Dissertation Blog

"A different kind of Criticism": Music Journalism and the Weblog Phenomenon

Friday, September 24, 2004

1 - INTRODUCTION

In Popular Music and Society, Brian Longurst describes Fiske explaining that “fans are semiotically, enunciatively and textually productive,” [1]. The blogger who is a fan is demonstrably textually productive; he is semiotically productive in that he is making sense of his self by means of his status as fan; and he is enunciatively productive in that he is communicating his fandom with his readers, and with the wider blogging community.

This essay intends to demonstrate how the Weblog phenomenon has facilitated this production, both on the part of fans and on the part of journalists. The music journalist who is also a fan, will be the protagonist of this dissertation. As a fan with a Weblog he is communicating with other fans, whereas as a fan who is a journalist, he is attempting to explain his fandom to ‘the unconverted’.

The rise in popularity of Weblogs – defined simplistically as online diaries – has brought about a number of studies of the phenomenon. Several of these have attempted to discover where Weblogs fit into the traditional media landscape: how Weblogs aid journalists in the gathering of news; how Weblogs can allow members of the public to practice their own forms of instant journalism; how Weblogs can improve the transparency of a traditional media outlet. This essay intends to prove that Weblogs fit into another role within the media, one that has existed on the fringes of print journalism for a significant length of time, and which has fed into newspapers in much the same way that blogging does: the zine.

Existing research into journalistic Weblogs has concentrated on those dedicated to news and current affairs. As a result, the model for an analysis of non-news or cultural Weblogs must also come from elsewhere. In this essay, it will be from research on zine culture, in particular, Stephen Duncombe’s Notes from Underground. There will also be an examination of existing studies of the Weblog phenomenon in order to understand the subject more fully. I feel that an examination of the cultural Weblog would be an important contribution to the current discourse on Weblogs, Weblog-authorship (more usually known as ‘blogging’) and journalism.

This is a topic in which I have a particularly strong interest, as I ran a fanzine/scenezine – 98 Miles to Edith Weston – while taking my bachelor's degree. I have also kept a personal Weblog – Are the Stars Out Tonight [2] – since 2002. I am passionate about both formats, and I feel that they have a great deal in common. I believe that by looking at the differences and similarities between them it will be possible to shed a different light on the Weblog.

Duncombe’s text, which was published in 1997 argues that “Zines on the Internet are the likely successor to paper” [3]. This essay aims to be a continuation of Duncombe’s work, looking at the evolution of the zine into the blog, and how that affects both forms and the impact this may have on more traditional media sources. The idea that this evolution is wider than Duncombe may have imagined – including the opportunity for any reader to become a contributor at the push of a button – is one of the key elements of this research.

The words ‘blog’ and ‘zine’ are both generic terms referring to a wide range of different types of writing. In each case, the content is chosen by the editor, who is likely to be a form of amateur journalist, self-publishing their opinions to a niche audience. As will be shown, this niche may cover politics and news or non-news stories of interest to the Weblog-editor (or blogger).

In order to fully understand the similarities and the differences between the two formats, it would be useful to have an explanation of the key features of each. It is important to remember, however, that while these features are present in many cases, not all Weblogs and zines fit these criteria exactly.

A Weblog is a short-form diary, which appears online. Dated entries (also known as posts) will usually appear chronologically, with the most recent at the top. The content of these posts will depend on the interests of the blogger, as will the format – usually either long journal-style posts, or short posts based around a hyperlink (there will be an explanation of these terms in the literature review). Often, there will be a list of links to other Weblogs along the side of these posts, these will belong either to friends (both real-life and online) or other Weblogs the owner of the site enjoys reading. Many Weblog-editors provide the opportunity for their readers to comment on their posts in the form of a comments box. These comments will then appear for other readers to look at and comment on. Other features may include a link to a profile of the blogger, a photojournal or moblog (a photojournal updated using a camera-phone), or a dedicated linklog, where the blogger posts links of interest that require little or no comment.

