Christian Sandvig: Is A&R the new R&D?
Filed at 7:47 am on November 30, 2006 • Leave a comment
Young programmers may be the new rock stars, if digital media allow anyone to make their own software and content. Is it true that the next big thing on the Internet can be “scouted” and “harvested,” rather than “developed”?
The recording industry doesn’t have research and development (R&D) labs that create the next big hit, and it doesn’t have vocational schools that train people to be rock stars. Instead, artist and repertoire (A&R) departments scout for new talent among the mass of hopeful musicians. Some people think that innovation in digital media now works the same way.
If new media allow anyone to make software and content, then major new innovations like Napster will not be pioneered by R&D labs, but harvested from students like Shawn Fanning —people who are already creating clever projects in their spare time, using building blocks like the Internet as their platform. Maybe amateur programmers are the new rock stars.
In my work for the MacArthur series, I try to show that this isn’t something new. In other words, R&D was always about A&R. There is a long history of young inventor-heroes in communication technology, like these boys from the 1920s.
It is no accident that the example innovators here are all educated white boys (not girls) from middle-class or better backgrounds. There’s nothing wrong with being excited about the possibilities of new technologies, but it is important to see that new media don’t allow “anyone” to make software and content. Even if digital media do provide new opportunities for creativity and innovation, this demands careful public policy attention to who learns how to use these new technologies and who has access to them. Otherwise, the narrow group of young innovators will remain the same, and they will innovate in ways that serve their own interests.
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