Digital Music Cultures

Information
Course Coordinator: Isabella van Elferen
ECTS: 7,5

Description
Although visual culture has raised much academic interest, new media and digital culture would not exist without sound. The presence of sound and music is of vital importance for our perception of and immersion in computer games, websites, and software. Digital sound and music are also omnipresent in the soundscape of our daily lives: while the iPod, for instance, gives a personalised soundtrack to each day, ringtones add sound to the public sphere. Digitalisation moreover influences music itself: the development of digital instruments and sampling techniques has changed the sound of music definitively, Internet downloads have caused large shifts in music distribution, and online fandom gives glocal music subcultures a new shape.

Goal
Digital Music Cultures: Changing Actors, Changing Networks contributes actively to academic debates regarding the interplay between new media and music/sound. There is relatively little critical theory on these themes, so that the research projects of course participants have a direct academic and societal urgency. Case studies will be, amongst others, intermediality, digital musicianship, soundscapes, authenticity and identity, dance and club culture, and digital fan cultures.