Market legitimation in countercultural market change

Drawing on concepts of institutional work, legitimacy, and institutional logics, we investigate why countercultural markets experience institutional change and the actions institutional work market actors perform to inform institutional logics and ensure the legitimacy of countercultural markets. Although previous research suggests market changes and disruption, little attention has been paid to markets that originate from different institutional backgrounds, changes in the market experience in relation to its legitimization, and institutional work to attain legitimacy. The case of indie music in South Korea illustrates the evolution of a cultural market from the introduction of its ethos, the crisis caused by legitimacy pressures, and the transformation of the market. Using data gathered through in-depth interviews with indie labels and music consumers in South Korea, and archival sources, our research illuminates the source of market struggle and theorizes approaches that market actors perform to overcome the struggle.

Popular music in the youth culture of Hong Kong: the social functions of indie music

PurposeThe key concepts to be explored in this article include the blurring boundary between “indie” and “pop”; the significance of digital media in contemporary music industry and the distinctive socio-political nature of indie music in Hong Kong. To a large extent, it discusses the social functions of music – a subject discussed by Simon Frith (2007), a leading scholar in popular music studies.Design/methodology/approachIn order to expound on some observations of the connections between music cultures and socio-political development in Hong Kong, a selection of musical works by indie musicians will be looked into closely.FindingsA focus of discussion will be given to the difference between mainstream Cantopop and indie music in a way that the latter mentions socio-political matters overtly while the former downplays sensitive political issues, particularly in the post-colonial era after the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China in 1997.Originality/valueOriginality of research can be evidenced by the author's textual analysis of the musical styles and lyrics produced by various local indie artists' musical works through primary sources.

Resistance against religious intolerance in Indonesia contemporary indie songs

This study sought to examine any form of criticism and resistance against the growing religious intolerance in Indonesian contemporary indie songs. The study of indie music is often marginalised in media and communication studies, even though the music itself is an effective form of media to convey socio-political messages. Indie music shows an increasingly crucial role within the map of cultural products in Indonesia mainly because it is considered an important means of conveying messages and alternative media for new Indonesian youth. Indie musicians cover sensitive issues within their lyric, including religious intolerance perpetrated by conservative Muslim groups in Indonesia. Through the discourse analysis method by Teun Van Dijk, this study found three forms of resistance discourse found in Indonesian indie music: a critique towards middle-class Muslims hypocrisy, rejection against the imposition of the sharia law, and the lament over the loss of humanity in religious practice. The research findings show that indie songs serve as a medium of resistance to a more secular, youthful audience against many issues seldom covered in mainstream media.

Music

A number of women who made their name as punk musicians and experimental performers have published their memoirs in quick succession. Taken together these books offer a rescripting of the dominant narrative of punk and related independent—indie—music scenes. The memoirs considered here—by Viv Albertine, Carrie Brownstein, Kim Gordon, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Brix Smith Start, and Cosey Fanni Tutti—go some way in challenging androcentric stereotypes in the “story of punk,” its politics and furious male icons. These memoirs provide rich insights into the complex, underground sexual politics of making it in a male-dominated industry. In so doing they rewrite the official record of punk registers of musical and political protest as groundbreaking experimental artists who also excel at playing fast, loudly, and with the libidinous energy usually attributed to masculine performance.

Fan Affirmation: Alethurgy on an Indie Music Fandom

ABSTRACT Context: highly identified with the genre, indie fans are engaged and productive, especially in virtual communities where they circulate opinions and share experiences. Objective: since relations mediated by consumption provide conditions for constituting subjectivities, we rely on Foucault’s theory with the aim of analyzing how the interactions of indie music fans evidence an alethurgical process of subjectivation. Methodology: to do this, we performed a netnography on a large global forum for indie music discussion. Results: results show a cultural configuration in which the communal sense legitimize conducts, based on emotional testimonies and manifestations of expertise, which establish the very condition of fanity associated with the capacity of its members to outline the fan object, develop a fan authority and then to position themselves in relation to the market logic in which the genre is inserted. Conclusion: thus, we conclude that indie music fans perform an alethurgy of affirmation. The study innovates by adopting the concept of alethurgy as a means of analyzing the subjectivation of fans, which is evidenced as a theoretical gap in the field of CCT.

HIPSTERS VERSUS POSERS: FANNISH SPLIT IN THE INDIE MUSIC WORLD

ABSTRACT Purpose: Web 2.0 technologies have enhanced relational dynamics in fan communities. Indie music fans significantly identify themselves with the genre and participate in these communities within a music industry reinvention scenario. Based on the Foucauldian perspective, by sharing knowledge about media products, fans manifest truths capable of expressing subjectivities - parrhesia, a way of mutually affecting different truths. Thus, the aim of the present study is to analyze how parrhesia is operated in interactions among indie music fans. Originality/value: The present research expands an important theoretical-investigative path in the consumer culture theory (CCT) field by adopting Michel Foucault’s later theoretical cycle, which addresses the construction of subjectivities. Design/methodology/approach: Netnography of interactions among indie music fans was carried out in one of the largest online discussion forums on the topic. Findings: Heated discussions observed in the investigated community often create a split that shows a dispute focused on defining what being an indie music fan means. Based on disruptive parrhesia anchored in moral backgrounds associated with erudition and collectivism versus hedonism and individuality, self-declared true fans and those who seek fun establish alter-subjectivities as hipsters and posers.