NPR Music

Remediation, curation, and National Public Radio in the digital convergence era

Bibliographic Data

ID11268586
AuthorsChristopher Cwynar (Defiance College, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume39
Issue5
Pages680-696
Publication date2017-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0163443716674362
OpenAlexW2548306182
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited38

This article considers National Public Radio’s (NPR) relationship with music and the web. I argue that the NPR Music project has successfully leveraged NPR’s perceived autonomy from commercial factors, sophisticated cultural sensibility, established audience, and unique network of member stations to become an important curator of music-based radio and music itself. Building on an emerging discussion of the politics of curation and publicity in the social media and streaming paradigm, this article extends the concept of ‘soundwork’ to argue that national public media organizations must increasingly both produce and curate content in order to compete for attention and engagement on the platform-based social web. As this case study of NPR Music demonstrates, these legacy institutions can leverage their valuable ‘national public’ identities in order to facilitate these activities, but this strategy threatens to undermine their legitimacy during a period in which ‘public’ is an increasingly contested and contingent term

Advertising · Business · Digital media · Legitimacy · Leverage (statistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Public sphere · Publicity · Social media · Sociology · Computer Science · Media Studies and Communication · Music History and Culture · Radio, Podcasts, and Digital Media