AtmoMuzak
This paper summarizes research from four different scholars that have studied the political and marketing techniques of the known phenomenon referred to as muzak (a.k.a. background music, pipe music, elevator music, foreground, or easy listening), which is a component of atmospherics. This subject, which I have chosen to write about, was a topic discussed in my pop culture and rhetoric communication course, taught at the University of Georgia under the tutelage of Dr. Stahl. This subject piqued my interest, as is cause for the development of this paper. The ubiquity of muzak surrounds us and is often inescapable, and has been proven to have an impact on our moods, emotions, and most lucratively our consumptive behaviors. The sounds that stream through the pipes of workplaces, malls, grocery stores, elevators, restaurants, lobbies, nursing homes, are not by coincidence but rather by design, and can be plausible to term as manipulated marketing to control consumer behavior.
What is Atmospherics? Has been defined as “the conscious designing of space to create certain buyers effects, specifically, the designing of buying environments to produce specific emotional effects in the buyer that enhance purchase probability.”
Bradshaw and Holbrook argue that muzak represents a negative aspect of consumer culture in four ways:
(1) Muzak – in its intentionally dumbed-down glory – provides a
misbegotten case of aesthetics gone spectacularly awry.
(2) This relentlessly bad stuff is being force-fed to us almost as insidiously
as trans-fatty acids at a second-class fast-food restaurant.
(3) As its untoward purpose, this force-feeding seeks to manipulate us by
changing our shopping habits.
(4) The result of this manipulation is commercial gain for greedy capitalist
pigs (no disrespect intended, of course, but comparable to the gavage-
tainted profits reaped by those enterprising farmers who allegedly exploit
the plight of the unfortunate grain-gorged geese and ducks whose livers
they fatten and harvest as foie gras to serve the refined palettes of those
who appreciate this gastronomic delicacy) (Bradshaw & Holbrook, 2008).
These researchers consider the aforementioned as atrocities that qualify as an indictment of capital crime against humanity. They argue that music in its raw form has lost its aesthetic appeal because our ears have become desensitized and deconcentrated to appreciative listening of real music due to the overwhelming use of muzak to control social behavior, which is not intended for one to consciously attune their ear to but rather to hear and guide decisions. They also argue that the deception of marketing prohibits free will and is an invasion of privacy, and that muzak is a product of commercial greed that reduces valued artistic creativity.
According to researchers Eroglu, Machleit and Davis, their research examined online atmospherics and how a retailer can manipulate visual cues (and to a limited extent, auditory cues) that can produce affected reactions in site visitors. Their study shows that by increasing the atmospheric qualities that it will enhance the level of pleasure by the shopper and could invoke a desire to purchase goods and revisit the site.
Researchers Falk, Louis and Homer, argue that the study of atmospherics among retailers has, so far, only been limitedly investigated by not considering the immense combining aspects that they feel should be examined holistically. From this angle, they explore various aspects of atmospherics and most noticeably how the ideas of retail atmospherics may be applied to website designs and offers the Cyberspace Atmospherics Mental Model (CAMM) as a method to facilitate design decision. Their research study is congruent with the previous researchers findings but offers further detail into the CAMM model and its involvement in cyberspace. As mentioned before CAMM was introduced to evaluate the e-environment. It examines the marriage of atmospherics and Internet accepted approaches. In other words, it takes into account the Internet users browsing habits and compares it to the layout and design of the website. This, however, is a process, as there is no one right design that is homogenous for everyone because peoples’ values, attitudes, needs and expectations vary. CAMM’s components are: its ability to target website consumers by demographics or self-select, the consumer value set, the design elements of the website and the mass customization- personalization and culturalization to its target audience (13). Cyberspace atmospherics can tailor their presentation to a particular user, an advantage that offline retailers don’t have.
Research studying retail stores draws its theoretical underpinning from environmental psychology and the S-O-R paradigm. The S-O-R paradigm assumes that environments contain some stimuli (S) which can influence or change people’s internal or organistic states (O), which then influences the approach or avoidance responses (R). Part of the conclusion is that CAMM proposes that successful cyberspace atmospheric decisions results from the values of the consumer responding to the cyberspace atmospherics decisions made by the designer.
Researcher’s Jones and Schumacher study the cultural and political significance of the transformation of functional music from a disciplinary technology of the workplace to the state it’s in now. Their research predates the inception of muzak by exploring the influence(s) of foreground music. They reference Foucault as one of the influencers behind the muzak phenomenon. Foucault’s theory is that power is a fundamental instrument in the industrial capitalism and of the type of society that is its accompaniment. He spoke of disciplinary technologies that arise in certain settings such as hospitals, prisons, schools, etc. but later become a general form of domination that operates throughout the social body as a whole. For Foucault these practices of power operate in more depersonalized and anonymous ways that are interpreted through detail routines and functions that can be measured and regulated around a norm. Power is exercised on the mind as well as the body through the regulations of consciousness and “feelings”. It operates directly on the body as its physiological processes and sensations, with the aim of forging a docile body that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved. The same disciplinary technologies that Foucault talks about are found in the labor processes and management systems in the forms of Taylorism and Fordism. Frederick Taylor in his Principles of Scientific Management states how breaking up the labor processes and distributing workflow over time could increase productivity. And taylorism represented an attempt to increase productivity through a rational organization of time and space and control of each step of the labor process. By removing knowledge out of the hands of the laborer and placing it into the dominion of management, Taylor observed that as a means to control. He also discovered that knowledge in the form of time and motion studies that examined the physical movement workers with detailed precision was then returned to the worker through practices that were exercised directly on the human body. It was into this ensemble of social and technical relations that functional music was first introduced as a “disciplinary technology”. Studies show that music has the ability to effect changes in blood pressure, muscular as well as increases respiration and pulse rates. With this discovery music was soon being piped through the speakers of businesses and industry. It has been shown to motivate employees and increase productivity, especially in repetitive occupations. The impact of muzak on human behavior has become a subject of investigation on human behavior. Muzak Corporation has its own board of scientific advisors comprised of industrial psychologists and medical professionals, with the task of rationalizing the corporation’s programming methods.
Muzak Corporation, the largest of the programmed music companies, serves approximately 340,000 clients located in 14 foreign countries with more than 100 million people listening to muzak programs daily. They are just one the companies that provide muzak to help other industries expand their businesses.
This paper is not to tell you what to think but rather to get you to think about the implications of muzak and atmospherics as a whole. As some people may be unaware that such an idea of something or someone purposely manipulating sounds to achieve a desired affect with you as the target as even plausible, this summary may be able to plant a seed that will further your desire to delve further into the topic. An uninformed target is analogous to a gold fish in a tank with a piranha, you won’t know how to position yourself if you aren’t aware what you are up against.
References
Bradshawa, Alan., Holbrook, Morris B. (2008). Must we have Muzak wherever we go?
A critical consideration of the consumer culture. Consumption, Markets & Culture,
20 (1), 25-43.
Eroglu, Sevgin A., Machleit, Karen A., and Davis Lenita M. Empirical Testing of a
Model of Online Store Atmospherics and Shopper Responses. Article, 20(2),
139-150.
Falk, Louis K., Sockel Hy., Homer Warren. Reactions to Integrated Store Environements:
The Atmospheric Matrix Model in the Virtual World. Journal of Website
Promotion, 1(4), 85-111.
Jones, Simon C. and Schumacher, Thomas G. Muzak: On Functional Muzak and Power.
Article, 9(2), 156-169.
In my Dhyāna (Eng: meditation) I reached an altered state of consciousness that I would like to share…
