Emilia Barna
Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Communication, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (from September 2012), head of the Cultural Industries MA specialisation. Main research areas: music scenes and technology, digital music industries, popular music and gender, and cultural labour.
Completed a Popular Music Studies PhD programme in 2011 at the University of Liverpool. Title of doctoral thesis: “Online and Offline Rock Music Networks: A case study on Liverpool, 2007-2009."
Member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music since 2005, Advisory Board Member of IASPM Journal. Former Chair of IASPM Hungary (2013–2017). Member of the Working Group for Public Sociology “Helyzet" since 2017.
Current research projects:
Creative Labour in the Hungarian Music Industries (NKFIH FK-128669)
Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe (Volkswagen Stiftung)
Completed a Popular Music Studies PhD programme in 2011 at the University of Liverpool. Title of doctoral thesis: “Online and Offline Rock Music Networks: A case study on Liverpool, 2007-2009."
Member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music since 2005, Advisory Board Member of IASPM Journal. Former Chair of IASPM Hungary (2013–2017). Member of the Working Group for Public Sociology “Helyzet" since 2017.
Current research projects:
Creative Labour in the Hungarian Music Industries (NKFIH FK-128669)
Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe (Volkswagen Stiftung)
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Books by Emilia Barna
Articles, book chapters, conference papers by Emilia Barna
Tanulmányunk a populizmus és a populáris zene kapcsolatát vizsgálja a 2010 utáni magyar társadalom és politika kontextusában, arra keresve a választ, hogy a populáris zene milyen módon segítheti elő a populista diskurzusok terjedését. Továbbá, hogy ez milyen összefüggésben van mind a zenei esztétika és forma, mind a zenészek gazdasági, társadalmi és politikai beágyazottságával. A tanulmány a populista diskurzusokat az Orbán-rezsim hegemóniaépítésének részeként, ideológiai pilléreként értelmezi, amely a 2010 utáni kormányzás egyes elemeit alátámasztja, más elemeit pedig elfedi. Elemzésünk három dalra fókuszál: Ákos „Hazatalál” (2018), a Kowalsky meg a Vega „Tizenötmillióból egy” (2017), valamint Bródy János „Akit a hazája nem szeretett” (2020) című felvételeire. A dalok „szövegekként” történő elemzése mellett figyelembe vesszük a termelés, a terjesztés, valamint az előadások kontextusát is, amely a zeneipar kapitalista logikájának és a politikai hatalomgyakorlásnak egyszerre képezi terepét. A dalokat továbbá együtt elemezzük az előadók – adott esetben változó – zeneipari, illetve társadalmi pozíciójával. Az előadók zeneipari pozíciójában a piaci viszonyoknak és az ezzel szorosan összefüggő állami kultúr- és médiapolitikának való kitettség egyaránt megjelenik.
world-system (Wallerstein 2004), the ‘opening up’ of post-socialist countries towards the global cultural industries, and within them, the music industries, primarily meant a creation of new markets for major record labels and other central actors of the global music economy during a time of significant economic growth for the recorded music industry. In the 1990s, subsidiaries of major record labels (Warner, Universal, Sony, EMI1), which, up until the 2000s, undoubtedly constituted the most powerful actors in the economy of music, appeared in Eastern European countries, including Hungary. The operation of these subsidiaries typically consisted of selling both local and international – primarily Anglo-American – artists, thus creating new markets on the semi-periphery for their musical commodities. At the same time, local artists signed to these labels tended not to cross borders; the international flow of musical commodities thus remained mostly one-way. Culturally, the post-transition era in Hungary and other Eastern European countries can be characterised by a strong western orientation parallel to the process of reintegration, which could also be observed in popular music consumption (the introduction of MTV and other music television channels, for instance, was highly influential on the cultural socialisation of the generation growing up in the 1990s). At the same time, there was also a significant growth in local music production – resulting in Hungarian-language pop, rock and dance music, for instance – and a multiplicity of newly emerging actors such as radio stations, record labels, venues, and a much higher number of specialised magazines than today.
