How has the emergence of XR Technology in the music industry affected how a Generation Z audience consumes a musical artists work?
3 — Research Question (16/12/20)
THIS INCLUDES THE GENERATION Z LITERATURE REVIEW
How has the emergence of XR Technology in the music industry affected how a Generation Z audience consumes a musical artists work?
Abstract
This research will give us a greater understanding on how XR technology and Generation Z might affect the global music industry.
Generation Z are the supposed first generation born into a digital world, they have always known the internet.
Social media now connects 3 Billion people on the planet, and it is only in the last 10 years that academia has started to look at the challenges and opportunities that this will create.
A literature review has shown that academia has mainly focused on Generation Z and the challenges that will affect Education and the Workplace, whilst Industry is occupied with how Generation Z will affect commerce.
With Generation Z spending 5+ hours a day on social media, and with YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok being the dominate social media platforms for Generation Z, how much of this time spent on social media is spent consuming music? and how is this being done? And with the rise in integration of XR technology by social media companies into the social applications aimed at Generation Z for the consumption of music, how is this affecting the way that artists in the music industry are working.
This project aims to paint a picture by understanding the data behind the creativity, which in turn, will inform creative choices.
When discovering new music, social media platforms are the dominant force as cultural spaces for music fans to connect, share and discuss musical artists.
But listening, fandom and the relationship between audience and musician is changing.
Fans are no longer just passive consumers, they also wish to participant as a fan in this digital cultural space as a part of the creative process.
With YouTube and Spotify being the virtual equivalent of the record shop, gig space, radio station and fan enabled recording studio rolled into one, the audience’s relationship with an artist’s music has been altered by these new musical business gatekeepers.
Since 2019 video game technology, with games such as Fortnite and Roblox, have started to take the most popular streamers (Artists) from Spotify, and create time and place mass participation gigs inside their video game spaces.
Artists such as Travis Scott, have played in Fortnite and Lil Nas X has played in Roblox.
These virtual gigs, inside video game ‘metaverses’, have been attended by over 30 million fans from around the world, and shared and re-broadcast through social media.
All this taking place with a global Covid 19 pandemic raging across the world in 2020/2021 with traditional music venues in real reality (RR) closed.
XR = Extend Reality (phrase that brings together Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) )
Generation Z = Born after 1995, the oldest of this Generation is 25 years of age in 2020.
This research project will look to answer specific questions.
- How do Generation Z participate on social media with XR Music Experiences?
- (This will be the focus of Prototype 1)
- How does this participation manifest itself?
- (Netnography study sample)
- How might the music industry use Generation Z participation to develop business strategies in the future?
- (This will be the focus of Prototype 2)
4 — Current sharing of knowledge attained through this research project.
The researcher has set about sharing his knowledge with an engaged peer group via ‘Immersive arts lab — by Future Artists’ — the researcher pre-covid ran various Knowledge sharing labs, which have since gone online due to covid19 rolling lockdowns
More information at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1537457282955910/ (Members 455)
The researcher has set up a blog, which will host Video, Writing and Podcast’s to be a portal of information for LJMU students and faculty and also for my global peer group and industry — https://medium.com/@markashmorefrsa
The researcher has presented work at one academic conference.
The researcher is currently working on two academic papers
4.1 — Generation Z and Virtual Gigs.
Abstract — With over half a billion users between them, Fortnite and Roblox have hosted since early 2020 a variety of immersive music experiences within their video game environment, attend by over 200 million people globally — This paper looks at how these events work, who is attending and why? and the future of this emerging industry.
4.2 — What can the music industry learn from the rise of digital influencers.
Abstract — China has over 2 million workers who define themselves as digital influencers, with an entire industry set up support them, even universitys, and now these influencers are moving from being real people, to digital avatars powered by AI or by a human surrogate.
In parallel with this, the entertainment industry, specifically the music industry in Asia is generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue with digital avatar music stars.
This paper will take a snap shot of what the industry is doing in 2021 with this emerging technology and cultural trend.
The paper will focus on research into who is consuming this entertainment and why?
5 — A brief but critical literature review.
5.1 — Abstract
This literature review reveals the current research focus, underlying themes and prominent research gaps in the Generation Z (Gen Z) literature.
My Opening research question of January 2020 was to look at the relationship between Generation Z and Immersive music experiences.
Over the course of the year of 2020, as a result of this literature review, the researcher’s question evolved, as the researching of topics within the literature changed, and new path ways discovered.
In late 2020 the focus of the project shifted to researching Generation Z and their relationship with XR Music Technology, and how this might effect the music industry.
For the purposes of this brief literature review, a sample of the work done is presented and how the research has been conducted and reviewed shown.
5.2- Method undertook on this Literature review
The Majority of this current research project has been done under either Covid19 Lock down conditions (March 2020 to June 2020) when libraries across the UK have been closed, and from September 2020 Liverpool John Moores University Library has re-opened, as a space to request books only . As a result the researcher has had to rely on Google Scholar and Liverpool John Moores online research portal for research.
When the search term ‘Generation Z’ is typed into Google Scholar 5.6 million articles are returned. To narrow my research focus, only research articles which have been published in the last 7 years are used.
The reason for this defined period is that the first cohort of Generation Z adults, would be just 18 years of age 7 years ago.
To provide further focus the following pairs of terms were used:
‘XR Technology’ and ‘Generation Z’,’Virtual Reality’ and ‘Generation Z’ ‘Augmented Reality’ and ‘Generation Z’
5.3 — Breakdown of the Review
The results of my Brief Literature Review can be broken down into the following parts.
1.0– Generation Z Literature from 2013 to 2015 — Early Research?
- – Generation Z Literature from 2014 to 2020 — and Generation Z’s relationship with Technology.
- Early Cyberspace and its relationship with Generation Z (Not included in this brief review)
- Designing for Generation Z (Not included in this brief review)
- Three Important Data sets which give us a snap shot of Generation Z and their relationship with technology.
