Music Industry Investigation proposal

What was your topic?
My main question is:
In what ways has the online age affected music in the pop genre? (Music and the online age area)
To begin this investigation I have thought what kind of questions I will be asking myself. Firstly, finding how pop music is consumed and by who. I will be aiming my investigation at a specific age range however, from fifteen to twenty five year olds as I think it ranges from young teenagers to young adults. By focusing on young audiences I could investigate how age differences may affect the pop artists' music, whether they produce music to appeal to a certain age range. Hence me asking myself if the artist or band is influenced by the audience.
I thought by looking at what kind of record labels pop artists are signed to I would be able to see how they may influence their music, if it is the artists choice or if the record label pushes them to creating particular music. This may be difficult to research without contacting some record labels but I will see later in the investigation. I will continue to look at how pop artists produce, distribute, market their music (with the lovely help of their record label) and how it is consumed.
I think an important aspect of my investigation and a main theme I should look at is how downloading and file sharing has affected the music industry.

Why have I chosen this topic?
Pop is a genre which I haven’t explored in detail before so it will be interesting to research it in detail. I think that pop music will be affected like all music genres due to online age. As it is ever-advancing and new technology is made it is bound to have some affect. Because of the many genres, it will be interesting to focus on one and see if it has had any major changes and problems. Artists such as Britney Spears and Katy Perry with their major record labels will be the dominating artists in the genre. They will have more experienced music producers and a work team which will have access to money to get the artists music noticed and therefore liked.
The topic I have chosen is relevant to my learning of the music industry because it will allow me to research and gain knowledge about a specific genre. It also seems to have relevance in the music industry as the TV music channel, 4Music, is having a competition of Rimmel's "World's Greatest Pop Stars" which includes ten pop artists (i.e. Beyonce, La Roux, Take That), the result is on the Sunday 29th November. This could suggest how pop music is regularly listened to and enjoyed by audiences.

What have you done so far?
My investigation began with planning what it would include exploring and my main aims for the investigation. One of my aims is to gather a sample of participants to complete my questionnaire. When they have I will analyse and evaluate what their responses could mean and generalize them for the age range. This will include researching technologies and methods the sample use to consume music, whether it is listening or actually buying the music.
A next step could be to research pop music artists and bands to gain knowledge of what the genre is made up of - what kind of artists are in this genre. My prediction is that many artists are mainstream with a major record company supporting them, for example, Britney Spears. Further more, I think many females have more dominance over the pop genre and have done other the years. It would be interesting to research previous pop artists and bands, to look at their success (or failures) at having a pop career.My next step will be to carry out primary research creating a questionnaire. I will read articles, research technologies and internet websites.