Mavens en de beïnvloeding van muzieksmaak online

Digitalization makes it impossible to exclude the Internet in finding experiences and opinions of other consumers. Therefore, the Internet adds a new phenomenon to word-of-mouth (face-to-face communication): electronic word-of-mouth. This creates new forms of cultural criticism. For example, consumers can review an artist’s new album online. Those who convey this information to others are called ‘mavens’: they always are the first in collecting new information and discovering new trends. Mavens can thus greatly influence the consumers’ choices. Relativity little research has been done on how people get influenced in music. This leads to the research question: What role do mavens and new media have in finding new music and influencing music lovers? An existing dataset representing the Dutch population has been used to answer this research question. The dataset has been analysed using the statistical computer program SPSS, with statistical tests like cross tables, ANOVA tests and regression analysis. Main findings are that new media are important in finding (new) music. However, this doesn’t mean new media is more relevant than traditional media. Lots of music lovers still find new music by listening to the radio or watching television. Also, there are differences in generations in using new media: while younger people tend to discover new music through social media and YouTube, older people (66+) mostly use traditional media. In addition to this, music lovers discover new music through conversations with their friends too. This concludes that mavenism not only takes place in online- and traditional media, but also through face-to-face communication with friends. Future research is needed to analyse mavenism in a more specific way, and to find out if the generation gap in using new media to find new music is actually fading away.