5.4 — Generation Z Literature from 2013 to 2015 — Early Research
The aim of this first topic was to review what research has been done into Generation Z, and to not focus on a specific area — and so run a broad Google Scholar search.
Between the years 2013 and 2020 there were 1.5 million search results. All results given by Google Scholar had been used as a citation.
As this is a relatively new field of enquiry, the researcher used citations as a ranking system for the reading list, the more citations an article has had, then the more this paper will be part of the literature, therefore these are priority reads for the researcher to review.
As the researcher began to explore the literature, an understanding of the authors intent and inherent bias and the reason that this research exists in the first place, would be part of the critical questioning when reading the literature. Whilst also considering why the contents of an article could be useful to the project, whilst also being mindful of the provenance of the research.
Searching for ‘Generation Z’ in academia.
The top search, and most citationed article with 424 citations is (Grace 2016) ‘Generation Z go to college’. This together with the following 8 articles and books on the front page of Google Scholar ranked in terms of citation gave me an early snap shot into the current focus of academic research as represented by a Google Scholar search.
The academic landscape can be categorised as being split into two distinctive camps, the categories are Education and Workplace.
The challenges of teaching generation Z (Cilliers 2017), Challenges and Issues of Gen Z (Singh 2014), Generation Z — teaching and social interest (Turner 2015) and ‘The Characteristics of Generation Z’ (Dolot 2018) all focus on Generation Z entering school, college or university and the challenges and issues institutions face in the field of education.
The second category of ‘Work’ sees (Lorgulesco 2016) analyse Generation Z and its perception of work, from the perspective of Generation Z who are based in Romania. The conflicts which arise from the dynamic between this newest generation and an ageing Romanian work population are explored. This is not relevant to this study.
(Wood 2013) looks at Generation Z consumer habits and trends, the danger here is this was written in 2013, over 7 years ago at time of writing, therefore any trends might not be current enough for this project.
And finally on the front page of google scholar we see (Singh 2016) ‘understanding the Gen Z : The future workforce’, which opens in its abstract with the sentence ‘that little is known about the characteristics of Generation Z as they enter the workforce, and if businesses are going to retain them (Gen Z) then they should start to learn to understand them’ .
these top citationed articles, if taken as a snap shot of the current, popular academic research into Generation Z, what we see, is that the current crop of published research spans from 2013 to 2018, with 50% written between 2015 and 2018, between 5 and 2 years ago. This shows that academic research into Generation Z is using these works, as the basis for academic study, thus the high citations.
As we shall explore in this review, Generation Z is a fluid generation, which changes overtime, and older research, might contain old ideas, which no longer fit, as I read the literature I kept this in mind.
And as (Singh 2016) said in his opening abstract ‘little is known about Generation Z’ and the search on google scholar shows that what research we have, is focused on Generation Z entering further education and looking to the future of the workplace.
And so returning to Google Scholar, The researcher needed to focus the search and bring in a new set of search terms, to focus the research into a more focused area.
As early as 2016, the majority of millennial’s (Born between 1980–1995) will have moved from the classroom into the workplace, leaving a new generation to fill the gap, enter stage left Generation Z (Williams and Page 2011) it’s with this statement, Generation Z comes of age.
The researcher decided that narrowing the research field down to the dates of 2015 to 2020, give or take a year, (2014–2021) and also change the search topic to focus on ‘Generation Z’ and ‘Immersive technology’ or a variant on this, should yield more focused results regarding Generation Z and their relationship with technology.
1.1– Generation Z Literature from 2015 to 2020 — and Generation Z’s relationship with Technology.
Using the search terms ‘Generation Z’ and then using a combination of ‘ Immersive technology’, ‘Virtual Reality’, ‘Augmented reality’, ‘Immersive Music’ I was able to narrow my research topic down, and begin to place this new Generation with its relationship with technology, and then further more refine the search to a specific technology, which would become ‘music’ at a later date.
Generation Z and Immersive technology between 2015 and 2020 gave me 16,900 results
Generation Z and Virtual Reality’ between 2015 and 2020 gave me 50,800
Generation Z and Augmented reality between 2015 and 2020 gave me 130,000 results
Generation Z and immersive music between 2015 and 2020 gave me 8400 results
By looking at the results and cross referencing them across the search terms, it became apparent that a large proportion of the articles appeared across search terms.
So I would use the citation ranking system to rank work, whilst also search through at least 10 pages from the first page, looking for literature which might not? rank high, but had insight.
Generation Z and Immersive music, gave 8400 results, which as the least amount of results returned by Google Scholar, one would assume, it would have gaps in the knowledge, and so I started to focus on Generation Z and immersive music.
The Gen Z effect (Koulopolis 2014) looks at 6 forces which are shaping the post millennial world, and although outside the 2015 literature search, was within a year and so included it in this section, as it had relevance and valuable insights for this project.
By focusing on 6 forces that Generation Z bring with them (Koulopolis 2014) takes us through his core argument that we live for the first time in a multi generational workplace, with up to 5 distinct generations all working at the same time. (Koulopolis 2014) is also one of the early published works that refer to Generation Z as a true digital native.
Being the first, true ‘digital native’ generation, having never known a world without the internet, and also a generation born into a world of social media. This duality for Generation Z has created a shift from the age of affluence, where money buys power, to an age of influence, where how many followers and the ability to communicate on mass, shifts traditional notions of power in society, and as a digital native, shifts to an age of influence (Koulopolis 2014) .
(Koulopolis 2014) shows us that a hyper connected world will have consequences for education and the classroom, as all the world’s knowledge is freely accessible, shifting educational focus to an experience economy of connections via our personal networks.
Pew Researcher Michael Dimock (Dimock 2018) in his blog ‘Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins’, echoes many of the points raised by (Koulopolis 2014) with additional insights as his research, based on surveys conducted by Pew Research, is a publication from 2018, and so closer to time of writing.
