Discourse Community - Record Label

Analysis of a Record Label

               The article, "Concept of a Discourse Community" by John Swales mentions that a discourse community is "the center of a set of ideas." This center, or group rather, is classified and held together as a community according to six defining characteristics. Now, with regards to Swales' definition, we can think of many groups, clubs, or companies that classify as a discourse community. One in particular which comes to my mind, is a record label.

               The first characteristic as described by Swales is that, "A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common goals." Being a company, we can assume that a record label's goals include selling as many albums as possible, increasing revenues, and making profits. On a more humanitarian side, we can say that a record label's goals include recruiting new, creative artists, gaining more listeners, and satisfying the ears of existing consumers with good music. Regardless of the way you look at it, it is easy to see that a record label has an agreed set of common goals.

               The second characteristic is that, "A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members." Once again, being a company, a record label has many ways of communicating with its members. These different tools could be through the use of an intranet, e-mails, meetings, telecommunications, and so forth. This pillar is one that a record label easily upholds.

               The third pillar is that, "A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback." Now this gets a bit tricky. Listeners, not part of the record label, are usually the ones providing the feedback. After all, that is how an artist, and moreover, a record label improves. However, that can be classified as a secondary purpose of information exchange. But, a record label can also provide information through the use of mailing lists, on which listeners can sign up and hope to become a part of the record label discourse community. This fulfills the primary purpose of this characteristic.

               The fourth pillar is that, "A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims." This, out of all the characteristics of a discourse community, is the easiest for a record label to uphold. Being in the music industry, a record label provides the public with a variety of different genres of music. These genres can include Hip-Hop, Rock, Pop, Jazz, and so on. The more genres that a record label provides, the larger the market share it can capture. In other words, more genres of music furthers the record label's ability to achieve its goals.

               The fifth pillar, and probably the one which really segregates a record label into its own community is that, "In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis." Music industry language is completely different from other industries. Record labels have specific terminology regarding music production, music licensing, publishing, certifications, and more. They also have certain software they use in tracking the success of their music, such as Nielsen SoundScan and RIAA data which demand the use of language specific to a label, a producer, an artist, or even a song. In this respect, one can even say that due to the large number of lexis that a record label has, a record label can be broken into individual speech communities according to the different divisions in order to communicate efficiently within the company and to the public.

               Finally, the last characteristic is that, "A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise." Everyone wants to be in the music industry and part of a record label, but that is very difficult. That is because the expertise required to be a part of a label is very high and the number of available positions is very low. A record label will only allow the crème de la crème into its organization. This is because in order to be an elite discourse community, the members have to be the best as well. Due to the competitive nature of working in the music industry, this is why a record label holds up this sixth and final pillar.

               So after extensive analysis, it is clear to see that a record label is a discourse community. A record label has the six characteristics as described by John Swales and as described in the article, is truly a center of a set of ideas.