Where's Bondy?

Since its acquisition and rebranding in 2018, TikTok has become one of the fastest growing platforms in the world. Moreover, it’s the first Chinese-developed platform to find mainstream international success, carving its own niche in the global short video industry.

In the first comprehensive exploration of TikTok, Kaye, Zeng, and Wikström provide a history of the emergent genre of short video and situate the platform within the cultures and controversies that have accompanied its dramatic growth. They provide an extensive overview of TikTok’s functions and uses, the diverse markets in which the platform operates, and the issues of governance that have impacted its expansion. Once thought to be ‘just for kids’, the authors illustrate how TikTok is further transforming platform cultures and the dynamics of broader creative industries. TikTok, the authors argue, represents an evolutionary step in the way culture is produced and consumed on digital platforms.

This timely book is essential reading for students and scholars in media and communication studies and for anyone who has been captivated by the global growth of TikTok and short video.

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This thesis investigates copyright and musical artists in Myanmar. Theoretically framed by critical media industries studies and decolonizing methodologies and informed by in-depth qualitative interviews with informants in the Myanmar music industry (n=38), this thesis illustrates how a music recording industry can flourish in the relative absence of copyright. Further, findings demonstrate how cultural conceptions of copying and authorship can shift dramatically in the absence of or prior to copyright reform. The only copyright law in Myanmar was passed in 1914 and was used so seldomly many artists quoted in press and previous studies stated there was no copyright in Myanmar. Myanmar returned to the international stage after five decades of isolation under military rule in the 2010s. During the years of military rule, the Myanmar music recording industry developed informally with seldomly enforced copyright policy. By the time copyright reform was at hand in Myanmar in May 2019, many informants highlighted in this study were eager to welcome its arrival despite critiques levelled against dominant international copyright regimes. The central questions of this thesis are: 1) how do artists in Myanmar understand copyright; 2) how did the relative absence of copyright shape the Myanmar music recording industry; and 3) what do artists want from a copyright system in Myanmar? This thesis raises questions about the colonial legacy and power dynamics of international copyright regulation in the Global South.

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Technological revolutions of the past century have fueled dynamic paradigm shifts across a broad spectrum of mass media industries. This study examines an innovative new market segment in the music recording industry: digital music aggregation. Digital music aggregators are music distributors that directly connect artists, any creator of musical content, to digital music vendors, online music stores such as iTunes or digital music streaming services such as Spotify. Digital music aggregator companies offer services similar to major record labels, such as mass distribution, royalty collection, and intellectual property protection. Digital music aggregators provide services to artists at all levels of prestige and experience. Essentially any artist interested in publishing music can do so using digital music aggregators.

Despite their growing influence in the music recording industry, digital music aggregators have been afforded little scholarly attention. This study responds to Galuszka’s (2015) call for further research on aggregator market structure and competition, proposing the following research questions: 1) how is the digital music aggregator market structured? 2) What competitive strategies do digital music aggregators employ? This study is framed by the industrial organizational model of market structure (Bain, 1968) and Porter’s (1980) theories of competitive strategy. Six in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted for this study. Results illuminate market structure and competitive strategies in the digital music aggregation industry and lay foundation for future study and industrial application within this nascent branch of the music recording industry.

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