Abstract

Focusing on the development, the mutations, and the decline of the traditional recording industry, this article outlines the historical course of the whole system of music industries as well as the main aspects of the economics of music, considering also the most significant developments in theory and research for this particular field of cultural production.

Last Updated: 17 May 2023

Abstract

The major part of the textbook includes original studies developed especially for this course, since in the local literature did not then exist any relevant publication to cover a significant part of the material taught. The studies analyze the main directions in the systematic reflection on music from Pythagoras to F. W. Schelling. At the same time, they examine musical life (from antiquity to modernity) from a sociological perspective, considering the broader development of the western civilization.

The textbook organizes the material presented during the course. The objective is to introduce to the students the main directions in the development of the sociological and philosophical thought about this particular form of art. The systematic approach contributes to comprehend in a better way some of the issues that emerge during modernity when new social formations and cultural phenomena appear on a local, as well as on a global level.

The studies, apart from the basic historical knowledge that is essential to achieve the objectives of the course, they outline the various tendencies of the musical culture in the context of the social dynamics. They also focus on the relation of the various views with the social reality where they appear, mature and fade out. The studies analyze also the social and historical aspects of the aesthetic ideals dominant during various periods and expressed in certain forms of artistic communication and practice.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016

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Alexandros Baltzis, Maria Manolika, Antonis Gardikiotis

Under review in a peer-reviewed journal

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of several factors on a main source of uncertainty in the business of culture. In particular, it traces the needs people gratify by examining the uses of a specific type of content that is music. The factors studied in a representative sample of 400 students at the Democritus University of Thrace (Greece), include social values, individual differences, gender, the school or the department attended and the educational capital of their parents as an indicator for their social background.

Participants reported on why they use music in everyday life. They also indicated their values on an abbreviated version of the Schwartz Value Survey and their personality traits on the Big Five Inventory scale. A principal component analysis revealed five types of uses:

1. self-awareness and escapism,
2. mood regulation,
3. background for other activities,
4. cognitive and aesthetic gratification, and
5. social interaction (including sociability and socialization).

Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the factors studied contribute differentially to predict the uses of music. Individual differences, values, gender, and the direction of studies influence the ways this particular symbolic good is consumed. In addition, the extent to which the different uses may be predicted is also an estimate for the uncertainty stemming from the volatility of consumption, where uncertainty means that there are still unidentified factors affecting the different uses of music.

Finally, the limitations of this study and some suggestions for future research are also discussed.

The article is a reviewed and enhanced version of the paper presented at the World Media Economics & Management Conference 2012 (Thessaloniki, Greece, May 23-27, 2012).

Last Updated: 07 November 2016

Abstract

Regarding music as a total social phenomenon, not just as an audible result, this thesis analyzes from a sociological perspective the functions of music in those societies where mass communication is dominant. Musical material, musical work, and musical conscience are the core concepts in this thesis. The analysis applies them to explore the main dimension of musical life too.

Although it takes into account the musical life in premodern societies, the thesis focuses particularly on late modern societies. In this context, it explores the social processes that contributed to the unprecedented phenomena in the musical life of the developed urban society during the twentieth century. It analyzes also those conditions that advanced the construction of the modern mass (i.e., impersonal) musical culture and the specific relation between music as a particular form of art and the mass communication system.

The Introduction of the thesis discusses the main methodological issues of the analysis. The first chapter examines the concept of musical material from a sociological point of view and explores some of the social functions of music in preindustrial societies.

The second chapter interprets the musical material in its relation with the social action. In this context, it approaches the musical material as a conventional, symbolic system - the material object of the musical creative action and at the same time a medium for the communication through music to occur. The method applied is grounded on the basic assumption that communication is an intrinsic attribute of human activity in general.

The third chapter analyzes the notion musical work. This chapter discusses also the functions of the musical work in the context of the musical life. Analyzing the various forms of existence of this specific type of artwork and their development, this chapter explores the deeper social changes that advanced the specific structure of the musical life in the developed urban societies and ultimately their specific cultural features. Finally, a pluralistic notion about the term musical work is suggested, in accordance with the historical development of the cultural "polycentrism".

The fourth chapter examines the basic components of the modern musical life. It analyzes the segregation of the musical communication as an autonomous form of social action, as well as the structural changes of the musical life in modern societies that advanced the emergence of the mass musical culture and its peculiar relation with the mass communication.

The fifth chapter discusses certain unprecedented phenomena of the musical culture, observed by the end of the twentieth century. In this respect, it analyzes the historical and cultural nature of value systems and their relation with the social and cultural dynamics. This chapter gives emphasis to the social character of the aesthetic preferences, the codes, and the patterns specific to music as social action.

Finally, the conclusions summarize the main arguments of the analysis and describe the specific point of view from which music - both as a specific form of communication and social action - may be conceived of and explored as a form of expression and communication and at the same time as a constitutive, basic, and structural component of the modern society.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016