Electrodance As a “Being-Together”
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ElectroDance as a “being -together” New forms of mediatization in the communication of youth styles Antonio Cambra González , PhD Candidate PhD Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Roger Martinez Sanmartin Internal Evaluator: Dr. Israel Rodríguez Giralt External Evaluator: Dr. Josep Lluís Fecé Gomez Open University of Catalonia/Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) Doctoral Program: Doctorate in Information and Knowledge Society Date: July 14 th 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS :: Preface :: .............................................................................................................i PART I _ Communication, media technologies and youth cultures :: 1 :: Stepping into the realm of communication...................................................1 On the newness of new media......................................................................................1 Understandings of communication...............................................................................6 Communication ideals across time and space ............................................................12 The quest for humanness in communication ........................................................14 The salience of socio-technical mediums ..............................................................16 New media as interfaces.......................................................................................18 The corporate background of new (and prior) media practices............................22 The increasing mediatization of contemporary social life...........................................24 :: 2 :: New media and the contemporary youth generation .................................31 “Born Digital” into a “Net Generation”? .....................................................................38 ElectroDance in the context of new media use among Spanish youth .......................44 :: 3 :: Methodology ..............................................................................................53 Some considerations on media and methodology......................................................53 Fieldwork and research chronology............................................................................59 Ethical issues in the research ......................................................................................61 Respect for the informants ...................................................................................62 Scientific value ......................................................................................................65 Social responsibility...............................................................................................66 Methods and data-gathering ......................................................................................68 Personal and focus-group interviews....................................................................68 In-person / mediated participant observation ......................................................72 Documentary sources ...........................................................................................74 Survey ...................................................................................................................75 PART II _ Building a worldwide youth dance in digital times :: 4 :: A personal journey into the ElectroDance world.........................................79 Stepping into the dance ..............................................................................................82 Joining a team .............................................................................................................91 A training of a complex kind........................................................................................98 Time to compete.......................................................................................................100 Leaving the dance .....................................................................................................106 :: 5 :: A new style is born: the broadcast-type scene of Paris..............................113 Communication in local places..................................................................................118 ElectroDance as a branded style ...............................................................................130 Sponsored dance events .....................................................................................131 Branded commodities.........................................................................................134 Star dancers ........................................................................................................140 :: 6 :: From France to the world: digital networks of cultural dissemination.......145 Communication in interfaces ....................................................................................154 When the brand faded away: the commercial dis-intermediation of the scene?.....175 PART III _ The mediatized life of local scences :: 7 :: Understanding ElectroDance as local communication...............................189 Why on YouTube? Interaction through digital network inter-faces..........................195 In search of recognition: “5-star and marked as ‘favourite’!”...................................202 “Follow me, I’m your leader!”: forms of media-driven, intra-group ‘micro-power’ .212 Social control ......................................................................................................217 Message scope....................................................................................................222 Aestheticization ..................................................................................................227 :: 8 :: The ritual is the message: notes on “Muerte Electro” event .....................231 Stage 1: The challenge ..............................................................................................235 Stage 2: The dance-off ..............................................................................................241 Stage 3: The voting....................................................................................................245 Muerte Electro as mediatization of common culture................................................249 PART IV _ ElectroDance and identity :: 9 :: Understanding ElectroDance from style....................................................259 Style as cultural image ..............................................................................................265 The social meaning(s) of the style.............................................................................269 Branded versus post-brand authenticities................................................................283 Corporate representations on a shifted media environment ...................................290 :: 10 :: Mediatization on dancers’ self-presentation...........................................305 Blog as a technology of dancer's self ........................................................................308 The mediatized move from dancer to “star” ............................................................319 Towards a “convergence culture”? Last thoughts on communication, identity and new media ................................................................................................................335 Conclusions......................................................................................... 341 Questions and framework.........................................................................................342 New media and youth cultures .................................................................................347 Implications and future research ..............................................................................378 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 381 “Youth instinctively understands the present environment - the electric drama. It lives it mythically and in depth” Marshall McLuhan “Modern communications have drastically altered the terms of the experience and consciousness, the ordinary structures of interest and feeling, the normal sense of being alive, of having a social relation” James Carey "In hunting culture, kids play with bows and arrows. In an information society, they play with information" Henry Jenkins :: Preface :: “[...] the world of teenagers has changed a great deal from the one I lived in, but the core of experience remains much the same. I wanted my teams to win, I listened to music, drank and flirted with soft drugs. Replace football with skateboarding and everything is the same. The intensity of feelings and personal discoveries are still there. The differences have more to do with technology...” 1 Nick Hornby (2009) The above excerpt is taken from an interview published in June 2009 by the Spanish newspaper El País with the well-known youth novelist Nick Hornby. Asked about what makes today’s youth social experience different to that of past decades, Hornby pointed to technology as being key to making a difference. When Hornby refers to “technology”, he means network digital communication technologies (hereinafter “new media”), or what we all know and vaguely refer to as “the Internet”. Later on in the interview, for example, Hornby comments on 1 Hornby, N. (2009, June). Entrevista: Nick Hornby. El País . Retrieved from http://elpais.com/diario/2009/06/13/cultura/1244844001_850215.html Preface ii the way notions of privacy