(Dimock 2018) key insights are that, Generation Z is the most diverse generation in terms of sociological outlook, the way they perceive money, religion, politics and technology differs hugely to Generation X and Baby boomers and surprisingly to Millennials.
(Dimock 2018) also reminds us that Donald Trump may be the first president most Gen Zers have ever know as they turn 18 (in 2018) and so, as young adults, how will this effect the attitudes and engagement of Gen Z with politics come the election of 2020.
In his article, Dimock says it is an unknown, but at time of writing, that election has come and gone, and movements such as #blacklivesmatter and the killing of George Floyd and the #metoo movements, have shown that Generation Z are a politically aware Generation, who use technology to pursue multiple agendas on social networks. This was not known in 2018 to Dimock.
A term used again and again in the literature is ‘Digital Native’ which is used to refer to Generation Z and its place on a technological timeline.
This term is explained at length by (Rothman, 2014) in ‘A Tsunami of learners called Generation Z’.
(Rothman 2014) goes to great lengths to explain the use of Facebook and Twitter as Generation Z’s go to social media platforms, but as we shall see later, Generation Z’s usage of Facebook will decline as the decade goes on, replaced with social media platforms which work best for their needs, such as instagram.
Digital Native appears in over 16,600 search results in Google Scholar when ‘Generation Z Digital Native’ is typed as a query.
Once again, the same search results, appear, taken at face value, demonstrate that ‘digital native’ can be perceived as a positive label to be placed on a Generation, who are born into a world where the internet has always existed.
But in ‘Participatory culture in a networked era’ (Jenkins , Ito, Boyd 2016) Mizuko Ito (mimi) lays out the myth of the digital native and argues that, digital native as a term reinforces generational differences in ways that simultaneously celebrate and pathologize youth, and that the term ‘native’ is a more illustrious position. Which is a false hood, as they later claim that ‘natives’ never win, and are usually subject to genocide or wiped out (in the case of American native Indians, Aboriginals peoples of Australia)
It is this term ‘Digital Natives’ , a loaded label, which is repeated across the literature, which we must be careful of — as not all Generation Z are Digital Natives — we must be wary in the scholarship of a one size fits all labelling approach to Generation Z.
When looking at ‘Generation Z consumers expectations of interactions in smart retailing: a future agenda (Priporas 2017) and ‘Moving on from Millennials: preparing for Generation Z (Shatto 2016) their articles talk of how this digital native and technological generation, will use, engage, learn and retail via smart phone technology and how this will be radically different to previous generations, but these articles really just set out the notion that Generation Z engage in use of smart phones for most tasks, the authors do not attempt to offer up any hypothesis on how a generation connected by smart phone technology from birth will shape an industry outside of commerce or education, these articles offer up no consequence’s of the actions by Generation Z and an affect on the retail industry.
Research into Generation Z and its use of technology and the consequences, in peer reviewed journals which focus on the area of my question is slim on the ground, and also does not take into account the XR part of my research question.
So what does the literature say about ‘How has the emergence of XR Technology in the music industry affected how a Generation Z audience consumes a musical artists’,With Peer reviewed articles not delivering, I then changed tract.
Generation Z research has been taken up to a larger extent, not by academia, but my marketing companies.
Marketing companies see a value in researching Generation Z so that clients can sell products and services to them.
And by undertaking this research, this gives marketing agencies an edge in the commercial world of information.
Marketing companies can be first to market when reporting on Gen Z, so they can sell this research to their clients — therefore this research has commercial value.
And so I began to explore this research from the literature. While doing so, I must understand their intent and inherent bias and the reason this research exists in the first place, as well as why the contents that they hold could be useful to this project, whilst also being mindful of their provenance.
‘Marketing to the Generations’ by (Williams and Page 2011) is a comprehensive overview of how six U.S generations currently co-exist side by side, and so that for marketeers to reach a given generation for marketing purposes, they need to understand how to reach them and then get their attention based on their natural media habits. (Koulopolis 2014) refers to 5 Generations working side by side, as he discounts two older Generations mentioned by (Williams and Page 2011) as they are of retirement age and not in the workplace, these are Pre-depression Generation, Depression Generation.
(Williams and Page 2011) Cover Pre-depression Generation, Depression Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millenial) and Generation Z.
Each generational co-hort is split into sections and explained with academic referenced rigor, over 103 reference’s from across the ages are used in this 13 page article and I found the presentation to be a valuable piece of marketing research, for its breakdown of who the Generation is, notable achievements and world shaping events which left a mark on that particular generation, and also the preferred media to reach them and how this media is used to market to them.
Stacy Wood in ‘Generation Z as Consumers: trends and innovation’ (Wood 2013) looks at 4 key trends which define Generation Z, which breakdown as follows
Trend 1 : innovation, Generation Z has an innate comfort with the virtual world, and these consumers are likely to feel that innovation is a given.
Trend 2 : Convenience, a Generation happy to give its personal data away for free access and a more convenient life, although as you will see later, this 2013 report contains a conflict, in a recent Bank of America survey by (Israel 2020) into Generation Z (Appendix 1) shows that Generation Z value’s privacy and have concerns about data security which does now effect consumer led decisions. This switch from ‘happy’ to give data away, to being guarded and private, is an area where digital marketing influencers in the XR space are being deployed to resolve, and further research is needed in this area by the Researcher.
Trend 3 — Security — Financial security is paramount with Gen Z, having grown up in economically difficult times (The financial crash of 2010, Covid19 2020) in the aforementioned (Israel 2020) BOA survey which I will go into more detail later, a 2020 survey shows that Gen Z actively avoid debt, and are financially conservative.
(Wood 2013) final trend is — Trend 4 — Escapism, the desire for an opportunity to escape, which is enhanced by technological advancements, which make video games and entertainment services more compelling, 24/7 access to social networks and total access to the mobile internet via a smart phone, which amongst other things, increases virtual friendships and relationships. (Wood 2013).
