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Editors: M. Kokkonis, G. Paschalidis, Ph. Bantimaroudis
Athens: Kritiki, 2010
Abstract
This is a review of the web radio and the research in this field from a perspective focused on the specific relation between radio and musical culture. The review identifies the main issues and presents the debates and the rationale of the empirical research on internet radio developed since the mid '90s. It underlines the subjects open to inquiry and suggests future directions of research. It also argues that the range of the issues, the number of the disciplines involved, the permanence of the debates and the inquiries, and the multiple directions in which future research might develop, show that the web radio is not a passing or circumstantial field. This is valid especially for those who maintain that the content specificity, the mode of its production, and a specific relation with the musical culture, define what radio is rather than transmission technologies.
The study highlights the cultural importance of the RF radio, its catalytic impact on musical culture, and outlines the peculiarities of the Greek case from this point of view. It argues that this might be a framework for analyzing internet radio. In the same line of argument, the study includes also a critical review of several sociological approaches concerning the construction of culture by the RF radio as well as its construction by the culture (Adorno, Hirsch, Peterson, Hennion, and Negus). It concludes that the web radio challenges these approaches while its relation with the musical culture is still open to exploration.
The analysis arrives at the conclusion, that while several studies have identified new trends and possibilities in this direction, the research has not yet gone far enough. As a result, although the internet radio does not seem to disrupt the relation with the musical culture, the peculiarities and extend of its impact have not been clarified yet while a re-examination and eventually a revision of the approaches challenged is still absent. Finally, the paper argues that research in this direction is crucial because it might lead to an enrichment of major theories and basic assumptions about both the production of culture and the culture of production.
"Art in the Age of Mass Media" (Greek edition) by John Walker, pp. 11-27
Translation: H. Papavassiliou, Peny Fylaktaki
Editor: Alexandros Baltzis
Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2010
ISBN: 978-960-12-1928-8
Abstract
This introduction outlines the main features of Walker's approach and analysis of the complex interactions between the visual arts and the mass communication phenomena. Although during the '70s and the '80s several researchers focused on this field of research, it remains hardly investigated. The introduction explores Walker's analysis in the context of the development of various approaches to the visual arts emphasizing its sociological aspects that are evident in this work. Finally, it underlines the significance of Walker's approach and the main directions for future research in the sociology of the arts. The paper argues that the scope of the research and the range of the issues not only have not been exhausted since Walker's book was published, but they become ever wider due to the new developments in mass communication by the beginning of the 21st century that have a significant impact on the visual arts.
Proceedings of the international conference:
Arts, Culture and Public Sphere. Expressive and Instrumental Values in Economic and Sociological Perspectives
FDA - Faculty of Design and Art - IUAV University, Venice
DADI - Department of Art and Industrial Design - IUAV University, Venice
The Sociology of Culture RN of the ESA - European Sociological Association
The Sociology of the Arts RN of the ESA - European Sociological Association
Venice, November 4-8, 2008
In CD format
Abstract
Objective: An empirical research is presented that focuses on music acquisition patterns among students in a major urban centre (Thessaloniki, Greece). Main objective of this study is to test whether there is any relation between the use of various music distribution channels on the one hand, and music preferences, social values, and demographic factors, on the other.
Methods: 456 students from the three institutes for higher education in the city were asked to indicate the frequency of use of various music distribution channels. Respondents were also asked to indicate their preferences for 24 musical genres and the importance of 24 values in their personal lives. Standard demographic data were also collected (gender, education and occupations of parents, geographical origin, annual family income) and a scale of socioeconomic status was constructed. The ratio of the use of each channel to the total use of all music distribution channels by each respondent was then calculated to obtain the music acquisition patterns. In addition, channels were grouped in formal and informal as well as in free and pay channels.
To explore the relation between the patterns of distribution channel use on the one hand, and the education of parents, the geographical origin, the socioeconomic status and the annual family income, on the other, one-way analyses of variance were conducted. Independent-samples T-tests were also employed to detect differences between males and females on the patterns of music acquisition. Finally, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were carried out to explore whether music preferences and social values may predict the patterns of music acquisition.
Findings: Music preferences, gender, and cultural background, are better predictors for the patterns of music acquisition compared to social values, geographical origin, family income and socioeconomic status. Findings contradict the rhetoric of the (major) recording industry that employs a simplistic representation of the users of informal and free distribution channels, ascribing exclusively negative instrumental values to them.
The literature review revealed that the major paradigms used in the sociology of music and in sociology of the arts to interpret patterns of cultural consumption (homology theory, omnivorousness hypothesis, the scenes perspective) do not get into the details and particularities of the ways in which the various forms of cultural capital are objectified. A theoretically significant outcome of this research is the indication that in the case of music - unlike preferences - the acquisition patterns do not correlate with the lifestyles of any particular strata. This finding - if confirmed by further research - might contribute to the improvement and refinement of the theory and to a better understanding of the functions of the arts in contemporary societies.
One conclusion is that further research needs to be done to understand better the ways in which music acquisition patterns are constructed and examine whether they constitute forms of symbolic resistance or conformity, disdain of the artistic activities or awareness of their speculative uses in the market. A better understanding of these patterns may shed some light to cultural practices in everyday life and finally to contribute to a more efficient and productive policy than repression.
The findings rather support the argument that perhaps it would be more fruitful and beneficial for the recording industry (and its audiences) to invest in serious research for alternative policies rather than in litigation of questionable efficiency in defense of an outdated policy that ignores the complexities of cultural consumption. This might improve its public image as well, as it is the only industry fighting its own consumers.
Article in the peer-reviewed journal:
Zitimata Epikinonias (Communication Issues), issue 8/2008, pp. 121-141
Athens: University Research Institute of Applied Communication - Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Kastaniotis Publisher
ISSN 1790-0824
Abstract
This article analyses seventeen cases of empirical research on interactivity in websites, as well as several measurement models, the theoretical background of the construct and its importance in the new context for the production, distribution and reception of symbolic forms. Focusing on musicians' personal websites, a model for measuring and evaluating interactivity is introduced, thus filling a gap in the web studies. The suggested model may be used to test the hypotheses that the internet might lead to decentralization of the communication, to reverse markets and to disintermediation, i.e. to the emancipation and enhancement of the communication through various forms of art. It might also be used in web design, for evaluating websites, and as a methodological basis to develop research in fields other than the interaction between musicians and their audiences.
Editor: Nikos Leandros
Suffolk, UK: Abramis, 2006
Abstract
This chapter discusses from a sociological perspective several of the issues raised by the proliferation of the peer-to-peer networks and their impact on the artistic communication. Based upon an account of previous conflicts generated by the response of the recording industry to new channels and media for the dissemination of music, it outlines the industry's permanent strategic goal.
In this context this chapter argues that the peer-to-peer networks signify a new phase in the pursuit of the industry's strategic goal. This phase is marked by the contradiction between the new context and the established corporate policy.
The paper gives special emphasis to the cultural and political consequences and ramifications of this contradiction, as well as to the paradoxes and contradictions generated by the inconsiderable pursuit to control the dissemination and the uses of cultural goods and finally the access to them. It underlines also that the outlined corporate strategy affect the artistic creativity, the everyday culture of the audiences, as well as the cultural field in general. As a final point, this chapter argues that the attitude of the (major) recording industry in the case of the P2P networks indicates that the corporate culture might prove culturally and politically one-sided and reckless, unless it is counterbalanced by other forces.
