The Engagement Imperative: Experiences of Communication Practitioners’ Brand Work in the Music Industry

Abstract

Due to societal trends, such as digitalisation, platformisation, and active and co-creative audiences, new organisational practices have surfaced. This study examines how communication practitioners experience their changing work in a new communication environment in which participatory cultural norms are becoming standard in strategic communication. I argue that the requirements to produce audience engagement affect the communication work and the communication workers. This study uses the popular music industry as a case, and is based on interviews with communication practitioners as well as on the qualitative text analysis of reports and newsletters from the music marketing firm Music Ally to the music industry. The study shows that communication practitioners within the industry experience a duty to create audience engagement—an engagement imperative. Although the practitioners are highly skilled in digital communication and social media, they often see the development of digital promotional culture as a challenge and express a lack of a deeper understanding of engagement. This study highlights implications for their professional roles, competences, and identities as well as ethical implications regarding the exploitation of audiences in communication work.

Questioning Media Audience Engagement for Advertising Purposes and Content Creation

“…For companies whose core business is not developed in the digital environment, generation of engagement is based on the search for satisfaction in the content that the audience consumes. We agree with Edlom (2022) that one of the keys to generating engagement in the media industry is that the content be relevant and close to audiences. In our survey, both…”

“…Increasingly intense digital and social transformation has further driven audience fragmentation and media content consumption across multiple screens and platforms over the last years, to such an extent that some publics no longer consume media in the conventional ways. Recent research suggests that the difficulty involved in attracting the attention of distracted audiences, who are comfortable migrating between different screens and platforms, has prompted growing concern over finding ways to enhance audience engagement levels and seeking emotional connection (Berguillos, 2017;Chan-Olmsted & Wolter, 2018;Edlom, 2022;Gajardo & Costera, 2022;Kleer & Kunz, 2021).…”

Understanding tensions in strategic communication practices: a strategy-as-practice study of the music industry

“…This study has shown that strategic communication practitioners in the music industry perceive it as challenging to encourage, follow, understand and adjust to active consumers on the one hand and to strategically steer them to act in anticipated ways around brands on the other. However, the focus on co-creation and openness may be superficial, as the goal of strategic communication seems to be to facilitate effective engagement with a brand rather than real co-creation, as suggested by Edlom (2022). As soon as the complexity and pace intensify, so do the management and controlling mechanisms, even in the contexts and narratives of agile organisations.…”

Creativity of program producer ‘Inside Indonesia’ CNN Jakarta

“…According to Djamal et al, (2017), features are the same as soft news, giving features freedom according to needs because features are not information corresponding to phenomena that must be broadcast now. According to Fachruddin (2014), the form of feature packaging that can be produced is:…”