Networked Music Cultures

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Editors’ Introduction

   • Raphaël Nowak, Andrew Whelan

   Pages 1-11

3. The People’s Mixtape: Peer-to-Peer File Sharing without the Internet in Contemporary Cuba

   • Tom Astley

   Pages 13-30

4. Musica Analytica: The Datafication of Listening

   • Robert Prey

   Pages 31-48

5. The Legacy of Napster

   • Matthew David

   Pages 49-65

6. Streaming Music in Japan: Corporate Cultures as Determinants of Listening Practice

   • Noriko Manabe

   Pages 67-76

7. Making Sense of Acquiring Music in Mexico City

   • Víctor Ávila-Torres

   Pages 77-93

8. Reading Songs, Experiencing Music: Co-creation, Materiality and Expertise in Beck’s Song Reader

   • Antoni Roig, Gemma San Cornelio

   Pages 95-112

9. The Digital Music Boundary Object

   • Raphaël Nowak, Andrew Whelan

   Pages 113-131

10. ‘A Step Back to the Dark Ages of the Music Industry’: Democratisation of Record Production and Discourses on Spotify in Kuka Mitä Häh?

    • Juho Kaitajärvi-Tiekso

    Pages 133-150

11. Off the Charts: The Implications of Incorporating Streaming Data into the Charts

    • Steve Collins, Pat O’Grady

    Pages 151-169

12. Rethinking the Digital Playlist: Mixtapes, Nostalgia and Emotionally Durable Design

    • Kieran Fenby-Hulse

    Pages 171-188

13. A Song for Ireland? Policy Discourse and Wealth Generation in the Music Industry in the Context of Digital Upheavals and Economic Crisis

    • Jim Rogers, Anthony Cawley

    Pages 189-208

14. Pachelbel This Ain’t: Mashups and Canon (De)formation

    • Anthony Cushing

    Pages 209-225

15. Music Streaming the Everyday Life

    • Anja Nylund Hagen

    Pages 227-245

16. Back Matter

    Pages 247-251

    PDF

This collection presents a range of essays on contemporary music distribution and consumption patterns and practices. The contributors to the collection use a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, discussing the consequences and effects of the digital distribution of music as it is manifested in specific cultural contexts.


The widespread circulation of music in digital form has far-reaching consequences: not least for how we understand the practices of sourcing and consuming music, the political economy of the music industries, and the relationships between format and aesthetics. Through close empirical engagement with a variety of contexts and analytical frames, the contributors to this collection demonstrate that the changes associated with networked music are always situationally specific, sometimes contentious, and often unexpected in their implications. 


With chapters covering topics such as the business models of streaming audio, policy and professional discourses around the changing digital music market, the creative affordances of format and circulation, and local practices of accessing and engaging with music in a range of distinct cultural contexts, the book presents an overview of the themes, topics and approaches found in current social and cultural research on the relations between music and digital technology. 

• Music
• music technologies
• digital age
• digital music
• networked music cultures
• peer-to-peer
• music streaming
• Spotify
• mp3
• file-sharing
• piracy
• musical culture
• music formats
• music consumption
• music industry
• digital media
• music subcultures
• music online
• sociology of music
• sociology of culture

“Authors cover a vast range of topics from music industry practices to the impact that digital music distribution and consumption has on culture and society. … The book would generally appeal to researchers and academics in the study of cultural studies and sociology, and would serve as useful research for under/postgraduate students as well as set reading texts in degree programmes.” (Shara Rambarran, Volume!, Vol. 15 (1), 2018) ​

• SPAIS, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

  Raphaël Nowak

• University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

  Andrew Whelan

Raphaël Nowak is a cultural sociologist interested in issues of music consumption and technologies. He currently teaches in popular music, social theory and cultural sociology at the University of Bristol, UK. He published his first manuscript Consuming Music in the Digital Age in 2015 with Palgrave Macmillan. 


Andrew Whelan is a sociologist based at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. He has published previously on digital media, Australian media regulation policy, ‘extreme’ music and underground electronic music subcultures, peer-to-peer file-sharing and online interaction about music.

Policies and ethics