The history of music is long, complex, and has mostly gone unrecorded. Unlike tv or movies, music is a lot cheaper to make. This brings about a level of accessibility; anyone can do it, or at least try. While the common narrative of pop stardom starts before the invention of mass recording and distribution of music, it’s safe to say that the invention of the record and later the CD drastically changed how music was consumed. Another dramatic change was the invention of the music video and the Music Television Network (MTV).  As television could already be broadcasted nationally and exported to other nation networks, this provided an even stronger form of soft power than just radio alone. Before this, the United States had literally sent musicians to tour in other parts of the world to put forth the image they wanted.

Interestingly enough, many of the musicians who toured were African American and sent to show the world that the United States is not as racist or segregated as they have been lead to believe. This had a number of different effects and lead to various reactions. For example, the French seemed to love Jazz and Nazi Germany seemed to deem it as music for degenerates. While the reactions were mixed, it is clear that the attempts to market these musicians as a platform for an inclusive America worked in some parts of the world as many British musicians took influence from jazz, the blues, and early R&B. The sound was new and thus it created a strong platform for a revolution in musical style. As more white musicians took influence from these thriving genres, they actually began to be the ones who received fame. In fact when MTV aired, they only seemed to play videos made by white musicians. This just goes to show the hypocrisy of what was actually happening in America versus what the government was trying to tell other countries. 

Zawisza explains that every country nowadays seems to be engaged in some form of audio diplomacy. She states that generating media coverage can allow one to bring attention to social and political issues. This was clearly the goal of many musicians through out history. Even MTV hosted events like its ‘rock the vote’ and ‘make a difference campaign’. But as MTV tried to grow and export its content to other countries it was still interpreted as rather un-diverse. This caused a problem for many potential viewers because they would have preferred to see more local performers and even new forms of fusion that were organically created by collaboration. The ‘make a difference campaign’ was heavily criticized as more a form of cultural appropriation than anything else; white westerners deliberately working with ‘others’ to create new sounds, rather than coming together naturally. While MTV has struggled with presenting diverse content in the past, the power of MTV has dramatically decreased with the increase of online video. Now much of the political outreach and concern is more focused on algorithms and barriers to discovery than a lack of availability. Music has always been a more accessible medium than film, but now video making is becoming increasingly easier to accomplish. Due to this, there is more competition and also more of a chance for people to discover new artists. As diverse media mediums become easier to access, more and more power is being given to the given society to create and share their own content, their own truth, their own voices.

Works Cited

Fraser, Matthew. “Music: Pop Goes the World.” Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire, Toronto, Key Porter, 2003, pp. 170– 221.

Zawisza, Marie. “How music is the real language of political diplomacy”. The Guardian, London, 2015.