Escapism is nothing new, each Generation has sought entertainment as a means to escape the drudgery of everyday life, but what I see different with Generation Z, is that their digital existence, there relationship with computers, is a merging of both life, work and leisure time into a full digital life, where digital time spent is over taking real world engagement.
Evidence of how Generation Z are having virtual relationships, backs up the researchers assumption into the importance of a virtual existence, this is supported by a statistic in (Israel 2020) BOA report (Appendix 1) which shows that 40% of a sample of 15,000 Gen Z surveyed said that they maintain Virtual friendships and prefer them over physical friendships. This fact has relevance for us, as it demonstrates that a better understanding of how these relationships are formed, how are they maintained and how they work for Generation Z is missing from the literature.
The BBC podcast Generation Z and the Art of Self Maintenance (Sinclair 2019) interview’s 4 Teenagers about to leave school in Huddersfield and move to FE and Work.
This documentary discusses the importance of virtual friendships and relationships, with partners that they physically do not meet, but instead cultivate a bond via video game technology, meme culture and facetime, and that the value of these are as strong as physical real reality friendships. This clearly demonstrates via an interview the way that Generation Z place value of virtual relationships, how might this work with XR technology?
The research suggested by (Woods 2013) are elaborated on by Matt Kleinschmit (Kleinschmit 2019) and also close to our current time of writing in 2020.
(Kleinschmit 2019) suggests that Gen Z media consumption habits differ hugely from their closet generation, the millennials — with smart phones being used to consume 15.4hrs of content vs 14.8 hrs with Millennials, although not a huge increase, it is their social media usage which differs with Instagram, Youtube and Snapchat being the favoured platforms to consume this mobile content on for Generation Z (and this article is the first mention of these platforms and their relationship with Gen Z).
Where as Facebook is the Millennials go to content and social network portal, with YouTube seeing both Generations spending about the same amount of time there.
This research by (Kleinschmit 2019) contradicts (Rothman, 2014) whom we discussed earlier, who’s research suggests Facebook was one of the Main Generation Z social media spaces, what a difference 5 years makes in this space.
This research report by (Kleinschmit 2019) also suggests that Generation Z have an attention span of about 8 seconds and that 11% have ADHD, which is not a surprise as they receive over 3000 notifications a month.
But this Generation does have a focus on work, with 61% saying they would rather be an entrepreneur than an employee when they graduate college (Kleinschmit 2019).
(Kleinschmit 2019) concludes in his report that Gen Z is a generation of culture creators (Ccs), and that they are empowered by networked culture to be empathetic self starters, with a cultural currency of uniqueness, authenticity, creativity and a view on shareababilty and recognition.
But to properly evaluate (Kleinschmit 2019) claim’s more research is required.
How do Generation Z consume content (Music) differently to previous Generations?
Throughout the literature review, I have been looking for research which clearly demonstrates how this generation is moving from a passive consumer of media, to a creator of media — with a focus on Generation Z creating with XR technology in the arena of music content.
I refer to my question again here — as I search the literature for research on how the emergence of XR Technology in the music industry has affected how a Generation Z audience consumes a musical artists work?
As a globally networked culture Generation Z are in an ideal situation to be the embodiment of the outcomes suggested by Henry Jenkins (Jenkins 2009) on fandom and participatory culture, and so my literature review began to look at Henry Jenkins and his academic peers for academic theory which although might not mention Generation Z by name, but the literature may offer up a hypothesis which a researcher might be able to test and build upon.
I started to look at Henry Jenkins published works, the first of which was ‘Participatory culture in a networked era’ (Jenkins, Ito, Boyd, 2016) which was an in-conversation fire side chat discussion between three leading academics and practitioners in the field of understanding social media and its effects on the culture.
Key findings from this book, is that the term ‘Digital Natives’ a term favoured by most scholars in this field, is in-fact, a sign post which can hinder the researcher, as it is a generalised easy to use term, which groups a type of people together, without the need to really analyse what is actually happening with their relationship with digital culture — to this ends Jenkins also self reflects on his use of the word participatory culture, which he has been a founding advocate in for a decade before this book was published (Jenkins, Ito, Boyd, 2016).
Jenkins links how fandom and creators can form a closer networked and two way influential relationship through co-creating and participation within the creative process, but here, Jenkins explains that ‘participation’ is a term appropriated by media companies to market things and products which do not fit into his understanding, and again, it has become a generalised term popularised by social media companies as a way to connect fans with artists, with the illusion of participation. So in short, just because it says it a ‘participatory media situation, it might just not be!’ (Jenkins, Ito, Boyd, 2016).
Youth culture is explored in length by (Jenkins, Ito, Boyd, 2016) and demonstrates how networked culture means that, friendships and relationships are no longer creating defined social groups which are located locally, say just in school, instead, the internet and social network culture means that youth can participate in a global youth community, with no borders, this is in agreement with Woods (Woods 2013).
This border-less cyberspace crafted by Generation Z and Millennials is analysed in ‘Confronting the challenges of Participatory culture: Media education in the 21st century (Jenkins 2009). This looks at a systematic approach to fostering the skills which are paving the way for participatory culture in media to flourish, and argues that without these skills, and a way to train across generations, then we run the risk that a digital divide will happen.
Two different worlds take place simultaneously, one with the media skills and the other without, or one with a set of media literacy skills and one that can’t speak the language of the internet.
Jenkins was also a contributing writer to ‘YouTube, Digital Media and Society Series’ (Burgess, Green, 2010).
Unfortunately the book and its dealings with YouTube is now 10 years old, and the YouTube, the authors explored here, is now outdated.
YouTube has evolved into its own social media platform, and is much changed in terms of site layout in 2020, including content on the site and the way that YouTube organises community on the site via the algorithm.
