1. Music Data Journalism:
Redefine Industry Coverage

2. Using sales figures as an indicator of the state of the industry
or an artist’s popularity is nothing new in music journalism. But
as more and more people are sharing, enjoying and learning
about new music across social media sites, through streaming
services and in digital outlets, a wealth of data on artists and
fan behavior is being gathered that can be highly useful to
music press trying to understand and cover the industry.

3. What Data Sources are Potentially
Useful to a Music Journalist?
 Social Media e.g. Facebook, Twitter
 Streaming Services e.g.
Spotify, Rdio, Last.fm
 Video Sites e.g. Vevo, YouTube, Vimeo
 Digital Sales Data e.g. iTunes, Amazon

4. Why?
Music Journalists can glean information
from the data gathered from these
sources.

5. Identify trends

7. Verify assumptions
about artists.

9. Show how artists are
growing their fan base.

11. With all of this data available to us, the
question becomes whether we, as
music journalists, can afford to ignore it?
Numbers should not be the center of the
story, they are however an integral part
of it.
Big data is changing the face of
journalism everywhere, the same is true
for the music journalism industry.