DIGITAL DISTINCTION Studying Musical Taste Through Digital Methods
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Università degli studi di Milano Università degli studi di Torino PhD PROGRAM SOCIOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY OF SOCIAL RESEARCH – 29th cohort SETTORE SCIENTIFICO SPS/08 DIGITAL DISTINCTION Studying musical taste through digital methods Doctoral dissertation by Massimo Airoldi Supervisor: Prof. Federico Boni Co-supervisor: Prof. Adam Erik Arvidsson Director of Doctoral Program: Prof. Mario Cardano 2 Acknowledgments “Guarda che facce! Non vale proprio la pena recitare per loro un pezzo simile, tanto non lo capiscono...” [Café Berlin, Marco Maria Linzi, 2017] This work is dedicated to Stefi, who helped me to remain sane through her patience, humour, freedom, intelligence, love. First, I want to thank her, together with the beautiful people that made me happy out of the “PhD tunnel”. On top of this extra-academic list, my friends Marco, Micaela, Sabrina and Babu of Teatro della Contraddizione, Jack, Giulia, Silvia, Eugenio and the whole Cafè Berlin brigade, Enri, Daniele, Anita and, in general, all the wonderful people/cats with whom I shared the same stage/song/beer/hug. I am particularly grateful to my parents – who always supported my (disputable) life choices –, my cool grandmas (<3) and my dear brother – who introduced me to the most fascinating thing I ever encountered, that is, music (you must excuse me, music, if here I treat you in such an arid, scientific way!). If now I can consider (part of) myself as a sociologist, I must thank the great human beings that I had the chance to meet during the many years spent around via Conservatorio: Alessandro Caliandro (who believed in me from the very first moment); Federico Boni (my motivator-supervisor); Adam Arvidsson (an inspiring mentor); Davide Beraldo (special mention for the drinking/programming skills), Alessandro Gandini (my fav homo academicus and informal reviewer), Alberto Cossu, and all the lovely viralbeaters/digital ethnographers; Francesco Molteni, Iraklis Dimitriadis, Martina Panzarasa, Valeria Resta, Francesca Arcostanzo, as well as all the other NASP comrades; the Department of Social and Political Sciences – in particular, Sergio Splendore, Mauro Barisione, Ferruccio Biolcati, Roberta Sassatelli and Luisa Leonini. Also, I want to sincerely thank Alex van Venrooij, Gry Høngsmark Knudsen, Mario Cardano, Marco Santoro, Carlo Genova, Adina Marincea, Johan Hagberg, Rino Clerici and the CSBNO staff for their thought-provoking suggestions as well as concrete support, which invaluably contributed to make this dissertation possible. Finally, I owe many thanks to the people who took part to the present study, either by generously accepting my online interview invitations or by completing a boring questionnaire. To the fans of stigmatized music artists: never let distinction bring you down. 3 Table of content Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................................3 Preface .................................................................................................................................................7 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................8 Chapter 1. Taste, distinction and social structure .......................................................................14 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 14 1.1 Cultural taste and society ....................................................................................................... 14 1.2 A social theory of taste and distinction .................................................................................. 16 1.3 Bourdieu’s conceptual toolkit ................................................................................................ 19 1.3.1 Habitus .............................................................................................................................20 1.3.2 Cultural capital .................................................................................................................21 1.3.3 Field .................................................................................................................................22 1.3.4 Symbolic power ...............................................................................................................23 1.4 Bourdieu’s theoretical legacy ................................................................................................. 24 1.4.1 A reductive account of agency, culture and interaction ...................................................26 1.4.2 The real is relational, culture is practical .........................................................................30 1.5 Distinction after Bourdieu: empirical evidences .................................................................... 32 1.6 Methodological issues in the study of taste and distinction ................................................... 39 1.6.1 Measuring objectified and embodied tastes .....................................................................40 1.6.2 Studying distinctions in practice ......................................................................................42 Chapter 2. Studying distinction through digital methods ...........................................................45 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 45 2.1 The digitization of taste .......................................................................................................... 45 2.1.1 Culture goes digital ..........................................................................................................46 2.1.2 Towards a digital sociology of taste .................................................................................48 2.2 An inductive investigation of taste in music .......................................................................... 53 2.3 Social situations, justifications and digital distinctions .......................................................... 56 2.4 A digital distinction? Research questions and hypotheses ..................................................... 61 2.5 Digital data, mixed methods ................................................................................................... 64 2.5.1 A digital field analysis of music on YouTube..................................................................65 2.5.2 Bridging digital distinctions and social stratification .......................................................66 2.5.3 From concepts to data ......................................................................................................68 2.6 Music consumption in Italy .................................................................................................... 70 2.6.1 Italian music: artists, hierarchies and classifications .......................................................71 2.6.2 Italian listeners: digital consumption, persistent inequalities ...........................................75 Chapter 3. Mapping the field of music consumption on YouTube .............................................80 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 80 4 3.1 Music reception in the age of algorithmic culture .................................................................. 81 3.2 The digital field of music consumption as an (actor-) network .............................................. 84 3.2.1 A networked field .............................................................................................................85 3.2.2 Algorithmic intermediation ..............................................................................................87 3.3 Data and methods ................................................................................................................... 89 3.3.1 Data collection and sampling ...........................................................................................90 3.3.2 Data processing ................................................................................................................91 3.3.3 Networks and clustering ...................................................................................................93 3.4 Results .................................................................................................................................... 95 3.4.1 Related-videos network ....................................................................................................95 3.4.2 Related-artists network .....................................................................................................97 3.4.3 Commenter-artist network ...............................................................................................99 3.4.4 Aesthetic discourse clustering ........................................................................................102 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................. 105 Chapter 4. On justifying musical taste: aesthetic judgements and distinction on YouTube .107 Introduction ...............................................................................................................................