TikTok and Sound: Changing the ways of Creating, Promoting, Distributing and Listening to Music

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2022.5.9.51

Keywords:

music, sound , TikTok, meme, music produsage, music promotion, music technology

Abstract

TikTok has become one of the fastest growing online empires in the last decade, and one of the most influential social media tools today. By centering the short-video format tailored for smartphone screens, this platform sets forth the sonic component of the audio-visual material in ways which have been unexplored in the social media realm on a global scale before. In this article I will explore the ways in which TikTok has made an “aural turn” (Abidin and Kaye 2021), and thus changed and influenced the processes of music-making, music listening and music promotion. Special attention is given to the tools creators have at use (such as Duets, Stitches, livestreams, short form of the video), as well as the circumstances that ensue when these tools are combined with the algorithm and the entire ecosystem of this app (such as the highest yet possibility of virality, pressure to optimize content to be ‘catchy’ and likable, fast release on other streaming apps). The article also investigates the TikTok-influenced image of the contemporary music industry, as well as the multifaceted use of sound as memes.

Author Biography

  • Bojana Radovanović, Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

    Bojana Radovanović, musicologist and art theorist, research associate at the Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2022 at the University of Arts in Belgrade, studying the relations of voice to vocal technique and new technologies in contemporary art and popular
    music. She published two books, co-edited one collective monograph, and coauthored two documentaries. She is one of the founders of the Association for preservation, research, and promotion of music “Serbian Composers” that works on the largest internet audio-visual archive of Serbian art and film music,
    and a co-founder and the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology.

Cover of the INSAM Journal No. 9

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Published

15.12.2022

Issue

No. 9 (2022): Fighting for the Attention: Music and Art on Social Media II

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2022 INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology

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How to Cite

TikTok and Sound: Changing the ways of Creating, Promoting, Distributing and Listening to Music. (2022). INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology, 9, 51-73. https://doi.org/10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2022.5.9.51
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