is enough.
3. What complicates discussion about web 2.0 is that now the bigger companies have begun to grasp the counterintuitive logic of statistical probabilities, it is no longer expansionary but starting to contract. The internet is becoming homogenised, as companies such as Google and Amazon tighten their grip on web 2.0 users, using time-honoured free market tactics – i.e. price the others out of the game by making your own product unbeatably cheaper and ubiquitous. In the case of web economics, this means that almost everything Google offers to the consumer is free – and it then takes full advantage of The Long Tail effect by opening up everywhere to advertising, knowing that a “very, very big number (the products in the Tail) multiplied by a relatively small number (the sales of each) is still equal to a very, very big number” (Anderson, 2006).
1. ...also problematic is that both Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital and Chris Anderson’s concept of the infinite marketplace (Anderson, 2006) only hold true if applied to a certain social group – the cultural bourgeoisie. Outside this group, consumers aren’t concerned with conferring social distinction and would rather tap into the hits-orientated market of the mega-corporations.
2. Is music criticism an inherently parasitic trade? George Bernard Shaw did not believe so. “I could make deaf stockbrokers read my two pages on music,” he wrote about his own column on criticism in The Scottish Musical Monthly (Shaw, 1961), neatly summarising the odd dichotomy that often takes place when music critics practise their craft with skill: it no longer becomes necessary to hear the piece of music under discussion, the descriptive passage is enough.
3. What complicates discussion about web 2.0 is that now the bigger companies have begun to grasp the counterintuitive logic of statistical probabilities, it is no longer expansionary but starting to contract. The internet is becoming homogenised, as companies such as Google and Amazon tighten their grip on web 2.0 users, using time-honoured free market tactics – i.e. price the others out of the game by making your own product unbeatably cheaper and ubiquitous. In the case of web economics, this means that almost everything Google offers to the consumer is free – and it then takes full advantage of The Long Tail effect by opening up everywhere to advertising, knowing that a “very, very big number (the products in the Tail) multiplied by a relatively small number (the sales of each) is still equal to a very, very big number” (Anderson, 2006).
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Everett True
Research is FUN!
My name is Everett True. I am a music critic – more specifically, a rock music critic. In certain sections of the world, I am considered an institution...
I would quote more from one of my early (discarded) stage 2 drafts, but there's a squashed mosquito on the computer screen.
My name is Everett True. I am a music critic – more specifically, a rock music critic. In certain sections of the world, I am considered an institution...
I would quote more from one of my early (discarded) stage 2 drafts, but there's a squashed mosquito on the computer screen.
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