YouTube now has its own influencers and YouTube Original series and 1000s of niche community’s which use video to discuss ideas and share information. It is important to note here that a majority of the literature that deals with social media, which if published in the last 2 years and deals with specific services that the social media application offers, this information may be out of date — which is why, in this researchers opinion, the researcher needs to be active on these platforms to understand if any changes have indeed been made and also that a netnographical approach to data collection takes place, more on which I will discuss later.
But Jenkins contribution was with an essay on ‘What happened before YouTube’.This essay reminds the reader that networked niche communities existed before Youtube, and looks at fandom, zine culture, punk culture and various ways subcultures shared information and thus created networked communities via the media, before YouTube. (Burgess, Green, 2010)
This is a valuable reminder of life before social media, and the nature of humanity as a social animal, Jenkins essay talks of the importance of YouTube for activists, as a way of using video to go viral with an activist cause.
Written in 2009, what Jenkins says here about the ability to move and share video frictionlessly around the internet to support an activist cause, this is now common place and part of our own culture, with the viral video impacting culture and supporting movements like #Blacklivesmatter.
Activism and politics of the internet is the focus of ‘Democracy and the New Media’ (Jenkins, Thornburn 2003) a book that although 17 years old, which could be 100 years in internet years, it has chapters which warn of our current polarised political situation.
But how does the individual, the personal relationship play out in all this, what predictions for the future, for Generation Z, do the scholars have which still hold fast.
In ‘Personal Connections in the Digital Age’ (Baym 2015) has the following thoughts on this matter: social media with a broad reach and replicability, can enable swift grassroots organizing. This is in agreement with (Jenkins 2009)
Minimal social cues in some online groups can open doors for people to make riskier self disclosures and gain more social support, but this also might lead to polarization, as people may feel less pressured to find peaceful middle grounds.(Baym 2015)
A collection of 18 essays makes up ‘The social media reader’ edited by Michael Mandiberg (Mandiberg 2012), which takes the researcher across 6 main areas, three of which are relevant to me here.
Part 1 — Mechanisms, which explores the concepts of the audience’s relationship with the media, switching from consumer to creator and the role of the open-source community in helping to remove friction in this process.
Part 2 — Sociality — explores how being part of the social media community means you are always ‘on’, especially when it comes to fashion, which is the area explored here and the new relationship that citizen journalism is playing in shaping our opinions in the news media via the smart phone.
Part 3 — Labour — How audiences are the creators, how fan culture is taking ownership of existing movie franchises with fan films, DIY Education via social media, and the use of big data which takes the labour given freely by creators and then sells it back to them. (Mandiberg 2012)
Throughout this particular strand of research, what the literature is suggesting is that the technology of the internet will lead to more types of content being created, coming from the grass roots, via collective or open source means.
What I have yet to look at is the content, which will bind this Generation to the Smart Phone screen.
What keeps Generation Z returning to Apps such as YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, and Tik Tok.
For this section of the literature review, I needed to focus on Generation Z’s new relationship with the content and the media, and the way that this content within the media is distributed and consumed.
My first stop was ‘The Art of Immersion’ (Rose 2012), What Rose above all advocates for in this book is that great storytelling in the digital networked age, where the audience is both creator and viewer, where a duality relationship exists between audience and performer, then to immerse this viewer into a story world, to hold their attention and expectations. Essentially, work needs to be based on a series of stories which can take place across a transmedia landscape to capture the audience’s attention (Rose 2012).
(Rose 2012) shows us that participation is the no 1 requirement in brand building and for the creation of valuable IP in Hollywood. But these changes are also challenges to a traditional media and cultural system as they will bring about challenges to the ownership of IP.
In ‘Hamlet on the Holodeck’ (Murray 2017) which first published in 1997 and updated in 2017, and is the edition that I have read.
Here (Murray 2017) lays down her future predictions on the future of storytelling from the vantage point of 2017 and the reflects on what she got right (Transmedia or Cross platform storytelling) and also uses the 2017 update to re-frame certain ideas.
The main focus of this research, is the use of ‘multi-form’ narrative across media to tell one story, a term that Jenkins refers to as transmedia, which is commonly referred to in the media industry in 2020 as ‘cross platform story telling, which is using different communication platforms, such as social media, screen based, event based media and/or video games to tell a story or form a storyworld.
The eco system for cross platform story telling and done so via fans and fandom has now expanded to include XR technologies, which is why the work of (Rose 2012), (Jenkins 2009) and (Murray 2017) is relevant research for this project.
This leads the researcher to ask, what XR cross platform projects has Generation Z participated in, which we can learn from, this will be the focus of future literature reviews.
1.4 Important Data sets which give us a snap shot of Generation Z and their relationship with technology.
Articles published over the summer of 2020 have become increasingly important for the researchers understanding of Generation Z and their use of technology.
As you can see at the start of this investigation, my focus was on peer reviewed academic papers. The search in the literature during the Covid19 lockdown of the summer of 2020 started to shift focus to looking at journal articles from the MIT Press and new research from Pew (Livingston 2019), along with a variety of up to date thematic investing data sets supplied by Bank of America (Israel 2020)
The reason for the shift to other sources and away from academic papers, is that the aforementioned sources where ahead of the academic peer reviewed thinking published at the time.
With lockdown in full swing, the culture of 2020 turned its attention to a virtual way of life, a way of life already consuming a large proportion of Generation Z.
With a greater focus on how Generation Z are getting on during lockdown, journalists started to look for angles on which to report. (Livingston 2019) writing for Pew research completed a study a year before Covid19 and had noted that the way U.S. Teens spend their time is changing, and that the habits of millennial teens and Generation Z teens where very different.
Based on data from the Pew research center analysis of bureau of labor statics data. (Livingston 2019) reported that Generation Z Boys spend an hour more per day with their screens (Screen time) than Generation Z girls, with boys engaged in a screen activity as part of their leisure time for on average 6 hours a day, compared to 5 hours for girls.
