The Digital Age of the Sound Environment: An Investigation of Everyday Interactions Between Listeners and Music
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Bennett, Andy
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Baker, Sarah
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Abstract
This thesis presents a sociological investigation of the everyday relationship between Generation Y individuals and music through the mobilization of music technologies. First, it aims to reinscribe the digital age of music reception within a historical, cultural and material context, in order to provide an understanding of the multiple uses of music technologies (vinyl discs, CDs, magnetic cassette tapes, MP3 files). Rather than constituting a ‘revolution’, the digital age of music technologies is characterized by the coexistence of various artefacts. In looking at how recorded music has evolved from the advent of the phonograph to the latest digital technologies, I argue that the contemporary state of music can’t be separated from previous eras. Hence the evolution of music technologies, coupled with economic, demographic and cultural variables, points towards an increasing multiplication and fragmentation of music audiences. In this account of contemporary listening practices, I focus on Generation Y individuals (those born between the late 1970s and the early 1990s) who have been exposed to different music technologies throughout their lives. Born at the time of the magnetic cassette tapes and during the golden age of the CD, Generation Y listeners were also introduced to digital music files (MP3s) at a young age, and were among the first to illegally download music from the internet. Their uses of music technologies are differentiated by how they reflexively need music. Their practices correspond to a ‘circuit of practices’ (Maggauda 2011) between different music technologies that are utilized by listeners, and that help them create and manage different listening practices in their everyday lives. A key argument in this thesis is that the successive music technologies do not replace, but rather complement one another. Thus, in focusing on their characteristics, or ‘affordances’ (Gibson 1979; Hutchby 2001a; Bloomfield, Latham and Vurdubakis 2010), it is clear that mobilizing different music technologies enables listeners to create and manage an everyday ‘sound environment’ (Martin 1995). In fact, the ‘affordances’ of music technologies are contextualized within ‘pragmatic interactions’ (Dant 2008). Thus the meaning of music is contingent on the situation of the music listening practice. The sound environment is defined by a number of variables (place, time, music technology, music content, listener’s state of mind and so on) that interact within the timeframe of everyday life.
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Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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School of Humanities
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The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.
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Subject
Generation Y
Sound environment
Music technologies
Cassette tapes
Compact discs
MP3