The turn of the twenty-first century, however, saw the escalation of a rad-
ical structural transformation the music industries along with digitisation, symbolised by the appearance of global file-sharing platform Napster in
1999. The new channels of distribution and sharing enabled by digital and
online media temporarily weakened the economic power of record com-
panies by leading to a drastic decline in the sales of recordings – at the
time still mostly physical. This global process could certainly be felt locally too, in the decreasing sales and the accompanying decreasing number, and
power, of industry actors, and even less interest from majors in local artists
due to increasing constraints on the subsidies themselves (Elavsky 2011). It was also a time when optimistic discourses around disintermediation – for instance, that record companies no longer appeared necessary for artists to reach an audience – and individual musical entrepreneurship relying on dig- ital and online media thrived. In Eastern European countries, belonging to the global semi-periphery, references to the small size of the local market, as well as a lack of a professional environment, interpreted as a post-socialist legacy, mitigated this optimism to an extent. Nevertheless, the entry of tech companies into the music economy – Amazon, Apple (through iTunes), Google (through purchasing video streaming platform YouTube in 2006) –, followed by the emergence of music streaming companies, helped along the commodification of digital music (Morris 2015), and ultimately led the way towards a new era of consolidation, and concentration, for the recording industry. This also meant a reinforcing of the power inequalities inherent in the industry’s capitalistic logic.
Andrew Leyshon (2001; 2014) brought attention to the continued impor-
tance of geographical networks, and the geographical embeddedness of the production of music, in the era of digital music. More recently, Timothy D. Taylor (2015) has demonstrated, through the phenomenon of ‘world music,’ how industrial practices, as well as recorded music aesthetics, function to reinforce global economic and cultural inequalities. The starting point of this chapter is that the (im)balance between music import and export, along with the proportion of local (national) versus international music in national markets, is an area where global relations, and the positions of countries within the global economy of music and the global capitalistic world-system in general, can be fruitfully studied.
Through the case of popular music export initiatives in Hungary, I pro-
ceed to reflect on the particular semi-peripheral position of the national
music industries of Eastern Europe within global relations of dependency.
I explore what music export in Hungary looks like, and what its particular-
ities and expressed aims and objectives are. Has the focus on ‘making it’ in
the West in terms of international success shifted? How can the observed
objectives and strategies be linked to shifts in the structure of the music
industries? And how do the observed discourses, aims, and strategies fit into the moral order of the capitalist world-system?
In order to answer these questions, I rely on semi-structured interviews
with professionals involved in the Hungarian export programme HOTS (I1;
I2) and the Budapest Showcase Hub (BUSH) (I3), which I have interpreted
as expressions of narratives, discourses, attitudes, values, and positions;
the analysis of promotional and educational material (e.g. videos) related
to music export in Hungary; observation of events (e.g. BUSH); as well as a
review of international literature and published statistical data.
In our paper we analyse the emergence and functioning of the sex camera industry, focusing on the central role of platform companies and the labour of those working in the industry. Through the example of Hungary, based on interview research conducted with people working in the industry, we look at how the sex industry, and within that, the sex camera industry, has changed with digitalisation in the global economy, and how the platform companies that are at the centre of this transformation operate – among them, LiveJasmin, founded in Hungary. We look at how Hungary’s semi-peripheral position within the capitalist world system determines the working conditions and possibilities of local workers in the global industry. In our analysis, we therefore explore the global inequalities of platform capitalism and digital labour from the perspective of Hungarian, semi-peripheral actors. In addition, we show what role sex camera platforms such as LiveJasmin have played in the normalisation of the sex industry.
Tanulmányunk a populizmus és a populáris zene kapcsolatát vizsgálja a 2010 utáni magyar társadalom és politika kontextusában, arra keresve a választ, hogy a populáris zene milyen módon segítheti elő a populista diskurzusok terjedését. Továbbá, hogy ez milyen összefüggésben van mind a zenei esztétika és forma, mind a zenészek gazdasági, társadalmi és politikai beágyazottságával. A tanulmány a populista diskurzusokat az Orbán-rezsim hegemóniaépítésének részeként, ideológiai pilléreként értelmezi, amely a 2010 utáni kormányzás egyes elemeit alátámasztja, más elemeit pedig elfedi. Elemzésünk három dalra fókuszál: Ákos „Hazatalál” (2018), a Kowalsky meg a Vega „Tizenötmillióból egy” (2017), valamint Bródy János „Akit a hazája nem szeretett” (2020) című felvételeire. A dalok „szövegekként” történő elemzése mellett figyelembe vesszük a termelés, a terjesztés, valamint az előadások kontextusát is, amely a zeneipar kapitalista logikájának és a politikai hatalomgyakorlásnak egyszerre képezi terepét. A dalokat továbbá együtt elemezzük az előadók – adott esetben változó – zeneipari, illetve társadalmi pozíciójával. Az előadók zeneipari pozíciójában a piaci viszonyoknak és az ezzel szorosan összefüggő állami kultúr- és médiapolitikának való kitettség egyaránt megjelenik.
