Industry standard? Technocapitalist depictions of music production

Abstract The term ‘creative industries’ describes a policy-based view of multiple creative sectors, which in turn are linked to higher education and training, digital technology, and economic outcomes. The term ‘creative industries’ (as opposed to cultural industries) is ‘a shorthand reference to the information society and that set of economic analyses and policy arguments to which that term now refers’. The music industry, as part of the broader creative industries, has been profoundly affected by the ‘information society’; technological changes to production and distribution over the last two decades have radically reconfigured the sector. At the same time, the importance of digital technology within the interdisciplinary creative industries has allowed audio technology manufacturers to claim a central role. This paper examines the nexus between technology and participation in the creative industries, namely how the discourse of industry and professionalism is used by audio technology manufacturers to construct an idealised image of the creative music industries. We investigate how notions of ‘industry’ and ‘professionalism’ relate to disruptions within the creative and media industries more widely, and how it serves the corporate interests of Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) manufacturers.