By Megan E. B. Poff
Many platforms allow the presence of music criticism. Traditionally, these platforms were printed articles, reviews in newspapers, or reviews in music journals. As generations shifted from an analog society to a digital one, online blogs became more commonplace. Due to the increasing presence of musician engagement on social media to promote a public performance or an album, music critics have found a way to navigate those waters as well.
The musical output by various artists to digital media such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter have pushed the criticism of music artists to these same platforms. While professional writing has the traditional association with business and technical communication, it has now repurposed itself on social media as a platform to connect and engage with its audience (Buck, 2018).
Rhetorical situations having the elements of exigence, audience, and constraints (Bitzer, 1968) are not limited to public speaking or written work. One can assume that these elements mentioned can be manifested and applied in social media as well. On social media platforms such as Twitter, when a musician creates posts (exigence) for their fans (audience) they are working within the controls (constraints) that specific platform provides. The context of their presence on social media is a communicative effort of self-promotion and producing art, regardless of its limitations. However, what is the social media presence like for the music critic?
For music critics, their main purpose on social media is to engage with the audience and effectively communicate their musical analysis of a performance. However, how is this done? How do they engage with their audience in such a limited way? Is the intention to promote the arts and engage with the audience by bringing awareness to a particular artist or performance venue? These are the questions that are explored in this project.
What is observed is how valuable social media such as Twitter has become for professionals (Buck, 2018). With music critics, it allows them a space to be concise, clear, and to the point with their observations which is the essence of professional writing. They cater to their audience by posting links to performance reviews, tagging artists, humblebragging about professional accomplishments, and relating to the reality of our current zeitgeist. This engagement perpetuates the situational discourse that a rhetoric would render (Bitzer, 1968).
This project introduces a detailed analysis of three music critics and how they engage with their audience. It will provide information, patterns, and habits regarding their online presence on the social media platform, Twitter, and why it matters.
Background
The three music critics who were chosen for this study were Kate Molleson (BBC), Nate Chinen (NPR), and David Allen (NYT). While each is affiliated with public journalism with international media platforms, they also have their individual Twitter accounts. They are listed as such: Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson), Nate Chinen (@NateChinen), and David Allen (@fafnerthekite). Each music critic was selected not only by association with a publication, but also for their expertise in a particular genre.
Kate Molleson specializes in 20th Century music and folk song. Her advocacy for undiscovered artists is a frequent pattern for her Tweets. She self- promotes her book Sound Within Sound tagging various artists mentioned to engage with her audience.
Tweet 1: Kate Molleson’s Tweet on 7/24/22:
A snapshot from Peggy Seeger’s performance at my book launch @Cafeoto on Friday night. She shared memories about her mum Ruth Crawford, sang us songs she learned as a girl, moved us to tears with poems about motherhood & daughterhood.
Nate Chinen who works for the National Public Radio (NPR) is a jazz expert. His book titled, Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, is listed in his Twitter bio. His account demonstrates a love for images of various artists and emojis. He also does not shy away from the humanistic posts that demonstrate the full scope of a music critic’s reality – air travel. With the current news reports of airline travel being a nightmare for most, one can see the connection and relatability of an image with damaged luggage.
Tweet 2: Nate Chinen’s Tweet on 7/12/22:
More like inTERMINAbLE Baggage Claim amirite? [smile emoji] (I am so deeply sorry. It’s been a long day.)
David Allen is the third music critic observed. His knowledge of symphonic works, operas, and piano concertos makes him a keen observer of Classical music. His presence on Twitter is less frequent, but purposeful with the tagged published article in the New York Times or an image of his current location for a performance review.
Tweet 3: David Allen’s Tweet
Tonight’s agenda: a McVicar “Falstaff” at Santa Fe
The partnership of the publications with the individual Twitter accounts are a commonality for the three music critics. Monitoring and observing their individual Twitter accounts will allow further analysis on how they engage with their specific audience. This also showcases what constraints Twitter provides them regarding professional writing.
Audience
Most followers of Kate Molleson, Nate Chinen, and David Allen are musicians. This makes sense because while a musician might not agree or approve of the critical assessment of their performance, it does give them an online platform. Others who follow these same accounts are identified as publications, fellow journalists, or music scholars.
What is special to note is the connection that Twitter provides for the music reviewer. It is also a way to humblebrag on their professional accomplishments in the music industry as an expert in music review. Case in point, Kate Molleson retweets various posts about the positive assessments of her book, Sound Within Sound. An example of this is her retweet by Dr. David Vernon who tweeted:
A work about lost sounds & forgotten voices, this is an absolutely fascinating new book from @KateMolleson, interrogating boundaries and celebrating variety. Full of love—and pertinent anger—it will literally open your eyes to new noises and ways of considering what we value.
This audience engagement promotes positive peer-to-peer review in a succinct, but public way. It brings more attention to the work at large creating a web of connection beyond the locality of the music critic. Twitter creates an international dialogue for the music writer.