world-system (Wallerstein 2004), the ‘opening up’ of post-socialist countries towards the global cultural industries, and within them, the music industries, primarily meant a creation of new markets for major record labels and other central actors of the global music economy during a time of significant economic growth for the recorded music industry. In the 1990s, subsidiaries of major record labels (Warner, Universal, Sony, EMI1), which, up until the 2000s, undoubtedly constituted the most powerful actors in the economy of music, appeared in Eastern European countries, including Hungary. The operation of these subsidiaries typically consisted of selling both local and international – primarily Anglo-American – artists, thus creating new markets on the semi-periphery for their musical commodities. At the same time, local artists signed to these labels tended not to cross borders; the international flow of musical commodities thus remained mostly one-way. Culturally, the post-transition era in Hungary and other Eastern European countries can be characterised by a strong western orientation parallel to the process of reintegration, which could also be observed in popular music consumption (the introduction of MTV and other music television channels, for instance, was highly influential on the cultural socialisation of the generation growing up in the 1990s). At the same time, there was also a significant growth in local music production – resulting in Hungarian-language pop, rock and dance music, for instance – and a multiplicity of newly emerging actors such as radio stations, record labels, venues, and a much higher number of specialised magazines than today.
The turn of the twenty-first century, however, saw the escalation of a rad-
ical structural transformation the music industries along with digitisation, symbolised by the appearance of global file-sharing platform Napster in
1999. The new channels of distribution and sharing enabled by digital and
online media temporarily weakened the economic power of record com-
panies by leading to a drastic decline in the sales of recordings – at the
time still mostly physical. This global process could certainly be felt locally too, in the decreasing sales and the accompanying decreasing number, and
power, of industry actors, and even less interest from majors in local artists
due to increasing constraints on the subsidies themselves (Elavsky 2011). It was also a time when optimistic discourses around disintermediation – for instance, that record companies no longer appeared necessary for artists to reach an audience – and individual musical entrepreneurship relying on dig- ital and online media thrived. In Eastern European countries, belonging to the global semi-periphery, references to the small size of the local market, as well as a lack of a professional environment, interpreted as a post-socialist legacy, mitigated this optimism to an extent. Nevertheless, the entry of tech companies into the music economy – Amazon, Apple (through iTunes), Google (through purchasing video streaming platform YouTube in 2006) –, followed by the emergence of music streaming companies, helped along the commodification of digital music (Morris 2015), and ultimately led the way towards a new era of consolidation, and concentration, for the recording industry. This also meant a reinforcing of the power inequalities inherent in the industry’s capitalistic logic.
Andrew Leyshon (2001; 2014) brought attention to the continued impor-
tance of geographical networks, and the geographical embeddedness of the production of music, in the era of digital music. More recently, Timothy D. Taylor (2015) has demonstrated, through the phenomenon of ‘world music,’ how industrial practices, as well as recorded music aesthetics, function to reinforce global economic and cultural inequalities. The starting point of this chapter is that the (im)balance between music import and export, along with the proportion of local (national) versus international music in national markets, is an area where global relations, and the positions of countries within the global economy of music and the global capitalistic world-system in general, can be fruitfully studied.
Through the case of popular music export initiatives in Hungary, I pro-
ceed to reflect on the particular semi-peripheral position of the national
music industries of Eastern Europe within global relations of dependency.
I explore what music export in Hungary looks like, and what its particular-
ities and expressed aims and objectives are. Has the focus on ‘making it’ in
the West in terms of international success shifted? How can the observed
objectives and strategies be linked to shifts in the structure of the music
industries? And how do the observed discourses, aims, and strategies fit into the moral order of the capitalist world-system?
In order to answer these questions, I rely on semi-structured interviews
with professionals involved in the Hungarian export programme HOTS (I1;
I2) and the Budapest Showcase Hub (BUSH) (I3), which I have interpreted
as expressions of narratives, discourses, attitudes, values, and positions;
the analysis of promotional and educational material (e.g. videos) related
to music export in Hungary; observation of events (e.g. BUSH); as well as a
review of international literature and published statistical data.
