Linda
Portnoff.
Control, cultural production and consumption : theoretical perspectives,
empirical dilemmas,
and Swedish music industry practices.
(2007, Area: Accounting, Control and Corporate Finance)
Structural changes in the
economy, such as new technological developments that create new conditions for
the production and consumption of goods and services, have had a particularly
strong impact on the popular music industry. This dissertation explores how
musicians, record companies and publishers deal with the control dilemmas that
the current environment poses for them.
Music corporations face increasing financial pressures and
struggle to find the right formulas for qualitative, yet commercial, music.
Musicians try to create meaningful lives which involve writing and performing
music. At the same time they try to make a decent living.
Through an ethnographically inspired field study, the author
finds that commercial sociability in the shape of phony friend-making
practices emerges as an important control mechanism in music production, and an
award-and-list culture operates as a classificatory control mechanism in
music consumption. It is suggested that the popular music industry can be
characterized by pseudo-Gemeinschaft.
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