Research Question
To narrow the focus of this study, the research question is: What does professional writing look like for music critics on social media platforms such as Twitter? This one question requires the up-close examination of audience engagement in digital media. It also provides more questions than answers. Is the intention to promote the work by giving it an opinion on a public platform? Do music critics parallel their frequency of criticisms in writing with their music genre of expertise? These questions were explored and discussed by observing the social media presence of Kate Molleson, Nate Chinen, and David Allen along with their patterns of engagement on Twitter.
Method
The accounts observed were Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson), Nate Chinen (@NateChinen), and David Allen (@fafnerthekite). The observation period selected were the weeks spanning from June 1, 2022-July 29, 2022. These weeks were chosen for data collection because the online presence for each Twitter account varied. The reviewing of these accounts from the initial Twitter analysis dated July 24, 2022, required more backdate data as the frequency of social media was quite differentiated among the participants.
The software programs that were used to provide the data analysis were Webutomation.io and Twitonomy. These programs were chosen due to their detailed data scrapping and content breakdown. Webautomation.io was accessed on July 27, 2022. At the home page of this program, the extractor tab was clicked. Then for the particular social media platform for extraction, Twitter was chosen. Dates selected to review the digital information was used under data sessions. They were chosen through the calendar option spanning from 6/1-7/29.
To retrieve the data, the input tab was selected. One row per week was chosen with the dates selected as detailed information was requested to be pulled for comparison. The Web Page URL was copied and pasted into the starter link box. The final portion of the process was to click the run now tab which then formulated the data into various document forms. The chosen document was Excel and the information collected was converted to Excel. The information gathered with this program was the following: Web page URL, Tweet website, Author, Tweet timestamp, Tweet content, Tweet image, Number of likes, Number of Retweets, and Number of reviews.
While the Webautomation.io provided detailed references with data regarding images and links, it lacked the detailed Tweet analytics of audience engagement. Twitonomy, a software program, could pull more data for each account and provide it both in spreadsheet and graphics. The Twitonomy app was downloaded on both iPhone and iPad on June 29, 2022. On the dashboard of the home page, profile was selected. Then, the chosen Twitter handle was copied and pasted in the search bar engine. This provided information both in Tweet analytics and Tweet history. To choose which dates to apply for research purposes, the magnifying glass date selector was clicked.
The information provided were as follows: Tweets per day, Retweets, User mentions, Replies, Links, Hashtags, Tweets retweeted, Total retweets, Tweets liked, and Total likes. Graphs and Excel spreadsheets could be converted by clicking on the floppy disk icon within the Twitonomy software program. This information was converted to both PDF and Excel spreadsheet formats.
Data and Analysis
The data collected from the three participants demonstrated a varying level of social media activity and frequency. It was observed that the audience engagement was different for each music critic’s Twitter account. The breakdown revealed that Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson) was very frequent with her social media posting 7.27 Tweets per day. While an active Twitter user, Nate Chinen (@NateChinen) was not as recurrent as Kate Molleson only posting 1.58 Tweets per day. David Allen’s (@fafnerthekite) Twitter use was minimal with 0.58 Tweets per day.
To get an overall analysis of their audience engagement, these daily Tweet averages were applied spanning the weeks from June 1, 2022-July 29, 2022. The summary (Figure 1) provided that Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson) had 435 Tweets overall, Nate Chinen (@NateChinen) had 109 Tweets total, and David Allen (@fafnerthekite) had a total of 34 Tweets.
This overall observation showed a particular finding. Each music critic’s audience engagement reflected the expertise of that critic’s music genre. As mentioned earlier, Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson) is a specialist in 20th Century Music. Nate Chinen (@NateChinen) is a jazz expert. While David Allen (@fafnerthekite) has proficient knowledge in the genre of Classical music. It appears that the genre of music for each music critic is parallel to each critic’s digital output.
To delve further into this assessment, with the most frequent user Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson), there is a common link with her 20th Century knowledge and expertise. The genre that is 20th Century music is fairly new to musicology study and music analysis. The elements of this genre are limited with musical components being concise and clear, and contained in shorter pieces. Kate Molleson’s data (Figure 2) showed that she had 130 retweets, 584 user mentions, 27 hashtags and 55 links spanning from June 1, 2022-July 29, 2022. This demonstrated a very active user who not only used hashtags with links to videos to engage her audience, but also with the abundance of user mentions and retweets. Her continual user mentions created a greater digital outreach as she parlayed her music criticisms on Twitter.
In comparison, Nate Chinen (@NateChinen) who specializes in jazz music, had a different overall outcome with his retweets, user mentions, hashtags, and links. His engagement on Twitter was not as present as Kate Molleson (@KateMolleson), although they both follow each other. With that observation, it was noted that Nate Chinen (Figure 3) has a mass of 23,702 followers to his account, unlike Kate Molleson who has 7,566 followers, and David Allen who has 3,413 followers. This is probably due to the fact of his National Public Radio presence and the multiple postings of his book Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century. His links are 0.39 of his Tweets, which direct his audience to NPR articles he has written or to his book.
To understand the data analysis reflected for each Twitter account one must observe the last music critic’s engagement to audience on social media, David Allen (@fafnerthekite). A music critic for The New York Times, Allen has not availed himself much to the digital online space for audience engagement. It could be surmised that since his chosen genre of music to review is Classical, and it is an older genre with an older audience, they may find Twitter to be too daunting to view articles of music reviews. It could be that the genre itself is too infrequent for continual digital review regarding performances.
Symphonic works and operas are vastly different than a jazz number or four-minute folk songs from 20th Century music. The performing elements required for Classical music make it a strenuous endeavor to produce, let alone review. This could be why David Allen has little presence on Twitter but shows his links far outweigh his user mentions (Figure 4). Like Nate Chinen, David posts links as his main communicative source for Twitter. He links to location and his New York Times article. Although infrequent, he is purposeful with what he posts.
Each account: @KateMolleson, @NateChinen, and @fafnerthekite post according to audience engagement by days of the week. To that note of purpose, performers do not have weekends. It is apparent from this study, that neither do music critics. With professional engagement at its most frequent for Friday evenings, the graphics show that Twitter activity is at its peak toward the end of the work week.
The data collected and analyzed from the Twitter accounts of three reputable and published music critics demonstrate the necessity of audience engagement. With professional writing in a digital space such as Twitter by way of imbedding links to articles written, performances attended, and user mentions show that there are multiple ways to connect with an audience.
These findings showcase the substance and output of each music critic. They each have an individual Twitter account which links their audience to their music criticisms. Each specialize in a different music genre. Each communicate to a different music audience. The way in which they do so, however, is the same by use of user mentions, retweets, or both. Methods aside, what matters is that they are presently interacting with their audience about the value of music on platforms such as Twitter and have succeeded in doing so.
The musical arts are making their way into social media and they are not limited to Spotify or iTunes. Music can be accessed in digital ways by imbedding links to livestream or tagging locations or performances. Regardless of what music critics’ sentiments are concerning their digital post of music review, they have given that artist a public platform. The continual communication online will only enhance music analysis and criticism in the future.
Conclusion:
The reality of moving from an analog society to a digital one is not lost on musicians. It is a way for performers to connect with fans who enjoy listening to their music. They can post their music videos, new songs, and livestream performances, and can promote their new albums. For the music critic, however, these are murky waters. Due to the active audience participation of fans also known as STANS, there is a reality that is unsettling for the music critic on social media. Online bullying for having an expert opinion is a reality for these music journalists (Ottenhof, 2020).
Returning to the research question: What does professional writing look like for music reviewers on social media platforms such as Twitter? The answer: it varies. It varies because music critics write from their professional opinion. Most notably, opinions are not always approved by stans – especially negative ones. Does is this brutal honesty of musical analysis have space on social media such as Twitter? Maybe. Does it allow for audience engagement? Yes. However, is that audience engagement ideal? Not always.
To review music criticism in social media as a venue for professional writing poses leaves the observer with more required research to be done. The concerning evidence most noted throughout this study was evidence of neutrality by way of disassociation through posts of various links and user mentions. It did not warrant a constructive outlook of any of the music critics observed. The commonality was their parallel digital presence and frequency of posts paired with their expertise of music genre. Most Tweets were also made toward the end of the work week. These variables notwithstanding, this study shows that content matters, that purposeful writing for the music critic can be contained in the constraints of a Tweet, and that the most important resource for music critics on social media is their audience.
References
Allen, D. [@fafnerthekite]. (2022, July 29). Tonight’s agenda: a McVicar “Falstaff” at Santa Fe [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/fafnerthekite/status/155320574220845056?s=42
Bitzer, L.F. (1968). The Rhetorical Situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, (1), 1-14.
Buck, A. (2018). Chapter 9. Grad School 2.0: Performing Professionalism on Social Media. Social Writing/Social Media: Publics, Presentations, and Pedagogies, 161-178.
Chinen, N. [@NateChinen]. (2022, July 12). More like in TERMINaBLE Baggage Claim amirite? *emoji* (I am so deeply sorry. Its been a long day.) [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/NateChinen/status
Molleson, K. [@KateMolleson]. (2022, July 24). A snapshot from Peggy Seeger’s performance at my book launch @Cafeoto on Friday night. She shared memories about her mum [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/KateMolleson/status
Ottenhof, L. (2020, March 6). Music criticism in the time of stans and haters. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://www.cjr.org/criticism/stan-hater-musician-criticism.php
Vernon, D. [@DrDavidVernon]. (2022, July 28). A work about lost sounds & forgotten voices, this is an absolutely fascinating new book from @KateMolleson, interrogating boundaries and [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/DrDavidVernon/status/1552539218815090688
Megan E. B. Poff is in the Graduate Certificate in Writing Program, English.