[Air-L] New Book – Musicking TikTok: A Musical Ethnography from a Glocal Austrian Context

[Juan Bermudez]

Dear colleagues, (with apologies for cross-posting!)

I’m delighted to announce that my book, Musicking TikTok: A Musical Ethnography from a Glocal Austrian Context, has been published in the Bloomsbury’s New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media series (edited by Carol Vernallis, Lisa Perrott, and Holly Rogers).

Preview: https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/677e8bceee35880001da056a

This ethnographic work about TikTok's musicking in a glocal (Austrian) context complements and build upon ethnomusicological assumptions, theories, and methods for the study of musical practices in digital spaces.

An overview of elements that make up TikTok's interface as well as the technical-performative possibilities that it allows, this book introduces a general categorization of existing performance types and how TikTokers appropriate the platform to make their music. It illustrates how some TikTokers became aware of and began using TikTok, and it reviews some of the different strategies TikTokers apply to learn how to use the application and successfully develop their performances. Bermúdez explores how performers move from being “ordinary users” to becoming TikTokers, developing and performing an identity he calls TikTok Persona. Moreover, he discusses how some TikTok practices can and have occurred across multiple, interconnected platforms, and he examines how localities are articulated and negotiated in these contexts. Bermúdez argues for an understanding of musicking as a multimedia practice that different actors create and experience individually in everyday synchronous and asynchronous, physical and digital situations. The so-called TikTokers create a sense of identity and community through their performances. This study suggests that a digital performance can be, aside from a representation of reality, an integral part of it, serving as a fundamental space for constructing and performing identity.

––
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Ethnographing TikTok
2. Performing TikTok
3. Becoming a TikToker
4. Localizing TikTok
5. TikToking Musics
6. Conclusions
Bibliography
––

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/musicking-tiktok-9798765112182/

I’d really recommend adding it to your library – I think you’ll enjoy it!

Best wishes,
Juan Bermúdez

[Below, you'll find a selection of reviews]

“From language and fashion to music and humor, TikTok has revolutionized the way we live our lives. This is no secret to the TikTokers who eagerly approach the platform to forge a sense of identity and belonging. In Musicking TikTok, Bermúdez masterfully unpacks this phenomenon through detailed analyses of how these TikTokers cultivate and perform identity, ultimately creating musical practices that have reverberating effects far beyond social media.”
Trevor Boffone, author of Renegades Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok

“This book demonstrates that ethnomusicology has much to offer the study of digital platforms. With thorough and thoughtful engagement, Bermúdez shows how core ideas in the discipline can offer a useful roadmap for new questions. The book models a method for examining digital music worlds, in ways that invite future scholarship and prompt classroom conversations.”
Byrd McDaniel, Assistant Director of Student Development, Brown University, USA and author of Spectacular Listening: Music and Disability in the Digital Age

„In the 21st century, musicking doesn't just happen on platforms like Spotify. Musicking TikTok makes the important intervention of considering alternate platforms––namely, the TikTok--as contemporary loci for musical performance. Bermúdez provides frameworks for digital musical ethnography, the analysis of audiovisuality, and theorizing digital personacraft that will prove useful to scholars of TikTok and beyond.“
Paula Clare Harper, Assistant Professor in the Department of Music, University of Chicago, USA

“In Musicking TikTok Juan Bermúdez presents an excellent multiperspectival ethnography of popular TikTok music. The author explores in a very elaborated way the strategies and (virtual) performances of TikTokers becoming experts in developing a TikTok persona. This research journey into the glocal worlds of TikTok is a deeply compelling read for interested fans, journalists, teachers, and especially researchers.”
Christoph Jacke, Professor of Popular Music and Media, Vice-Director of “C:POP - Transdisciplinary Research Center for Popular Music Cultures and Creative Economies”, Paderborn University, Germany

———————————————
Dr. Juan Bermúdez
He / him / his

https://kug.academia.edu/JuanBermúdez<https://univie.academia.edu/JuanBerm%C3%BAdez>

Recently published:

J. Bermúdez (2025). Musicking TikTok: A Musical Ethnography from a Glocal Austrian Context <https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/677e8bceee35880001da056a> (=New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media 15). New York: Bloomsbury.

J. Bermúdez (2023). "Performing Beyond the Platform – Experiencing Musicking On and Through YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373879386_Performing_Beyond_the_Platform_Experiencing_Musicking_on_and_Through_YouTube_TikTok_and_Instagram>,“ In Remediating Sound: Repeatable Culture, YouTube and Music. Ed. by Holly Rogers, Joana Freitas and João Francisco Porfirio. London: Bloomsbury, 187–202.

J. Bermúdez (2023). "It's All About 'Being There': Rethinking Presence and Co-Presence in the Ethnographic Field during and after the Covid-19 Pandemic<https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.26375>.“ Journal of World Popular Music 10(1), 19–35.