The Disappearance of Music Media: Theorizing Post-media Conditions for Control in the East Asian Music Industry

This paper focuses on the distinct technologies that operate behind, beyond, and below the concept of media. I theorize that the intricate complex of platforms, channels and formats for the consumption of cultural content is better understood through the lens of format theory (Aegidius, 2017; Sterne, 2012). A theory of formats does not require us to forget what we have learned from media theory. Format theory proposes a different scaling of analysis. It does so by drawing on STS, cultural studies and software studies. The format ´…denotes a whole range of decisions that affect the look, feel, experience, and workings of a medium. It also names a set of rules according to which a technology can operate´ (Sterne, 2012, 7).
Music consumption in the East Asian countries and especially Japan provides a remarkable and unique case for the continued and global disappearance of music media. But formats persist and govern the music experience. Here I focus on the ways in which traditional and physical music formats (CD) intersect with new media formats, e.g. the micromaterial music file and the music stream, here conceptualised as the internet protocols plus music file (Aegidius, 2017). I suggest that the commodification of the stream entails a technical and perceptual disappearance of (music) media technologies into the software. What is left is an assumed easier and more immediate experience of music in it self. To better understand the negotiations of control in the emerging digital music ecologies, I propose we elaborate on the post-media conditions of the music industry through the use of format theory.