A zine is less easy to define, as zines come in an enormous number of formats. The key to what separates a zine from a magazine is in a certain deliberate amateurism. For example, 98 Miles to Edith Weston could easily have been produced using a desktop publishing computer programme, and I certainly have the skills to produce a good-looking publication. I chose, however, to hand letter the earliest issues, before a friend made a font out of my handwriting. Zines are rarely printed professionally, and are more likely to be photocopied and stapled by hand. Articles are usually by the zine
editor(s), their friends and acquaintances. Traditionally, zines were produced using cut and paste methods, but with the advent of cheaper personal computers, it is now easier to produce a good-looking zine using desktop publishing. The zine may include an editorial, articles which relate to the general subject matter of the zine, cartoons (“comix”), interviews and
reviews. Many zines now have a web presence, in the form of a website, with articles reproduced from the zine, others exist solely online as webzines. Often these sites incorporate Weblogs.

The content or the main topic of the blog or zine is entirely down to the interests of the blogger or editor. This project will focus on music, as it seems to be a particularly popular topic for both bloggers and zine editors. By concentrating on
a particular topic it will be easier to draw comparisons between similar Weblogs.

Where Weblogs and zines seem to mesh best is in terms of access – it’s extremely cheap to set up either, and anyone who is reasonably literate can self-publish with ease. In both cases there is a radical democratisation of the media. The significant difference is that Weblogs, of course, are easier to set up, and require no particular effort on the part of the editor in order to make them attractive. It is easier to publicise a Weblog than a zine, both through search engines and through dedicated blog directories such as the Eatonweb Portal [4], which currently has 19, 919 Weblogs from around the world in its index[5]. It is also free to set up a Weblog with a service such as Blogger, removing printing and photocopying costs, the principle expense of the zine. The result of this is that blogging is more easily accessible than editing a zine. A final benefit of keeping a Weblog rather than editing a zine is that the former can be updated from anywhere, whenever the blogger has the urge to post.

The fact that many of the first British journalists to embrace the Weblog format have come from the music press should come as no surprise. There is an existing, strong, fanzine culture in music criticism, and many music journalists began life as fanzine publishers [6].

There will, therefore, be case studies of two of the most successful music fanzine/blogs, written by music journalists: Plan B and Popjustice, both of which have been successful enough to also exist in a print
format. These Weblogs are edited by Peter Robinson and Everett True, both of whom have long-standing relationships with the music press. There will also be a third case study of a Weblog called No Rock and Roll Fun, written by a music enthusiast known as Simon Hayes Budgen. Comparisons will be made between the three, using both qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate differences and similarities. The report should explain why blogging was the best option for their zines both for editor and for reader.

The three Weblogs under discussion have very different and distinct styles: No Rock and Roll Fun is a links-based filter-style blog, while Everett True’s Plan B Weblog fits journal-style category, using very few links. Popjustice fits into the middle of these two styles – tending towards short posts containing links, but usually with more comment from the editor than NRRF.

There has been a great debate about whether Weblogs can be called journalism, which I will examine in the literature review, but I do not intend to address the question of whether the writing in a blog constitutes journalism in this essay. As two of my respondents work as journalists, and the third concentrates much of his blogging on commenting on the music press, it seems that what the three write can be called journalism, regardless of the wider issue of whether blogs are journalism. This may not be what they call it themselves, but it seems to me that anything that would not be out of place in a newspaper or magazine can be called journalism. I have intentionally chosen to avoid what might be called the ‘perblogs’ – personal sites dealing with the daily or weekly minutiae of the blogger’s life – I would argue that these are highly unlikely to be journalism.




[1]Longhurst 1995, 235
[2]REDACTED
[3] Duncombe 1997, 197
[4] http://portal.eatonweb.com
[5] As of 6.9.04
[6]One example of this is the BBC DJ Steve Lamacq, who began by publishing his own fanzine A Pack of Lies, moved from there to the New Musical Express and finally moved to BBC Radio One (see his autobiography Going Deaf for a Living for more details).

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