Part 2

Sounds and Images

The dominant media of the twentieth century were all about sounds and images: music, radio, television, and film. Each of these media industries was built around a handful of powerful groups—record labels, radio networks, television networks, and film studios—that set the terms for creating and distributing this popular media content. The main story of these media industries was one of ever-improving technology. For example, television moved from black-and-white to color, from analog broadcast transmissions to digital cable.

Music, radio, TV, and movies are still significant media in our lives. But convergence and the digital turn have changed the story of our sound and image media. Starting with the music industry and the introduction of Napster in 1999, one by one these media industries have had to cope with revolutionary changes. More than a decade later, the traditional media corporations have much less power in dictating what we listen to and watch. The narrative of ever-improving technology has been upended and replaced with wholly different technology.

We now live in a world where any and all media can be consumed via the Internet on laptops, tablets, smartphones, and video game consoles. As a result, we have seen the demise of record stores and video stores, local radio deejays, and the big network TV hit. Traditional media corporations are playing catch-up, devising new online services to bring their offerings to us and still make money. (Hulu, NBC.com, and iHeartRadio are good examples.) Meanwhile, start-up technology and content companies and anyone with a video camera and a YouTube account are competing with the major media corporations on the same Internet playing field. Pandora, iTunes, Vevo, YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix have all become significant distributors of sounds and images.

Moreover, as we consume all types of media content on a single device or through a single service, the traditionally separate “identities” of music, radio, television, and film have become blurred. For example, people might download an audio book and the latest pop single onto their iPods, or stream an album on a subscription service like Spotify, or listen to a genre of music on streaming radio. Similarly, more and more people are choosing to watch their video content on Netflix or Hulu—where TV programs and movies exist side by side.

The major media of the twentieth century are mostly still with us, but the twenty-first-century story of what form that content will take, how we will experience it, and even what we might call the activity (we may need new words for incessantly snapchatting our friends, or creating a customized Internet radio channel) is still up for grabs.

HOW WE WATCH AND LISTEN TODAY