This screen time data, which shows that Generation Z are active with screens 5+ hours a day is in-line with the Bank of America report, which I will look at later.
What is important here is the amount of time looking through a screen into the internet, and interacting with it by posting, commenting and creating content, has long term effects on the user.
(Eichhorn 2019) writes in the MIT Technology Review on why an internet which never forgets is bad for Generation Z, and how things you posted when you were a child or teenager, might become a problem when entering adulthood.
(Eichhorn 2019) adds further weight to (livingston 2019) data regarding 5+ hours of screen time by explaining that from interviews he has conducted with Teens on their screen habits, his research shows that teens capture on average 300 images a day from photographs, to screenshots to facetime video calls, about a billion photographs a day are uploaded to Facebook alone.
This research by (Eichhorn 2019) is one of the first mentions of the volume of content data being created and shared by Generation Z, and offers an insight into usage of future XR technology.
(Eichhorn 2019) also suggests that Generation Z are the generation under the most surveillance with monitoring coming not only from CCTV, but from schools monitoring emails, and with software like Bark and Gaggle, parents are able to monitor text messages, and social media posts
Also as these students are under 18, often their parents opt them into situations where their data is taken and sold to a 3rd party, as the parents do not understand the implications of certain permissions relating to data. It is worth noting that (Jenkins 2009) talked of a digital divide based on media literacy and digital skills taking place, without investment in training and education to inform parents in their early years, what are they unwittingly giving away in terms of data from their Generation Z offspring?.
The literature has a certain dystopian view on data and Generation Z and these themes are explored in ‘tech is (just a tool) a Pew research center article which brought together 3 technologists, Emily A. Vogels, Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson (Vogels, Rainie, Anderson 2020). The main focus was on the central argument that tech is just a tool. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering are technologies, and so, are just a tool.
So tech is just a tool?
How we choose to use these tools, the ethical choices we as human societies make along the way, will define us (Vogels, Rainie, Anderson 2020). Tools are made to be used. How they are used, who uses them and what they are used for determines their impact (Vogels, Rainie, Anderson 2020). Researchers example, a hammer can be used to build a house, you can also hit someone on the head with it, you have a clear ethical choice.
With XR technologies, if XR is just a tool, what is the current debate surrounding its usage, is XR as a tool regulated in anyway, and how is this XR tool being used by Generation Z — could my research close a knowledge gap here?
The reason to have research is to inform debate, a debate that is not that currently happening surrounding XR technologies and Generation Z.
And so what are the top technology tools that Generation Z engage with the most and which are the spaces for concern amongst the literature?
Two studies compiled by two different sources will form a large part of the research’s data sets, which answer the above questions and pose many others.
In Thematic Investing — OK Zoomer: Gen Z Primer from November 2020 (Israel 2020) and which forms Appendix 1.
This report, which is used to inform institutional investors with the most up to date statistical information on Generation Z so they can make informed choices with investments, is a 157 page data set into Generation Z using Google Trends, Euromonitor and a Bank of Amercia Thematic survey of 14,592 Generation Z participants in August 2020.
This report gives an important snap shot of a Generation now in the workplace and also entering secondary education and is the most up to date research of its kind in the literature I have found thus far.
Key takeaways are that, Esports are bigger than traditional sports, only 26% of Gen Z under 18s watch broadcast TV vs 45% of Millennials, and this faster shift towards Esports, video and music streaming is being led by Gen Z consumption habits.
XR will be the nextgen media platform (Israel 2020) and 40% of Gen Z surveyed prefer to interact with friends virtually online, rather than in person which bodes well for XR social spaces.
75% of Gen Z say that the mobile/smart phone is their device of choice, and only 10% saying a tablet is (Israel 2020).
And so what are they accessing when they do use these devices: 65% of Gen Z access social media as a form of entertainment, in contrast to 56% of Millennials who tend to use it as a source of information (Israel 2020).
This clear shift, shows how content creation aimed at these key demographics, is shifting, almost to the extent of a polar opposite and means that for content producers, the challenge here is, understanding fully the audience you are aiming for, and engaging them on their terms, on platforms they wish to view your content on.
For content producers to be successful in this technological driven sphere, they can’t rely just on creativity, they also need to understand data sets using computer science to help them discover new area’s of creativity, which they might not have understood or considered before looking at the data, and most importantly for content producer, where to deploy their creative teams to engage with a Generation Z audience as participant cultural creators.
This BOA report (Israel 2020) also agrees with (livingston 2019) assessment that over half the Gen Z surveyed, 55% use their smart phones five or more hours a day, and over a quarter 26% use their phones 10 or more hours a day (Israel 2020). Thats a large and seemingly expanding amount of time spent with a smart phone.
Jason Dorsey is the author of ‘The State of Gen Z’ report, from the center for generational kinetics, which is an independent institution researching Generational Kinetics (Dorsey 2020)
‘The State of Gen Z’ report is a 30 page data set and review, from a survey of 2000 Generation Z participants in 2019 which outlines the following key takeaways.
Social media is news media for Generation Z, this is a generation that trusts social media more than any other type of media. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for brands as well as media outlets.
Online gaming is booming and here to stay. Gen Z from the oldest members of this generation to the youngest really enjoy online gaming, such as Fortnite, Call of Duty and Roblox being the top games (Dorsey 2020).
The report concludes that Generation Z and Millennials are increasingly different. The divergent paths differ in terms of technology usage and preferences, ways of communication and life stages (Dorsey 2020).
(Dorsey 2020) is also the author of the book ‘Zconomy — How Gen Z will change the Future of Business and what to do about it’, The book gives broader and wider case studies on much of the research we have discussed here by (Israel 2020) (Livingstone 2019) (Eichhorn 2019) and also gives insights into engagement strategies which businesses should be looking at now, if there target market is under 25s, or if they are in a sector which is looking to pivot and engage iwith a Gen Z audience.
