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Leviathan, 11/1991, pp. 35-59
Athens: Society for Research and Studies on Civilization and Culture
ISSN 1105-6444
Abstract
This is a review of antiformalism, humanism, subjective idealism and irrationalism developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These trends had a significant influence on the development of the sociological views about music in particular, and about the arts in general. They influenced also the artistic practice and contributed to the appearance of the romantic ideology, thus preparing the ground for developments that appeared during the twentieth century in the fields of the arts and culture in general, and specifically in music. This study traces from a systematic and historical perspective the methodological foundations of some fields in contemporary sociology (like the sociology of music and the sociology of the arts).
(In Bulgarian: Към диалектиката на музикалния материал)
Article in the peer-reviewed journal:
Kultura, 2/1991, pp. 37-52
Sofia: Ministry of Culture
ISSN: 0861-0401
The journal was being published by the Research Institute of Culture of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Abstract
This article analyzes from a sociological point of view the material used in music. It explores the dialectics of its development in the western culture and it discusses the social factors that define its particular configuration. Based on the methodological assumption that music as an art is a form of communication, the article examines the musical material in two aspects: as a medium to objectify the artistic idea and as a medium in a specific form of artistic communication. The article concludes that even the seemingly simplest decisions of a composer (during the creation process) express and manifest in an indirect way and through particularly complex mediations essential features and components of his culture and therefore of the society he lives in.
International conference proceedings
Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1990
Abstract
This article discusses some epistemological issues regarding the definition of bibliology as a science about written communication. It distinguishes the methodological issues from those concerning the object of this science itself. The article argues that defining bibliology as a science for the written communication is rather problematic, while its difference from semiotics or linguistics is not clarified and particularly while its methodological differentia specifica stays undefined.
(In Bulgarian: Рационалност, субект, познание между модерно и постмодерно)
Article in the peer-reviewed journal:
Filosofska Misal, 6/1990, pp. 110-121
Sofia: Bulgarian Philosophical Association (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
ISSN 0324-024X
Abstract
The article is methodological, since it explores the questions of rationality and irrationality - two central issues in the sociology of the arts that the discussion on the postmodern situation brought in the foreground once more. The article presents a review of the concepts on modernity and postmodernity based on the discussion about the notions of rationality, knowledge and subject. It argues that an important methodological limitation of several approaches (like F. Nietzsche's, O. Spengler's, A. Camus', M. Horkheimer's, T. W. Adorno's, J. Habermas', J.-F. Lyotard's, and others) is that they view these categories regardless of their particular and historical forms and manifestations. However, the article supports also the idea that these approaches focus on a series of important issues and questions related with the development of the western civilization.
Editor: Giorgos Plios
Athens: Polytropo
Abstract
Even though the research on the non-verbal forms of communication used in propaganda and persuasion is well developed, it includes music only in very rare cases. Too general, vague and brief statements and too few - if any - references are usually met in the literature. Normally, the analyses do not get into the details to illuminate these particular functions and uses of music.
Exploring the relation between music and propaganda, this chapter focuses precisely on this shortcoming in the sociology of music and communication studies. Distancing itself from the oversimplifying structuralist view about the recording industry as an ideological mechanism, from the gatekeeping theory, and from certain classical models of communication and audience theories, this study examines both aspects of music, i.e., as an audible result and in terms of the functions of the institutions for its production, distribution and reception. In terms of the first aspect, this study discusses the relation between music and propaganda focusing on the communicative aspects of music in a perspective defined by the framing theory. This perspective is already known in the sociological research of music in particular and of the arts in general. In terms of the second aspect, the chapter discusses the relation among music, propaganda, and persuasion taking into account the functions of the recording industry within the broader system of mass communication institutions, where convergence and synergy among different media and structures are observed. The analysis focuses also on the relation between music and politics, particularly in times of crisis, tension, and conflicts.
