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Abstract

The first part of this article outlines the main features of globalization as a complex social phenomenon and the basic approaches to it by social scientists. The second part discusses the changes brought about by the technological developments taking place in a globalized system of reified social relations. This discussion affirms that the institutional changes - concerning mainly music production and distribution - and the structural changes of musical communication transform the reception of the artworks. Considering also the processes of transculturation, these changes form a new context for the creation of music, in an environment of global cultural exchanges. The third part of the article, analyzes the asymmetries and antinomies that result from the globalization of musical culture. The article ascertains that the formal democratization of musical life constitutes an essential feature of the modern musical culture on a global level. This situation favors the coexistence of risks and opportunities on a global and on a local level as well. The article maintains also that the economic, cultural and political aspects of these developments cannot be separated any more. Actually, the globalization of musical culture means globalization of the reified social relations in the cultural field.

This conclusion follows from analyses that appear in the international literature about the economic and cultural consequences of the predominance of global multimedia conglomerates, as well as from analyses of the unequal intellectual property system which these conglomerates impose on a global level. These circumstances construct a new framework for the mass media seen as institutions for the reproduction and distribution of music (and generally of artworks), and - consequently - as systems for the management of aesthetic values. The article arrives also at the conclusion that the developments under discussion create new possibilities for cultural action, interaction, and reaction.

Finally, the study points out some of the new challenges that emerge for the "traditional" musicology, the sociology of music, the theory of artistic education, and also for the cultural and educational policy.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016

Abstract

The view about music as a science is analyzed in a sociological perspective. This view is maintained by the need to overcome a main stereotype that appears to be dominant during modernity. It is the cliché about art as luxury. The article argues that alienated social relations in cultural life generate both this cliché and the view about music as a science. They both have serious negative implications for the musical education and for the cultural life in general (particularly in Greece).

In this context, the article analyzes the paradoxes of the musical education in Greece. It emphasizes on the fact that the cultural and the educational policy are based on the stereotype about the arts as luxury. This fact is verified by the data collected from a field research in institutes of music education and by a quantitative analysis of the public music schools curriculum.

Finally, the article argues that contemporary cultural development requires a type of educational and cultural policy that is incompatible with the cliché about art as luxury.

Last Updated: 17 May 2023

Abstract

This chapter examines the relation of the arts with mass communication in twentieth century and in the developed societies, where the mass media are of major importance for the functions of democracy. The article supports the view that the arts are specific forms of communication (this is what the term "artistic communication" signifies) and therefore their relation with the systems for the production, distribution and reception of symbolic forms in a mass scale is inherent. The analysis is based also on N. Garnham's view, that to understand the functions of the mass media, as well as the ways of cultural consumption in modern societies, and within the modes of production and coercion, a broader definition of the media is necessary, one that will not focus exclusively on the press, television and radio. From this point of view, and given that the symbolic communication is of central importance in late modernity, it would be very limiting to overlook the functions of the arts related with the manufacture of consent as well as with its subversion.

This is the theoretical framework in which the chapter discusses mediation and mass scale as main features of the dominant forms of artistic communication in modern societies. The production, dissemination and reception of artistic goods in mass scale, and through a complex system of institutions - that Howard Becker named "art world" - makes the asymmetries in the freedom of choice and in the access (to cultural resources, channels of communication, and artistic goods), a problem of central importance.

Therefore, the study gives particular emphasis to the antinomies and contradictions of the artistic communication in modern societies that prove the arts not as the "innocent adornments of life", designed for light entertainment, but as fields of symbolic antagonism and conflict with particularly important social, economic and political ramifications.

The analysis concludes that the asymmetries in the access and the freedom of choice - for the artists and for the public alike - are related not only (and not mainly) with the intermediary institutions, but with the cultural and educational policy as well. In this respect, the article argues that emancipation and democracy in the field of the artistic communication cannot be achieved just by advancing the access of larger parts of the population to larger quantities of artistic goods. It might be achieved by advancing and encouraging systematically autonomous forms of artistic communication and the active participation of the audiences first in their status as citizens, and then as consumers; not vice versa.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016

Abstract

This study examines the particular interest in the diversity and otherness shown for several years now by the global cultural industries - with the multimedia industry being their spearhead. This interest can be better understood in the context of the globalized market of cultural goods. The article argues that although to the listener's ear or the viewer's eye reaches an unprecedented diversity of cultural and artistic products, it still stays out of the sight and systematically suppressed the fact that the terms and the conditions of this achievement keep functioning at the expense of the less developed societies and the less favored social strata (in the economic, social and cultural sense). At the same time, the illusion about art as a universal or global "language" that might resolve more easily the asymmetries and the social contradictions of our time is supported by artistic means too. Finally, the study argues that these developments might advance a policy to encourage the cultural development on a local level and contribute to the development of a critical artistic and aesthetic culture.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016