In our paper we analyse the emergence and functioning of the sex camera industry, focusing on the central role of platform companies and the labour of those working in the industry. Through the example of Hungary, based on interview research conducted with people working in the industry, we look at how the sex industry, and within that, the sex camera industry, has changed with digitalisation in the global economy, and how the platform companies that are at the centre of this transformation operate – among them, LiveJasmin, founded in Hungary. We look at how Hungary’s semi-peripheral position within the capitalist world system determines the working conditions and possibilities of local workers in the global industry. In our analysis, we therefore explore the global inequalities of platform capitalism and digital labour from the perspective of Hungarian, semi-peripheral actors. In addition, we show what role sex camera platforms such as LiveJasmin have played in the normalisation of the sex industry.
Tanulmányunkban a rendszerváltozás utáni kelet-európai és azon belül a magyar feminizmus kialakulását a globális egyenlőtlen történeti fejlődés részeként értelmezzük. Megközelítésünk alapvető gondolata, hogy egy adott korszak adott társadalmának jelenségeit – így a nőiség tapasztalatát és a feminista mozgalmakat – nem önmagukban, hanem annak a tágabb viszonyrendszernek a kontextusában kell vizsgálnunk, amelynek részei. Az általunk választott kontextus, amiben az alábbiakban fogjuk értelmezni ezeknek a mozgalmaknak a lehetőségeit, a „hosszú 16. századtól” kialakuló, az egész glóbuszra kiterjedő egyre szorosabban integrálódó tőkés árutermelési és munkamegosztási rendszer, röviden a kapitalista világrendszer. Azt vizsgáljuk, hogy a nyugati centrumbeli és a keleti feminizmus egymáshoz való viszonya hogyan alakult ki a kelet-európai országok – elsősorban Magyarország – legújabb kori világgazdasági integrációja során, amit az 1970-es évektől datálunk. Először rögzítjük elméleti keretünket, amely megmutatja, hogy hogyan értelmezhető a nőiség strukturális pozícióként. Majd vázlatosan bemutatjuk a nyugat-európai és észak-amerikai nemi viszonyokat és feminizmusokat részint a II. világháború után kialakuló észak-amerikai hegemónia prosperáló időszakában, de nagyobb hangsúlyt az 1970-es évektől jelenlevő nemzetközi politikai és kulturális hegemónia válságidőszakának szentelünk, amivel párhuzamosan a kelet-európai országok lassú visszacsatlakozása is beindult a tőkés világgazdaságba. Ezt követően bemutatjuk a rendszerváltozás utáni magyar feminizmust a kelet-európai félperiféria tőkés világrendszerbe való formális visszacsatlakozásának kontextusában. Végül bemutatjuk a magyar feminizmusban végbemenő változásokat a 2008-as világgazdasági válságot követően kibontakozó társadalmi és mozgalmi átrendeződés után.
CONSERVATIVE TURN IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND THE NEW ENTREPRENEURS OF DIGITAL MUSIC INDUSTRY
In this paper I argue that by looking at dominant discourses and narratives surrounding
the digital music industry – channels of which include the music industry press, the
themes and language of music business conferences, the popular media as well as
informal interactions in the music industry – we can observe an ideological turn taking
place in the last few years. The emergence of the digital music industry was accompanied by the following optimistic narratives and the corresponding consumer image: the “long tail” (Anderson 2006) and the end of the “tyranny of the hit”; technological triumphalism and democratisation; and the power of individual choice, i.e. a mature and conscious music consumer. In recent years, however, contrary narratives seem to have strengthened: “digital music pollution” and the “tyranny of choice”; record companies as the guarantees of quality; and infantile (and feminised) mass consumers who need the guidance of expert tastemakers. By looking at ideology together with the economy of music, it is possible to conclude that the frequently mentioned plenitude of music available via digital and online platforms simultaneously masks and facilitates industry concentration. Based on the results of qualitative interview research conducted in 2014 on the Amsterdam-based platform 22tracks, I explore the ways in which music curation platforms using playlists are able to challenge this concentration process by acting as a counter-force, while, at the same time, also forming part of it.
has seen considerable activity in the last few years. This includes the organising of the first international popular music conferences in Hungary, as well as the joining of new, young scholar members, and the strengthening of new research areas. The most prominent areas
are the history of popular music research in Hungary, popular music histories and historiography, jazz studies, studies of (digital) technology and popular music, research on the relationship between popular music and populism, and on popular music and gender.