Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies. Vol. 2 Issue 2 (2016) 2 Online Music Television: New Media, Same Celebrity Jordan McClain Drexel University Amanda McClain Holy Family University Abstract This article explores celebrity construction in online music television, considering the Web’s transformation of television and the rise of online video consumption. A discourse analysis examined celebrity in the first 20 episodes of Pitchfork Weekly, an online video series created by influential music criticism/journalism website Pitchfork. Findings address six themes that support celebrity ideology and help the site construct music celebrities: setting, rating system, audience/fans/performance, artists’ products, hard work, and celebrity references. The article concludes that although Pitchfork is known for its independent-minded approach to music coverage, it still bolsters the celebrity- machine that dominates mass culture. Pitchfork Weekly may epitomize a new form of music television, but there is little new about the way it works and the messages it constructs about celebrity. Music and television have been intrinsically linked since the early years of popular television and together have helped create innumerable celebrities. From American Bandstand to MTV’s Total Request Live and American Idol to Glee or Empire, music and television have become a thriving, symbiotic pair—they illustrate and engender cultural ideals related to gender norms, beauty stereotypes, youth culture, and more. Television, ubiquitous in global culture, informs viewers about the society in which they participate, as well as norms and behaviors of other cultures or subcultures. Thus, television’s structure and content—whether viewed on a box in the family room or Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies. Vol. 2 Issue 2 (2016) 3 on a website in a dorm—are important to study in order to explore and analyze current ideology maintenance and to reveal components of modern culture. This includes examination of celebrity, such as those who represent and embody and transmit normalized ideals, which television—in particular music television—plays a major role in creating and sustaining. While television transforms due to the Web’s influence, these factors play out in news ways and on different screens. As conceptions of television shift, research must address such issues. In a special issue of Journal of Popular Music Studies that examined popular music on television, Delmont and Forman (2013) pointed to the medium’s evolution and import, stating, “while many of the distribution technologies have changed, screens continue to be primary sites of pleasure and profit for cultural engagements with popular music” (p. 293). Ultimately, the authors argued that “music has been crucial to every era of television, providing profitable content, pioneering new televisual technologies…” (p. 298). Indeed, music and television continue to intersect online, with the potential to affect culture profoundly. For instance, one of the Web’s most interesting and influential contemporary opinion leaders is Pitchfork Media’s Pitchfork.com (1996-present)1, which claims about “7 million monthly unique visitors” and to be “read daily by the most passionate music fans” (“Advertising | Pitchfork,” 2016). The site is devoted to multimedia coverage of new music across genres, is a self-defined “leading voice in independent music and beyond” (“Advertising | Pitchfork,” 2013), and has described itself accordingly on Facebook: Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies. Vol. 2 Issue 2 (2016) 4 Pitchfork is the web’s most popular independent music resource, with expansive daily coverage of indie rock, hip-hop, electronic, pop, metal, and experimental music. Publishing daily reviews, features, and interviews, as well as real-time music news coverage, Pitchfork has developed one of the web’s most devoted and loyal followings, in the process spawning Chicago’s annual Pitchfork Music Festival and the online music video channel Pitchfork.tv. (Pitchfork About, 2014) Addressing Pitchfork’s influence, Time magazine (2011) called the site “the Pravda of indie rock, steering opinion (and sales).” Pitchfork is known for its often sensationalist reviews and the notion that “a rave review on the site can practically guarantee a band’s success,” when proclaimed by “indie rock’s biggest tastemaker” (Lowery, 2011). This research explores how Pitchfork’s Pitchfork Weekly online video series is a powerful representation of music television’s latest forms, providing exposure for select artists and thereby setting an authoritative agenda for various forms of musical taste and helping construct celebrities via new media. This article uses a discourse analysis to locate and analyze themes of celebrity in Pitchfork Weekly content. The purpose is to understand what celebrity-related ideological underpinnings characterize online modern music television as audiences supplement or replace traditional consumption with more Web-based consumption. This research furthers our comprehension of how, in a rapidly evolving media landscape, prominent websites like Pitchfork and programs such as Pitchfork Weekly form and reflect our social world. This is valuable since little research has investigated the concept of celebrity construction in relation to online music television. To understand such Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies. Vol. 2 Issue 2 (2016) 5 phenomena, this article considers research about television studies and celebrity, then interprets the case of Pitchfork Weekly in the context of music television. Ultimately, the article concludes that Pitchfork Weekly may epitomize a new form of music television, but there is little new about the way it works and the messages it constructs about celebrity. History, Context, and Literature To examine this case of the Pitchfork Weekly online video series—conceived here as a contemporary form of music television—the following sections provide history, context, and literature about the influence of the Internet on TV consumption and the general significance of TV, what has defined music television, and how this all relates to the notion of celebrity in society. Television and the Internet: Beyond the Box Television content has moved beyond its previous encapsulation within a stationary box inside the home. TV is now also online. This shift has expanded the boundaries of what television is or can be. Today, someone might view television content on a small-screen mobile device carried in a pocket around the world, on a desktop computer at the office, or via a laptop connected to a TV display. Content produced for conventional television is available online through digital media stores like Apple’s iTunes Store, apps like HBO GO or HBO NOW, and websites like Hulu. Additionally, original online content often imitates series formats modeled after television—popular digital video streaming services have embraced and are substantially investing in production of new TV-like content, such as Netflix’s Arrested Development (post-FOX-network episodes, fourth season and beyond) and House of Cards or Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies. Vol. 2 Issue 2 (2016) 6 Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle and Alpha House (“Customers Have Spoken,” 2013; Stelter, 2013). Consumption of online video and television content has significantly grown in recent years. A report by The Pew Internet and American Life Project stated that 52% of all adult Americans had watched online videos (Purcell, 2010). The report attributed such ubiquity of online video to “broadband access, the increased use of social networking sites… [and] the popularity of video-sharing sites” (Purcell, 2010). In 2012, according to a Cisco-sponsored study, professionally produced video content was the most-watched category of web video, with the average broadband subscriber watching over 100 minutes per week. Of those subscribers, “seventy-four percent… watch their favorite TV shows online at least weekly” (Tribbey, 2012). Reports like these emphasize the remarkable increase in consumption of online video and television content, and thus the importance of studying emerging online models (like online music television) with consideration to established offline models (like historical music television). As television evolves due to the influence of the Internet, it is apparent that TV content remains a major part of popular culture. Television is a powerful medium that shapes the world in which we live. Fiske (1987) explained that “television-as-culture is a crucial part of the social dynamics by which the social structure maintains itself in a constant process of production and reproduction” (p. 1). Television conveys culture through its content, thus teaching audiences about their world. Through TV consumption audiences may learn about norms related to race, class, gender, and much more, as content depicts cultural standards and socializes youth (Tuchman, Daniels, & Benet, 1978). In this sense, television is a Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies. Vol. 2 Issue 2 (2016) 7 “cultural agent” and “provoker and circulator of meanings” (Fiske, 1987, p. 1), functioning to help hegemonically sustain dominant societal ideologies, such as those related to celebrity, consumerism, commercialism, or capitalism (Hall, 1980/1991; Marshall, 1997; Miller, 1988). TV accomplishes this through depictions of recognizable codes of meaning that refer to such status quo ideals, thus ultimately naturalizing them (Fiske, 1987; 2000). For these