Andrew Chatora

New media
Textual analysis
Contemporary cultural theories
Piracy cultures
Popular music
Digital video production
Black experience, culture and identity

MA Media, Culture and Communication, UCL London
UK Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) - The Bicester School
BA in English University of Zimbabwe

General Teaching Council for England

Sharing Digital Music Conceptualizations: Testing the Dominant Discourses of Piracy within the UK Music Industries

Online music consumption practices have increasingly remained in a state of flux with consumers due to digitization. This metamorphose dates back to the pre-Napster era of the late 1990s, when listeners copied cassettes from originals, then it was CD ripping, which was eventually supplanted by digital downloads of MP3 files and subsequently music file sharing via peer-to-peer networks.

Currently, music streaming through distribution platforms, Deezer, Spotify and Apple Music among other streaming channels abounds. It is instructive to draw on the connective link in all these technological developments as the p-word; piracy.

Meanwhile, debates around piracy rages on unabated among different stakeholders ranging from music industry executives, musicians, songwriters, content creators, creative commons advocates and rights holders among others and yet an important voice remains underrepresented, i.e. that of music industry workers.’ It is against this backdrop that this study seeks to interrogate UK music industry workers’ views on digital piracy and music file sharing and evaluate whether they chime with the wider discourses of the music and media industries.

Through myriad discourse analysis strands, the study, unpicks the minutiae language use both in official trade press vis-à-vis grassroots workers on the ground. Within this wider research context, key questions emerge such as the place and scope of piracy as an underground economy which continues to evolve.

Initial findings point to a complex set of economy, replete with contradictory positions and dissonant voices in discourses espoused by different players.

Additional strands emerge such as the wider ramifications of music streaming and stream ripping phenomenon. Equally, the ongoing fieldwork continues to unearth interesting views on stakeholders’ perception or value of music.

Research Papers: 1. Questioning the Role of New Media in Framing Democracy in Africa’s Dictatorships - Zimbabwe a Case Study - Royal Holloway - University of London Postgraduate Conference - December 2010.

2. Digital Delinquents: Cross Generational Perspectives on Music Downloading - Paper presented at Shifting Ground II: A Symposium on Music and Publishing - Oxford Brookes University 2011.

3. Ideological Dilemmas, Negotiating Interpretative Repertoires in Digital Economy Britain, - Paper presented at Media, Communication and Cultural Studies (MeCCSA) Annual conference at University of Bedfordshire - January 2012.

4. Media Rationales for Disclosure: Public Interest in the era of Blackberry and Twitter, - Paper presented at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, February 2012.

5. Through the Years from Paparazzi to Twitter - Star Controversies and Audience Response, - Paper presented at Royal Holloway - University of London, Celebrity Studies Conference, June 2014.

6. I have peer reviewed scholarly articles for publication for Elsevier Editorial Team’s Journal: Telematics and Informatics Journal Volume 31 (1) February 1, 2014.

7. Etymology of the Piracy Construct: Reconciling Dissonant Voices – conference paper presented at PGR Research Dialogues Conferences, Birmingham City University, July 2018.

8. Researching Musical Work while in Lockdown published on Working in Music International Research Network, (WIM) page - https://wim.hypotheses.org/1319 - June, 2020.

Independent Academia profile

Andrew Chatora

Doctoral researcher

Birmingham School of Media

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