5.5 — Summary of findings
Generation Z, those born after 1995, and who are at time of writing in 2020, are truly a unique subset of humanity.
To call them ‘Digital Natives’ is to simple a term, and in my opinion it is to mis-understand them.
In 2020, the eldest of this Generation Z will be 25, and they are a complex generation, where being connected to a digital world and its technology or tools at an early age, from birth, and at the same time, also engaging in the real world, is unique to the human experience.
It is my perception that the affects of digital technology on Generation Z will not be fully understood for a number of years, partly because we are still in the eye of the storm and this Generation is only just coming of age.
The notion that tech is just a tool is also important. Humanity always reaches for a tool to solve a problem, be it a axe to move from hunter gathering to farmer, or using zoom to move from class room to virtual distanced learning, we understand the consequences of axe technology as a tool, but what about zoom as part of the early XR technological tool set — what are the consequences and do we fully understand the ethics and the outcomes? There are gaps in the literature here.
Reverting back to my question, its in this researchers opinion that the literature does not contain enough understanding, debate or research into XR technology, and this therefore adds validation to my quest.
Generation Z are being challenged, with consequences of actions not of their making, as a generation born into a world undergoing climate change and a polarised political climate,
They are also probably the first generation with a choice between the real world and a virtual one. And with a global pandemic like Covid 19 forcing Generation Z to either study from home, instead of going to school, or work remotely, the Virtual World appears to be a dominant force and a space worthy of academic research.
An Internet where power is not the amount of affluence that you have (Capital) but is the imprint of your influence on followers, and what content you produce that defines your status in this new world, is a new global paradox.
Power is moving away from institutions and wealth, to the individual and influence.
To put this back into the context of my research question, power is moving away from the record companies in the music industry and to the individual artist who can influence an industry using XR technology and social media.
This Vitrual world, is currently a handful of platforms, accessed via smart phone technology and video games, but, we are seeing the first instances of humanity via Generation Z stepping into a virtual world via Virtual reality goggles, augmented reality glasses and PC home gaming set ups, which go beyond just a screen and a PC, a space which incorporate’s haptics, touch to create presence, and has its own community and culture on a digital global scale.
Through this research, it is possible to see tracers of ‘digital humans’ leaving their marks on new and emerging social media platforms, much in the same way that early humans left hand prints on cave walls — both discoveries require interpretation to understand their meaning and how these acts contributed to society.
What this literature review has uncovered is that, the literature is incomplete and the knowledge is still being gathered to give is a broader understanding of who Generation Z are, and also their impact on society, and musical culture.
Now that I have a broader understanding of who Generation Z are, and how the digital tools that they have access to effect their everyday lives, I need to research a few steps back, and look at the Cyberpunks of the late 80s and 90s and the utopian ideals of open source digital living and music culture, which although, in some instances ended with the dot com boom to bust of the early 2000s — the ideas of this subculture found their way into the dorms of hackers who would build a decade later, the corporate internet we see today (Facebook) — which in turn is creating a Z Economy (Dorsey 2020) which co-exists with the real world economy.
What future predictions and ideas did the Cyberpunks have for the music industry, and what impact did these ideas have on the tools that Generation Z has today?.
History is said to repeat in cycles, when a generation or so has passed and ideas forgotten, but re-discovered in a form useful for the next generation.
And so a literature review of early ideas into XR music technology and how society would use these from the late 80s and early 90s will be undertaken, so we can better understand how these early chapters in XR music development helped shape the current crop of hardware and software developments in 2020, we are certainly beyond the ideas of ‘the well’ and the file sharing of ‘Napster’ and now in cross platform XR enabled world inhabited by the first children of the internet.
At this point in the research, there are more questions than answers.
6 — Key Methods to research these questions will be the use of Netnography
6.1 — What is Netnography
Focus, Data, Engagement, Praxis — These four elements distinguish netnography from all methods of understanding and provide a methodological basis for any netnographic project (Kozinets 2020)
Why employ Netnography as the framework for this researcher
Cultural focus links the purpose and core conceptual notions of netnography to the guiding principles of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and other fields of ethnographic approaches (Kozinets 2020).
Social media data differentiates netnography from traditional ethnography and other methods such as surveys, focus groups, and personal in-depth interviews, as immersive engagement distinguishes netnography from more experienced-distanced methods of understanding social media data such as content analysis, text mining, quantitative modelling, and big data analytic’s, and adds deep human insight that comes from informed cultural reflection (Kozinets 2020).
Finally, netnographic praxis set netnography apart from generic forms of online or digital ethnography, or other well known approaches to online research such as Hine’s ‘Virtual ethnography (Hines 2000) or Hines later work ‘ethnographies of the internet’ (Hines 2015)
When all four elements are present together, the work can be nothing other than a netnography (Kozinets 2020).
6.2 — Ethical guidelines employed in the Netnography framework.
Morality is a choice of right behaviour over wrong. Moral reasoning is how we come to make those choices rationally. Ethics is both the brand of knowledge that studies moral principles and those moral principles themselves (Kozinets 2020).
(Morris 2016) outlines a deontological approach and lays out a principle based view of research ethics which will give this researcher guidelines for online netnographic research and therefore a framework of ethical guidelines to adhere to through out this project (Kozinets 2020).
(Morris 2016) follows this approach to provide five of the most commonly accepted guiding principles of ethical research, which follow:
Autonomy — The research participant should be as aware as possible of the purpose of the research, participants should be free to agree or decline to take part in the research, or to withdraw an any time without coercion, threat, or penalty.
Beneficence — the research should be beneficial, rigorously designed and conducted, and have positive effects.
Non-Maleficence — the researcher must make diligent efforts to avoid possible harm to participants and mitigate any unavoidable harm through precautionary measures.
Confidentiality — participants personal data must be kept private from everyone except those with a strict need to know.
