Ethnography project -- Fieldnotes #1

In beginning my research, I've drafted a survey for iPod users to determine the effect of iPod technology on personal identity and music. Though the survey is still in draft form, many sample questions are listed below. My plan is to collect at least 100 surveys through the month of March in order to augment qualitative personal interviews with quantitative statistical data. (These questions are currently an outline; each will be redrafted, ordered, and include multiple choice options to choose from.)

• How long have you owned an iPod? (How many have you owned?)
• What model(s) iPod do you have?
• When do you listen to your iPod the most? (During what activities?)
• How often do you use the "Shuffle" mode? (For what purpose?)
• How often do you use Podcasts? (For what purpose?)
• How often do you create your own playlist? (For what purpose?)
• How many genres of music do you have on your iPod?
  
• Which genres of music do you listen to on a regular basis? (Which do you listen to the most?)
• Do you download music? (Legally? Illegally?)
• From what source(s) do you get the majority of your music?
• Do you purchase CDs, vinyl records, cassettes, or other "analog" media?
• Do you listen to the radio? (AM? FM? XM? Pandora, etc?)

In addition to the quantitative survey questions, I will also be interviewing select participants with the following qualitative questions:

• How does having an iPod affect how you listen to music?
• How reliant are you on your iPod for music consumption?
• How would you envision your life without an iPod?
• Do you identify with any musical subculture? (i.e. punk, goth, indie, etc.)
• Does your iPod reflect that identity in its contents?
• If someone were to look at your iPod, do you think they would get a sense of your musical tastes?
• Do you share your iPod? Do you show it to other people? Do you ever trade iPods?
• Are you ever embarrassed by the music on your iPod? Do you believe in "guilty pleasure" music"? Do you find yourself having music on your iPod for which you would not buy the record in a store?

Beyond drafting these survey questions, I've also started to explore the current research on iPods, downloading technology, and personal music identity. Among other articles, I chose two chapters of Steven Levy's book "The Perfect Thing: how the iPod shuffles commerce, culture and coolness. A brief summary follows.

“Download”
The story begins in 1988. Though Sony dominated music with the Walkman, German computer programmers invented the MP3, unknowing of its implications. In 1997, WinAmp is the first “digital jukebox.” The labels freak out, starting suing (for the first time), and develop as Levy puts it “a world-class fear of change.” [p138]

Contrasting MP3.com’s earlier fate, Levy discusses Napster’s inception, its consequent lawsuits, and subsequent knockoffs. With these knockoffs, Levy observes an overlooked distinction: “Napster had directed its users to songs on other users’ computer by means of a central database under its control; this was the smoking gun that made the service legally culpable… [the software of newcomers] did not have a central database. Their software set up self-sustaining file-sharing networks that lived on their own in cyberspace, like those giant fungi that cover thousands of acres in the northwest.” [p144]

Levy points out both the ignorance and the hypocrisy of the recording industry. Ignorantly, one record exec notably compared downloading to car theft—Levy notes that car-theft is zero-sum and downloading is infinite-sum. Hypocritically, the industry made ethical claims while “their history was an unbroken litany of publishing credits pilfered from artists, unpaid royalties, and envelopes stuffed with illegal payola.” [p145]

Here begins the story of Steve Jobs and how the iPod changed things:
o 2001, iPod undergoes “whirlwind development.”
o 2002, SJobs sets his eyes on a digital music store. Problem: “How do you get people to want to pay for what they can get for free?”
o How could he succeed where others had failed? SJobs was powerful and rich, that’s why. With varying forms of capital, he negotiated with the major companies the rules for iTunes downloading—songs forever, files on three computers, burnable ten times.
o April 2003, iTunes Music Store launches with 200,000 songs (2 million by 2006) to tremendous success, attributable in part to the Mac software formatting and compatibility with the iPod itself. Also, purchasing was made easy and understandable.
o October 2003, iTunes launches for Windows. Another success.
o 2004, SJobs predicts the eradication of physical media.

Good and bad: On one hand, iTunes caused the regression of music from the album to the single—probably a bad thing. On the other hand, Levy points out this actually widens distributive options, citing a successful three-song release from Liz Phair.


“Identity”
The most two important quotes:
o “Playlist is character.” [p23]
o “It’s not just what you like—it’s who you are.” [p26]

From the analog music-lover’s perspective, the iPod as identity is eternally detrimental to self-identity. The scarcity and obscurity of once hallowed music is undermined by digital availability. Levy cites Kelefa Sanneh “…it’s getting harder to find any music at all that’s hard to find.” [p24]

From the digital music-lover’s perspective, the iPod as identity is phenomenal, and this trend seems to be growing.

Notable people with iPods that Levy mentions: George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Pope Benedict XVI, Dick Cheney, various movie stars.

Levy briefly discusses the iTunes sharing feature as a window to digital voyeurism (borderline fetishism), affirming it as a source of identity. His anecdotal proof fails to convince, though his use of the term “impression management” indicates the phenomenon all iPod users are inherently aware of. Levy also pens the phrase “opening the iTunes kimono.”


Another article that I read per Mark Perlman's Music and Modern Life course here at Brown is Gerald Marzorati's "How the Album Got Played Out".

• In 1997, Radiohead’s Ok Computer received universal critical praise but faced relatively disappointing sales.
• Marzorati blaims the decline in popularity of the LP format, particularly among the affluent white males who once voraciously consumed albums in their entirety.
• This decline is not a result of a stagnant creativity, but unbearable pressure on major labels to generate quarterly profits, increasingly standardized radio playlists, and most importantly the ease with which listeners can scan through an album, re-arrange its tracklist, or select only the songs they want via digital downloading.
• In the late 1960’s pop artists like Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys began experimenting with the LP format, crafting strings of songs that functioned as a cohesive unit rather than a collection of singles.
• Today, listeners are showing less and less patience for conceptual albums and a greater willingness to buy albums based on one song. As a result, labels are investing more in potential one-hit wonders and less in album-oriented rock musicians.
• Marzorati imagines a future where full albums are reduced to collector’s items for diehard fans, while general public continues to consume what they want, when they want it, with their finger constantly hovering over the “Next Track” button.