[Air-l] indie music scenes + internet

[Christian Fuchs]

this is a very interesting topic.

if the indie record store is understood as a space of communication that 
creates social bonds in the cultural realm and also symbolic capital 
that differentiates lifestyles from other lifestyles, then the question 
is if the indie record store is going to vanish due to p2p and web 2.0.

my contention is that indie rock fans don't stop buying music in local 
indie record stores, they now consume more music, from more different 
sources. they don't just download everything from the net, because there 
seems to be a certain passion for collecting original records, 
especially of artists whom one likes. also they don't just order on 
amazon because there seems to be a certain distrust in economic 
monopolies, and indie rock fans more like to support small distributors 
and stores. this might be due to the traditional values immanent in this 
scene.

maybe the indie music scence is now more globalized because fans from 
different localities meet in cyberspace on myspace etc. then this seems 
to be a networking of local scences and people, i don't think that local 
scenes and spaces vanish. indie rock concercts are still important, 
record stores are as well, as places to talk about and listen to music, 
network with people, etc. it seems to be necessary for indie rock fans 
to accumulate a certain symbolic capital of distinction in social 
relations together with others. my contention is that this is still done 
offline, and functions better offline than online. indie rock fans now 
seem to have the possibilities to network locally and globally, the 
global doesn't destroy local scenes, but networks individuals and 
localities.

mtv in the 1990ies was a sort of globalization medium of indie rock. but 
it was one-dimensional and one-to-many, web 2.0 now seems to be a 
networked glocalization (roland robertson) of indie rock functioning in 
many-to-many-communication. maybe there is a potential for a shift from 
discursive indie rock globalization to dialogic indie rock globalization 
in the sense of vilem flusser's notions of discourse and dialogue. i 
also find it interesting to think about how web 2.0 changes 
commercialization and economic colonization processes in indie rock, if 
there can be a certain decolonization in the sense of strengthening 
independent distributors and weakening transnational corporations that 
are interested in micro-marketing alternative rock.

these are some subjective impressions that i have as an indie rock fan.
christian


-- 

_____________________________

Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs

Assistant Professor for Internet and Society

ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research

in Information and Communication Technologies & Society

http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at

University of Salzburg

Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18

5020 Salzburg

Austria

christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at

Phone +43 662 8044 4823

Fax   +43 662 6389 4800

Information-Society-Technology:

http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at

http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/

Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access

online journal for the foundations of information science:

http://triplec.uti.at

Forthcoming BOOK:

Fuchs, Christian (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the 
Information Age. New York: Routledge.