Integrity — the researcher must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest and conduct every aspect of the research using applicable and legitimate standards of research integrity.
7 — Project Objectives and Key Results
Objective 1 — To understand who Generation Z are using a literature review and Netnographic research to answer this?.
Key Results -
- A Literature review focusing on available research into Generation Z and also Generation Z’s relationship with XR Technology (Literature review)
- An essay examining key findings to make up the opening chapter of the researcher thesis, to give context to the up coming work. (Appendix 2)
COMPLETED 11/12/20 AS A FIRST DRAFT
Objective 2 — To Understand what XR Technology is being used in 2020/2021, and to keep on top of the latest breakthroughs and developments
Key Results
- Collected 50+ examples in the literature of XR Technology being used, with a focus on XR in Music (On-going)
- Digital humans and Avatars and the way the Generation Z are using them at online gigs — experience this as a researcher and use an immersive journal to document the experiences and any key findings. (I have attended virtual gigs and need to write the report)
Objective 3 — To plan and start the process of Prototype 1, using the experiences from researching generation Z literature, the research on XR technology and the music industry and immersive experiences partaken as a researcher.
Key Results
- Write up and fully justify why a prototype needs to be built and what this will explore using a netnography methodology.
- Create a production plan for the prototype and create a list of OKR for this project.
2nd DRAFT OF THE PROPOSED PROTOTYPE CREATED — See 9.1
8 — Discussion of the first empirical data set.
1.0- The first part of this project is to understand who Generation Z are and why this Generation is unique and therefore requiring of in-depth research, using a variety of data sets to lead my discussion.
I have began a draft essay on Generation Z which is Appendix 2 of this review.
9 — Future Work Time Frame.
The Gantt Chart enclosed covers the time frame from December 2020 through to the end of the Phd in 2022 — but for the future work time frame I want to focus from December 2020 through till January 2022 — A period of 13 months — this is reflected in my Gantt chart and allows the researcher to modify the final year of research once we understand what impact Covid will have on this project.
The researcher has taken into account that From December 2020 to January 2022 — work will have to be done remotely and be restricted.
I will work on two prototypes, outlined in detail below
Prototype one will be created from December 2020 through to the project deadline of June 2021 (7 months)
Prototype two will start August 2021 and run through to the project deadline of January 2022
I will be working on two papers for journals / conferences as outlined in sections 1.1 and 1.2 of this report — I will work on these from December 2020 through to May 2021.
I will also continue my literature review’s and research.
As outlined in section 2, I will also undergo training at a mocap studio in Portsmouth to up skill me with knowledge to help me with the creation of prototype two, this will take place in April 2021.
I will also actively look out for online opportunities in the virtual learning space and submit my work to various Journals / Conferences and publications.
9.1 — Prototype
The first prototype, will investigate how immersive entertainment technology which is free or low cost to the end user is being used by Generation Z as a means of creative production to participate in the music industry.
I will focus on how Vtubing (Virtual Youtubing) across social media platforms might be used with a Digital Popstar or Virtual DJ to increase the amount of streams (listens) on a targeted artists spotify account, This investigation will be split into two parts.
Part one will be a Netnography investigation into Vtubing, using ‘Observational Netnography’ which will follow the Netnography methodology, oulined below in 3 parts.
Investigation — Observing social media tracers of comments made by Generation Z on social media, such as posts, comments, videos of a specfic Virtual Youtuber — then collecting these observations and turning them into data, while following my Netnography ethical guidelines.
Interaction — Using the data to inform me of particular persons of interest that I should conduct an online interview with, interact on social media with comments, questions and engagement with the community which surround the Vtubers, whilst following the ethical guidelines.
Immersion — I will keep detailed field notes in the form of an immersion journal.
I will then reflect across the Investigation, Interactions and the notes from my Immersion Journal and conduct data analysis and interpretate my findings, and then present the research as part of a thesis chapter and also a separate paper for inclusion in a journal for peer review.
Once this extensive fieldwork has been completed, I will then create my own Vtuber based on the literature review conducted on Generation Z and also the fieldwork from the first part of this study.
By creating my own digital Vtuber as a ‘Pop Star, or Virtual DJ’ I will be able to look at two aspects of this projects main question which netnography won’t reveal.
By building a digital popstar/Vtuber, which will be a fan creation of an existing popstar (in line with ethical guidelines set out by this project), I will be able to document via an immersive journal how this can be done with low cost or free software which is available to Generation Z.
My Vtuber will then be released onto social media, so that we can collect analytical data on interactions, which will give me, the researcher a unique data set, which can then be anaylised beside fieldwork research via the netnography methodological framework on social media fan reactions with the Vtuber.
By creating a practical prototype of a Vtuber, I will be able to also test any assumptions or key findings born out of the first part of this section of the project, and further strengthen any findings or facts.
Both components of this section, the initial fieldwork and then the test of a prototype Vtuber in the field will allow the researcher to build a contextualised understanding of the role XR technology and Social media technology in the hands of Generation Z will play in the evolution of the music industry in the age of streaming.
Non of the above currently exists in the literature and so will fill a knowledge gap.
9.2 — Prototype 2
This will lead to the 2nd prototype of this project : which will aim to answer point 3) How might the music industry use Generation Z participation to develop business strategies in the future, whilst also engaging with — 2) How does this participation manifest itself.
I will examine the role of XR music gigs in Generation Z video games and how might this be used by the music industry as part of a business strategy, looking at Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.
The researcher will repeat the Netnography methodology to conduct field research into XR music Gigs and then use the same digital popstar from Prototype 1 and create a virtual music performance in Roblox, which is a video game engine and social network.
10 — Bibilography and Appendix
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Appendix
Appendix 1 : Israel H, 2020, Thematic Investing : OK Zoomer: Gen Z Primer, Bank of America
Appendix 2: Ashmore M, 2020, First Draft Generation Z essay, Mark Ashmore
