Author: iamabbyp

by Abigail Pike and Brianna Villarreal

The music industry is fast-pace, with new trends coming and going, so using our interest in the music industry, we decided to look into a study of a music technology that peaked in 2000, the compact disc. We met with Dr. Waleed Rashidi, a California State University, Fullerton professor, to gain insight into how he conducted his survey in the article Young adults’ compact disc usage experiences in 2020. Dr. Rashidi has dedicated his career to researching music, specifically music technologies, which is why he decided to research why young adults still wanted to engage with CDs and whether they would still engage with them in the future. 

Before conducting his study, research on CD usage had to be done. It can be difficult to find credible sources that report accurate numbers but Dr. Rashidi found the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and Billboard to be reliable and accurate sources for reporting data. The RIAA is aligned with many record labels so they have the credibility and trustworthiness of being a long-time establishment. They are also the association that certifies albums when they are sold for gold, diamond, or platinum releases. All of this combined makes these organizations a credible source of information and they report accurately for sales figures, shipment, and when designating awards. He also mentions the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) as another source that measures worldwide sales figures.

Achieving the same level of reliability and validity in the survey is essential to his research, so Dr. Rashidi emphasized the importance of data saturation. He achieved this by having enough of a response sample that represents the population and can be generalizable. The survey was sent to CSUF students, but if it was sent to students in different geographical areas, there may be different results. People in different regions of the country interact differently with the media; people on the West Coast are surrounded by the entertainment industry, but people in different geographical areas may have different ways of interacting and experiencing entertainment. There is also an economic basis. Those with more money can pay for streaming or afford to start a physical collection of vinyl records or albums. In contrast, those with less may not be able to afford such a costly engagement with the artist, like purchasing physical copies of music. “Looking at the country regionally and understanding the economic differences in different regions could be important in understanding why certain responses might differ from area to area,” said Rashidi. General demographics also impact the results because age and ethnicity can affect how people experience and interact with music.

The research includes direct quotes from the open-ended questions asked in the survey. When asked how he narrows down which quotes or information to include in the article, he said that he looks for similarities in the responses. A pattern can be a trend, and then he looks for a theme he can build upon; he pulls a few examples to highlight the similarities between the participants. He is also looking for outliers because he wants to hear about things that weren’t as popular or frequent, so this is an opportunity to find out why they responded differently from the majority. As a researcher, he finds this area interesting because he wants to hear from various perspectives. He selects examples to back up what he originally claimed, points out similarities, and highlights some interesting outliers.

CD sales in the year 2020 were heavily influenced by the bundling practice, which is when an artist puts together a CD with the purchase of other merchandise or a concert ticket to create a higher charting sale for the CDs. Dr. Rashidi has not followed how bundling has continued to affect CD sales. Still, he did make a connection based on some of the open-ended responses he gained from his survey that the K-Pop community has found a way to capitalize on the lost art of CD sales by having exclusive inclusions of trading cards of the band members that fans want access to which leads them to continue to purchase the CDs. This has led to a new study he is currently working on about how K-Pop has influenced the market of physical music sales in the decade of the 2020s. Since Dr. Rashidi’s original study was published, Billboard has changed the rules about how CD sales are calculated. It will be interesting to see how different the numbers come out without the addition of bundling calculated. 

The thought process behind deciding which research method to use when conducting a study about the music and entertainment industry was a question we had in mind when going into this interview because we will likely be doing the same research style in the coming weeks. Dr. Rashidi’s insight on the matter guided us to a decision we believe will be fit for our study moving forward as well as his. He explained that using a survey was most effective when reacting to the target audience of college students because it is the most convenient way to gather information, and people will be more willing to participate in the less work they must do. When you send out a survey that is expected to take no more than ten minutes, people are much more willing to interact with it than if you invited them to a thirty-minute interview with no compensation for their participation. “I can get a number of responses that way in a timely fashion and also a good variety,” Rashidi said regarding his decision-making process. After conducting our interview with Waleed Rashidi about how he conducted his research for his study, Young adults’ compact disc usage experiences in 2020, it has given us greater insight on how to move forward as researchers ourselves as well as some insider tips when it comes to how to navigate what is and is not credible information in the music and entertainment industry. The information gained from this interview will allow us to make more informed and strategic decisions when it comes to creating our own research in the music space.

Image from Young Adults’ Compact Disc Usage Experiences in 2020.