Halls without walls : perpetuation, development & dissemination of the discourse on blues music and blues culture in the digital age (1996-2016)
This study presents an overview of the effects of technological mediation and specifically, digital remediation, on the discourse on blues music and blues culture since the introduction of the world-wide web in 1989, and the proliferation of computer-mediated communications (CMC) from 1996. In other words, blues music and blues culture undergo transformations of form and circulation when oral practices are first committed to text as sheet music. Further evolutions occur as performances are remediated as phonograph records and through various broadcast media during the 20th century. Each successive transformation generates discourses of authenticity, ownership and value which enable and constrain definitions of the blues aesthetic. These discourses have remained largely unexamined as part of the latest cycle of remediation to digital formats and computer-mediated virtual environments since 1996. This study presents the results of examination on key sites using online ethnography, critical discourse analysis, interview and online survey in order to better understand and illustrate the development, dissemination and perpetuation of blues music and blues culture in the digital age. Specifically, this study considers the ways that blues music and blues culture are perpetuated and affected by computer-mediated communications from the perspectives of performers, cultural workers and consumers, asking what challenges are made manifest in the present by digitally mediated representations of the past. The study finds that unequal power structures and differentiated notions of individual agency predicated on race, which are inherent in the socio-political construction of the physical world, are reproduced in contemporary on-line and virtual spaces facilitated by information communications technology (ICT) and computer-mediated communications (CMC). These spaces include the multi-media social networking site Facebook, text-based forums and newsgroups, and the music and video service YouTube. The study offers suggestions for how this might be addressed in future, and proposes further areas of research in the field, specifically focussing on the interaction of blues music and blues culture with ICT and CMC.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations