I'm Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication, at the FISPPA Department, University of Padova (Italy), and member of the Research Unit PaSTIS . I work on several topics including (and mixing together) technology, consumption processes, digital media, cultural production, popular music and other related stuff. My personal web site: www.paomag.net. Address: Dep. FISPPA
Via Cesarotti, 10/12,
35123 - Padova
Italy
From the punch card calculating machine to the personal computer to the iPhone and more, this in-... more From the punch card calculating machine to the personal computer to the iPhone and more, this in-depth text offers a comprehensive introduction to digital media history for students and scholars across media and communication studies, providing an overview of the main turning points in digital media and highlighting the interactions between political, technical, social, and cultural elements throughout history. With a global scope and an intermedia focus, this book enables students and scholars alike to deepen their critical understanding of digital com muni cation, adding an understudied historical layer to the exam - ination of digital media and societies. Discussion questions, a timeline, and previously unpub lished tables and maps are included to guide readers as they learn to contextualize and critically analyze the digital tech nologies we use every day.
Quanto è rivoluzionaria la cosiddetta ‘rivoluzione digitale’? E quanto, invece, il digitale affon... more Quanto è rivoluzionaria la cosiddetta ‘rivoluzione digitale’? E quanto, invece, il digitale affonda le proprie radici nei vecchi media analogici dell’Otto-Novecento? Partendo da questi interrogativi, Gabriele Balbi e Paolo Magaudda ci guidano in un originale viaggio attraverso la storia dei media digitali, dalla prima metà del Novecento ai giorni nostri. Con un’ottica globale, gli autori ripercorrono le tappe principali della storia del computer, di internet, del telefono cellulare e della digitalizzazione di alcuni settori dell’industria culturale quali musica, stampa, cinema, fotografia e radiotelevisione. Tra rotture rivoluzionarie e sorprendenti continuità, Storia dei media digitali getta uno sguardo disincantato su una delle mitologie del nostro tempo.
Ascoltare musica è un’attività culturale strettamente legata all’uso di particolari dispositivi t... more Ascoltare musica è un’attività culturale strettamente legata all’uso di particolari dispositivi tecnologici come gli impianti hifi, i lettori cd e i riproduttori di musica digitale. Il consumo di tecnologie non si limita a influenzare abitudini e gusti musicali, ma più in generale contribuisce a trasformare le relazioni, le amicizie, le identità e perfino gli ambienti in cui gli ascoltatori vivono. Partendo da racconti in prima persona di esperienze fatte con diversi «oggetti sonori» – dai dischi in vinile ai lettori digitali come l’iPod, dagli amplificatori analogici ai personal computer – il libro mostra come le implicazioni dell’uso di queste tecnologie contribuiscano a trasformare il nostro contesto sociale e relazionale quotidiano.
English presentation: [Objects to be listened. Hifi, iPod and the consumption of music technology]
The book based on my PhD research is finally ready! It focuses on the relationship between consumption and technology, considering how people use and consume technologies to listen to the music and how this use intersects and is part of the wider everyday life. After a first introductory theoretical chapter (STS, consumption studies, “Practice theory”, media studies), the book presents two empirical case studies, one devoted to HiFi systems’ enthusiasts and another to the uses of digital music technologies.
Is out the new book edited by me and Federico Neresini, LA SCIENZA SULLO SCHERMO (SCIENCE ON THE ... more Is out the new book edited by me and Federico Neresini, LA SCIENZA SULLO SCHERMO (SCIENCE ON THE SCREEN: REPRESENTATIONS OF TECHNOSCIENCE ON THE ITALIAN TV) collecting a four-year long reseach on the social representations of science and technology in the italian TV.
It is made up by 9 different chapters (written in italian) dealing with several different topics focussing on science and tv, such as quantitative data, experts in tv, use of science within talk shows and others. Here and italian synopsis:
Superquark, Voyager, Elisir, dibattiti sulla prova del Dna e pareri dei più vari esperti nei diversi talk show; informazioni in tempo reale dai Tg su invenzioni e scoperte: scienziati, esperti, prove scientifiche e controversie tecniche sono diventati «ingredienti» sempre più consueti delle trasmissioni televisive, al punto che non è più possibile comprendere le implicazioni sociali della tecnoscienza senza considerare come essa viene rappresentata dalla televisione. Il volume, risultato di più di tre anni di attività del gruppo di ricerca PaSTIS dell’Università di Padova, analizza il modo in cui i vari format televisivi descrivono, utilizzano e rappresentano la scienza e la tecnologia. L’indagine spazia dalla quantità di notizie scientifiche riportate annualmente dai telegiornali al ruolo degli esperti nei dibattiti televisivi; dalle discussioni sulle tecnologie nel caso di incidenti nelle fabbriche all’evocazione della prova del Dna nei talk show; dai contenuti delle trasmissioni di divulgazione scientifica alle rappresentazioni degli scienziati nella pubblicità. Per l’ampiezza dei dati raccolti, la varietà dei temi trattati e gli approcci di analisi utilizzati, il libro offre un’inedita e consistente panoramica sul rapporto tra tecnoscienza e Tv.
This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by fo... more This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by focusing on its theoretical and empirical dimensions. The notion of responsibility is extremely diversified in the public discourse of nanoscale technologies. Addressed are major disciplinary perspectives working on nanotechnology, e.g. philosophy, sociology, and political science, as well as the major multidisciplinary areas relevant to the innovation process, e.g. technology assessment and ethics. Furthermore, the interplay between such expertises, disciplines, and research programmes in providing a multidisciplinary understanding of responsibility is emphasized.
Inquires about the relationship between the field of nanotechnology and the concept of responsibility Offers an interdisciplinary focus on the connection between technology innovation and its social, ethic and philosophical implications Addresses both empirical and theoretic levels, offers numerous case studies and reconnects concepts with practical analysis
Keywords » innovation ethics - nanoscale technologies - nanotechnology and responsibility - nanotechnology dangers - nanotechnology development - nanotechnology ethics
Related subjects » Applied Ethics & Social Responsibility - Epistemology & Philosophy of Science - Nanotechnology
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. Nanotechnologies and the quest for responsibility; Simone Arnaldi, Arianna Ferrari, Paolo Magaudda, Francesca Marin.- Part 1 Scrutinizing responsibility. Theoretical explorations into an entangled concept.- Responsibility and visions in the new and emerging technologies; Arianna Ferrari, Francesca Marin.- Features of intergenerational moral responsibility in the age of the emerging technologies; Silvia Zullo.- The Role of responsible stewardship in nanotechnology and synthetic biology; Ilaria Anna Colussi.- Part 2 Technology assessment and public engagement.- Technology assessment beyond toxicology – the case of nanomaterials; Torsten Fleischer, Jutta Jahnel, Stefanie B. Seitz.- Ethics Research Committees in reviewing nanotechnology clinical trials protocol; Viviana Daloiso, Antonio G. Spagnolo.-Governance of Nanotechnology: engagement and public participation; Giuseppe Pellegrini.- Part 3 Representations and arrangements of responsibility.- Value chain responsibility in emerging technologies; Colette Bos, Harro van Lente.- On being responsible: Multiplicity in responsible development; Sarah R. Davies, Cecilie Glerup, Maja Horst.- Nanotechnology and configurations of responsibilities in boundary organizations; Paolo Magaudda.- Who is responsible? Nanotechnology and responsibility in the Italian daily press; Simone Arnaldi.- Epilogue: Nanotechnology beyond nanotechnologies Responsible Research and Innovation: an emerging issue in research policy rooted in the debate on nanotechnology; Armin Grunwald.- Index.
The present publication contains a selection of the works presented at the 5th STS Italia Confere... more The present publication contains a selection of the works presented at the 5th STS Italia Conference, held in Milan from June, 12–14 2014. The main theme of this STS Italia conference’s edition was the intersection between Design Studies and Science & Technology Studies. The Conference was the main event of STS Italia, the Italian Society for the Study of Science & Technology and the 2014 edition was organized in collaboration with the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. Thanks to this cooperation, the conference was a unique space for interdisciplinary encounters between different scientific and intellectual milieus, which have interacted on very practical terms, fostering a reflexive account both in Design and STS practices.
A Special Issue of "Tecnoscienza - The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies" on the no... more A Special Issue of "Tecnoscienza - The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies" on the notion of “digital circulation”, aimed developing bridges beetwen science and technology studies, media and communication studies around issues of technology, infrastructures and materiality.
From iPod to live sets, from Napster to Spotify, from media stores to concept stores, from garage... more From iPod to live sets, from Napster to Spotify, from media stores to concept stores, from garage to online jam sessions from ghetto blaster to the mobile phone equipped with loud speakers, from gigs to raves, music spaces have dramatically changed over the last generation. But, how has music transformed the spaces where our everyday rhythms and interpersonal relations occur? Which are the different uses of music in domestic and urban spaces, in real and imaginary places? How do technologies old and new contribute to reshape the use of space? These are some of the questions addressed in the contributions to these issue. Interestingly, while the initial call was open to both the music production and consumption sides, the latter has been especially investigated: is it perhaps the sign of an enhanced relevance of listen- ing practices today, or the evidence of the relative lack of studies on producers? Certainly, it seems to us that the two dimensions of producing music and listening to it should be more thoroughly investigated in their close relation, where the interplay of technological and cultural aspects does play a crucial role. We open this issue medias in res with an enjoyable piece by Nikita A. Kharlamov, who reports on the funny yet also somehow uncanny experience which people may have at Macy’s department store in Philadelphia, where an organ performance may unexpectedly take place in the middle of a shopping mall. Nikita’s piece stimulates a number of noticeable reflections on the regimes of the private and the public, on the relation between the economic, cultural and moral-educational domains, on their discursive and spatial separation, as well as what happens when such separations are trumped. The two following articles proceed to more general considerations on the relationship between music technologies and urban space. On the basis of in-depth interviews, Michael Bull argues that users of mobile devices equipped with headphones employ them to filter out the sounds of the city, replacing the urban soundscape by private sound bubbles. Elena Biserna, however, stresses that, in fact, por- table music players produce a constant swing and strain between physical and acoustic space, and that the neat outcome is a sort of‘multiple dwelling’entailed by the continuous shifts forth and back between shared and private space-times. A number of experimental art installations since the 1980s are used by Elena to illustrate this point. Two pieces then follow with a focus on specific cities, respectively Berlin and Bologna. Barbara Grüning describes the transformations of two sections of a Berlin neighbourhood (Friedrichshain North and South) in relation to the practices and styles of music consumption that contradistinguish them. In a report on an in-vivo sound project, Riccardo Balli – a.k.a. Dj Balli – brings us to the heart of Bologna, in Italy, and its unique soundscape. Balli’s project is precisely located at the intersection of a sound archive, a crowdsourced soundscape documentation practice, and a music performance. After these two case studies, a theoretical interlude follows. Claudio Calzoni invites readers to a return on Adorno’s theses on pop culture as concerns especially its music territories: what is the legacy of Adorno’s message in the context of today’s listening practices? On their part, Nicola Bizzaro and Ales- sandro Bratus reflect on the notion of‘music scene’and its usefulness for understanding the relation between location and style.
Abstract
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer stu... more Abstract
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, especially when we consider the ongoing changes regarding the consumption of cultural goods. This article adopts a theory-of-practice approach to analyse the consequences of dematerialization on the practices of digital music consumption. From an empirical point of view, the article is based on data collected during research into the appropriation of digital music technologies and based on 25 in-depth narrative semi-structured interviews with young Italian digital music consumers. The analysis mainly focuses on the appropriation of three specific technologies involved into the contemporary consumption of music: the iPod, the external hard drive and the vinyl disc. In order to understand the role of materiality in the age of dematerialization, the article adopts the ‘circuit of practice’, an explicative model that enables empirical analysis and that is aimed at highlighting the changing relationships between materiality and social practices. The analysis shows that music digitalization does not mean less materiality in the actual practice of listeners, that material ‘stuffs’ still occupy a relevant position in digital music, and that materiality nowadays seems to ‘bite back’, being even more crucial in shaping consumers’ practices.
Moving from a theory of iconic power, the article offers an understanding on the ways the iconic ... more Moving from a theory of iconic power, the article offers an understanding on the ways the iconic power of Apple technologies has emerged since the first Macintosh advertising cam- paign in 1984. This description of Apple’s iconic power will be the basis for a preliminary re- flection concerning the interwoven dimensions that bond together mobile technologies, cultural meanings and consumer experience in today’s capitalist society. The article shows three different processes through which Apple has become a powerful iconic presence in today’s digital society. The first dimension directly refers to the firm’s communicative strategies and the ways in which Apple has developed its iconic status with advertising by mobilizing wider cultural frameworks and symbolic structures in society. The second dimension refers to the processes involving users’ and consumers’ appropriation of Apple’s meanings and images, with specific reference to the way consumers have developed spiritual involvements toward Apple’s brand as well as a sense of sacral participation in Apple’s identity. Finally, a third dimension concerns how Apple’s icon has become “reframed” and subverted by fans and media, often as a way to articulate and make sense of very different events in society. The appropriation of Apple’s iconic power for different and alternative purposes reveals the partial autonomy of the iconic power gained by digital tech- nologies, which can become the surface on which to articulate cultural structures, dualities and oppositions in contemporary society.
"Abstract
Over the last fifteen years, independent rock music has become a wider field of cult... more "Abstract
Over the last fifteen years, independent rock music has become a wider field of cultural production and consumption in Italy. Indeed, while during the 1970s and 1990s the production of independent music was connected predominantly to political movements, alternative subcultures and the antagonistic attitude of the 'centri sociali', in the present decade, independent popular music has moved towards the centre of the national music industry and the mass media of the musical mainstream. This article describes the phases of this process of institutionalisation, showing how the politically based culture of independent music is today at the centre of a symbolic struggle occurring between the values of authenticity, rooted in political youth cultures, and the strategic and pragmatic tendency towards integration into the mainstream of the national music industry. This analysis is carried out applying the Bourdieian concepts of 'field of cultural production' and 'cultural capital', together with their evolutions into the notion of 'subcultural capital'. This theoretical framework is applied in order to show both the process of institutionalisation this cultural field is undergoing, and the symbolic struggle taking place between the original values of the political and cultural autonomy of music and the commoditisation of musical objects in the mainstream mass media and national industrial sector. Finally, it is shown how new agents who represent the independent popular music industry at the national level need to deal with claims for authenticity raised by the alternative and extreme wings of the independent music scene.
Keywords: popular culture; independent music; symbolic capital; field of cultural production; subcultural capital"
This conversation aims at offering a transdisciplinary gaze on the phenomenon of wireless communi... more This conversation aims at offering a transdisciplinary gaze on the phenomenon of wireless community networks: an emerging typology of local wireless infrastructures, which is built by activists as political and technologi- cal statement to face the hierarchical governance of the Internet and the is- sues of surveillance and control over digital networks. By a transdicliplinary gaze – emerging from the dialogue between science and technology studies (STS), legal studies, and computer science – this conversation focuses on the multi-modal ways and perspectives that can be adopted to study CNs; it also offers a reflection on challenges and opportunities arising from trasndiscipli- nary scientific work. In the field of STS, a growing body of literature has ad- dressed CNs as an emblematic case study to analyse the engagement of ac- tivists and lay people in the emergence of socio-technical infrastructures and technologies. From a computer science perspective, community networks represent a challenge to develop new routing protocols, and standards to technically implement a bottom-up-approach in the building and management of innovative network architectures. Finally, from the point of view of legal studies, CNs offer the case of a still largely unregulated emerging technology, offering a novel field to test existing laws, especially under the point of view of the possible allocation of civil liability.
From the punch card calculating machine to the personal computer to the iPhone and more, this in-... more From the punch card calculating machine to the personal computer to the iPhone and more, this in-depth text offers a comprehensive introduction to digital media history for students and scholars across media and communication studies, providing an overview of the main turning points in digital media and highlighting the interactions between political, technical, social, and cultural elements throughout history. With a global scope and an intermedia focus, this book enables students and scholars alike to deepen their critical understanding of digital com muni cation, adding an understudied historical layer to the exam - ination of digital media and societies. Discussion questions, a timeline, and previously unpub lished tables and maps are included to guide readers as they learn to contextualize and critically analyze the digital tech nologies we use every day.
Quanto è rivoluzionaria la cosiddetta ‘rivoluzione digitale’? E quanto, invece, il digitale affon... more Quanto è rivoluzionaria la cosiddetta ‘rivoluzione digitale’? E quanto, invece, il digitale affonda le proprie radici nei vecchi media analogici dell’Otto-Novecento? Partendo da questi interrogativi, Gabriele Balbi e Paolo Magaudda ci guidano in un originale viaggio attraverso la storia dei media digitali, dalla prima metà del Novecento ai giorni nostri. Con un’ottica globale, gli autori ripercorrono le tappe principali della storia del computer, di internet, del telefono cellulare e della digitalizzazione di alcuni settori dell’industria culturale quali musica, stampa, cinema, fotografia e radiotelevisione. Tra rotture rivoluzionarie e sorprendenti continuità, Storia dei media digitali getta uno sguardo disincantato su una delle mitologie del nostro tempo.
Ascoltare musica è un’attività culturale strettamente legata all’uso di particolari dispositivi t... more Ascoltare musica è un’attività culturale strettamente legata all’uso di particolari dispositivi tecnologici come gli impianti hifi, i lettori cd e i riproduttori di musica digitale. Il consumo di tecnologie non si limita a influenzare abitudini e gusti musicali, ma più in generale contribuisce a trasformare le relazioni, le amicizie, le identità e perfino gli ambienti in cui gli ascoltatori vivono. Partendo da racconti in prima persona di esperienze fatte con diversi «oggetti sonori» – dai dischi in vinile ai lettori digitali come l’iPod, dagli amplificatori analogici ai personal computer – il libro mostra come le implicazioni dell’uso di queste tecnologie contribuiscano a trasformare il nostro contesto sociale e relazionale quotidiano.
English presentation: [Objects to be listened. Hifi, iPod and the consumption of music technology]
The book based on my PhD research is finally ready! It focuses on the relationship between consumption and technology, considering how people use and consume technologies to listen to the music and how this use intersects and is part of the wider everyday life. After a first introductory theoretical chapter (STS, consumption studies, “Practice theory”, media studies), the book presents two empirical case studies, one devoted to HiFi systems’ enthusiasts and another to the uses of digital music technologies.
Is out the new book edited by me and Federico Neresini, LA SCIENZA SULLO SCHERMO (SCIENCE ON THE ... more Is out the new book edited by me and Federico Neresini, LA SCIENZA SULLO SCHERMO (SCIENCE ON THE SCREEN: REPRESENTATIONS OF TECHNOSCIENCE ON THE ITALIAN TV) collecting a four-year long reseach on the social representations of science and technology in the italian TV.
It is made up by 9 different chapters (written in italian) dealing with several different topics focussing on science and tv, such as quantitative data, experts in tv, use of science within talk shows and others. Here and italian synopsis:
Superquark, Voyager, Elisir, dibattiti sulla prova del Dna e pareri dei più vari esperti nei diversi talk show; informazioni in tempo reale dai Tg su invenzioni e scoperte: scienziati, esperti, prove scientifiche e controversie tecniche sono diventati «ingredienti» sempre più consueti delle trasmissioni televisive, al punto che non è più possibile comprendere le implicazioni sociali della tecnoscienza senza considerare come essa viene rappresentata dalla televisione. Il volume, risultato di più di tre anni di attività del gruppo di ricerca PaSTIS dell’Università di Padova, analizza il modo in cui i vari format televisivi descrivono, utilizzano e rappresentano la scienza e la tecnologia. L’indagine spazia dalla quantità di notizie scientifiche riportate annualmente dai telegiornali al ruolo degli esperti nei dibattiti televisivi; dalle discussioni sulle tecnologie nel caso di incidenti nelle fabbriche all’evocazione della prova del Dna nei talk show; dai contenuti delle trasmissioni di divulgazione scientifica alle rappresentazioni degli scienziati nella pubblicità. Per l’ampiezza dei dati raccolti, la varietà dei temi trattati e gli approcci di analisi utilizzati, il libro offre un’inedita e consistente panoramica sul rapporto tra tecnoscienza e Tv.
This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by fo... more This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by focusing on its theoretical and empirical dimensions. The notion of responsibility is extremely diversified in the public discourse of nanoscale technologies. Addressed are major disciplinary perspectives working on nanotechnology, e.g. philosophy, sociology, and political science, as well as the major multidisciplinary areas relevant to the innovation process, e.g. technology assessment and ethics. Furthermore, the interplay between such expertises, disciplines, and research programmes in providing a multidisciplinary understanding of responsibility is emphasized.
Inquires about the relationship between the field of nanotechnology and the concept of responsibility Offers an interdisciplinary focus on the connection between technology innovation and its social, ethic and philosophical implications Addresses both empirical and theoretic levels, offers numerous case studies and reconnects concepts with practical analysis
Keywords » innovation ethics - nanoscale technologies - nanotechnology and responsibility - nanotechnology dangers - nanotechnology development - nanotechnology ethics
Related subjects » Applied Ethics & Social Responsibility - Epistemology & Philosophy of Science - Nanotechnology
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. Nanotechnologies and the quest for responsibility; Simone Arnaldi, Arianna Ferrari, Paolo Magaudda, Francesca Marin.- Part 1 Scrutinizing responsibility. Theoretical explorations into an entangled concept.- Responsibility and visions in the new and emerging technologies; Arianna Ferrari, Francesca Marin.- Features of intergenerational moral responsibility in the age of the emerging technologies; Silvia Zullo.- The Role of responsible stewardship in nanotechnology and synthetic biology; Ilaria Anna Colussi.- Part 2 Technology assessment and public engagement.- Technology assessment beyond toxicology – the case of nanomaterials; Torsten Fleischer, Jutta Jahnel, Stefanie B. Seitz.- Ethics Research Committees in reviewing nanotechnology clinical trials protocol; Viviana Daloiso, Antonio G. Spagnolo.-Governance of Nanotechnology: engagement and public participation; Giuseppe Pellegrini.- Part 3 Representations and arrangements of responsibility.- Value chain responsibility in emerging technologies; Colette Bos, Harro van Lente.- On being responsible: Multiplicity in responsible development; Sarah R. Davies, Cecilie Glerup, Maja Horst.- Nanotechnology and configurations of responsibilities in boundary organizations; Paolo Magaudda.- Who is responsible? Nanotechnology and responsibility in the Italian daily press; Simone Arnaldi.- Epilogue: Nanotechnology beyond nanotechnologies Responsible Research and Innovation: an emerging issue in research policy rooted in the debate on nanotechnology; Armin Grunwald.- Index.
The present publication contains a selection of the works presented at the 5th STS Italia Confere... more The present publication contains a selection of the works presented at the 5th STS Italia Conference, held in Milan from June, 12–14 2014. The main theme of this STS Italia conference’s edition was the intersection between Design Studies and Science & Technology Studies. The Conference was the main event of STS Italia, the Italian Society for the Study of Science & Technology and the 2014 edition was organized in collaboration with the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. Thanks to this cooperation, the conference was a unique space for interdisciplinary encounters between different scientific and intellectual milieus, which have interacted on very practical terms, fostering a reflexive account both in Design and STS practices.
A Special Issue of "Tecnoscienza - The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies" on the no... more A Special Issue of "Tecnoscienza - The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies" on the notion of “digital circulation”, aimed developing bridges beetwen science and technology studies, media and communication studies around issues of technology, infrastructures and materiality.
From iPod to live sets, from Napster to Spotify, from media stores to concept stores, from garage... more From iPod to live sets, from Napster to Spotify, from media stores to concept stores, from garage to online jam sessions from ghetto blaster to the mobile phone equipped with loud speakers, from gigs to raves, music spaces have dramatically changed over the last generation. But, how has music transformed the spaces where our everyday rhythms and interpersonal relations occur? Which are the different uses of music in domestic and urban spaces, in real and imaginary places? How do technologies old and new contribute to reshape the use of space? These are some of the questions addressed in the contributions to these issue. Interestingly, while the initial call was open to both the music production and consumption sides, the latter has been especially investigated: is it perhaps the sign of an enhanced relevance of listen- ing practices today, or the evidence of the relative lack of studies on producers? Certainly, it seems to us that the two dimensions of producing music and listening to it should be more thoroughly investigated in their close relation, where the interplay of technological and cultural aspects does play a crucial role. We open this issue medias in res with an enjoyable piece by Nikita A. Kharlamov, who reports on the funny yet also somehow uncanny experience which people may have at Macy’s department store in Philadelphia, where an organ performance may unexpectedly take place in the middle of a shopping mall. Nikita’s piece stimulates a number of noticeable reflections on the regimes of the private and the public, on the relation between the economic, cultural and moral-educational domains, on their discursive and spatial separation, as well as what happens when such separations are trumped. The two following articles proceed to more general considerations on the relationship between music technologies and urban space. On the basis of in-depth interviews, Michael Bull argues that users of mobile devices equipped with headphones employ them to filter out the sounds of the city, replacing the urban soundscape by private sound bubbles. Elena Biserna, however, stresses that, in fact, por- table music players produce a constant swing and strain between physical and acoustic space, and that the neat outcome is a sort of‘multiple dwelling’entailed by the continuous shifts forth and back between shared and private space-times. A number of experimental art installations since the 1980s are used by Elena to illustrate this point. Two pieces then follow with a focus on specific cities, respectively Berlin and Bologna. Barbara Grüning describes the transformations of two sections of a Berlin neighbourhood (Friedrichshain North and South) in relation to the practices and styles of music consumption that contradistinguish them. In a report on an in-vivo sound project, Riccardo Balli – a.k.a. Dj Balli – brings us to the heart of Bologna, in Italy, and its unique soundscape. Balli’s project is precisely located at the intersection of a sound archive, a crowdsourced soundscape documentation practice, and a music performance. After these two case studies, a theoretical interlude follows. Claudio Calzoni invites readers to a return on Adorno’s theses on pop culture as concerns especially its music territories: what is the legacy of Adorno’s message in the context of today’s listening practices? On their part, Nicola Bizzaro and Ales- sandro Bratus reflect on the notion of‘music scene’and its usefulness for understanding the relation between location and style.
Abstract
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer stu... more Abstract
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, especially when we consider the ongoing changes regarding the consumption of cultural goods. This article adopts a theory-of-practice approach to analyse the consequences of dematerialization on the practices of digital music consumption. From an empirical point of view, the article is based on data collected during research into the appropriation of digital music technologies and based on 25 in-depth narrative semi-structured interviews with young Italian digital music consumers. The analysis mainly focuses on the appropriation of three specific technologies involved into the contemporary consumption of music: the iPod, the external hard drive and the vinyl disc. In order to understand the role of materiality in the age of dematerialization, the article adopts the ‘circuit of practice’, an explicative model that enables empirical analysis and that is aimed at highlighting the changing relationships between materiality and social practices. The analysis shows that music digitalization does not mean less materiality in the actual practice of listeners, that material ‘stuffs’ still occupy a relevant position in digital music, and that materiality nowadays seems to ‘bite back’, being even more crucial in shaping consumers’ practices.
Moving from a theory of iconic power, the article offers an understanding on the ways the iconic ... more Moving from a theory of iconic power, the article offers an understanding on the ways the iconic power of Apple technologies has emerged since the first Macintosh advertising cam- paign in 1984. This description of Apple’s iconic power will be the basis for a preliminary re- flection concerning the interwoven dimensions that bond together mobile technologies, cultural meanings and consumer experience in today’s capitalist society. The article shows three different processes through which Apple has become a powerful iconic presence in today’s digital society. The first dimension directly refers to the firm’s communicative strategies and the ways in which Apple has developed its iconic status with advertising by mobilizing wider cultural frameworks and symbolic structures in society. The second dimension refers to the processes involving users’ and consumers’ appropriation of Apple’s meanings and images, with specific reference to the way consumers have developed spiritual involvements toward Apple’s brand as well as a sense of sacral participation in Apple’s identity. Finally, a third dimension concerns how Apple’s icon has become “reframed” and subverted by fans and media, often as a way to articulate and make sense of very different events in society. The appropriation of Apple’s iconic power for different and alternative purposes reveals the partial autonomy of the iconic power gained by digital tech- nologies, which can become the surface on which to articulate cultural structures, dualities and oppositions in contemporary society.
"Abstract
Over the last fifteen years, independent rock music has become a wider field of cult... more "Abstract
Over the last fifteen years, independent rock music has become a wider field of cultural production and consumption in Italy. Indeed, while during the 1970s and 1990s the production of independent music was connected predominantly to political movements, alternative subcultures and the antagonistic attitude of the 'centri sociali', in the present decade, independent popular music has moved towards the centre of the national music industry and the mass media of the musical mainstream. This article describes the phases of this process of institutionalisation, showing how the politically based culture of independent music is today at the centre of a symbolic struggle occurring between the values of authenticity, rooted in political youth cultures, and the strategic and pragmatic tendency towards integration into the mainstream of the national music industry. This analysis is carried out applying the Bourdieian concepts of 'field of cultural production' and 'cultural capital', together with their evolutions into the notion of 'subcultural capital'. This theoretical framework is applied in order to show both the process of institutionalisation this cultural field is undergoing, and the symbolic struggle taking place between the original values of the political and cultural autonomy of music and the commoditisation of musical objects in the mainstream mass media and national industrial sector. Finally, it is shown how new agents who represent the independent popular music industry at the national level need to deal with claims for authenticity raised by the alternative and extreme wings of the independent music scene.
Keywords: popular culture; independent music; symbolic capital; field of cultural production; subcultural capital"
This conversation aims at offering a transdisciplinary gaze on the phenomenon of wireless communi... more This conversation aims at offering a transdisciplinary gaze on the phenomenon of wireless community networks: an emerging typology of local wireless infrastructures, which is built by activists as political and technologi- cal statement to face the hierarchical governance of the Internet and the is- sues of surveillance and control over digital networks. By a transdicliplinary gaze – emerging from the dialogue between science and technology studies (STS), legal studies, and computer science – this conversation focuses on the multi-modal ways and perspectives that can be adopted to study CNs; it also offers a reflection on challenges and opportunities arising from trasndiscipli- nary scientific work. In the field of STS, a growing body of literature has ad- dressed CNs as an emblematic case study to analyse the engagement of ac- tivists and lay people in the emergence of socio-technical infrastructures and technologies. From a computer science perspective, community networks represent a challenge to develop new routing protocols, and standards to technically implement a bottom-up-approach in the building and management of innovative network architectures. Finally, from the point of view of legal studies, CNs offer the case of a still largely unregulated emerging technology, offering a novel field to test existing laws, especially under the point of view of the possible allocation of civil liability.
Un gioco di " specchi culturali " : popular music, italianità e la circolazione transnazionale de... more Un gioco di " specchi culturali " : popular music, italianità e la circolazione transnazionale dell'italodisco 1. Introduzione: per una storia culturale della musica dance italiana Nella storia della popular music italiana, la musica italodisco – un particolare settore della musica dance prodotta, non solo in Italia, tra la fi ne degli anni Settanta e la seconda metà degli anni degli anni Ottanta – costituisce un fenomeno culturale peculiare, l'esito non scontato di una serie di innovazioni produttive, trasformazioni estetiche e fl ussi musicali transnazionali. L'italodisco costituisce un frammento della nostra storia culturale per lo più dimenticato e questo per differenti ragioni: un generico disinteresse critico della musicologia italiana per la musica dance; la diffi coltà di raccogliere documentazione attendibile attorno a pratiche informali e " notturne " come il ballo; ma anche la diffusione soprattutto internazionale di questa defi nizione e la sua adozione pressoché nulla nel nostro paese. Tali differenti ragioni hanno contribuito a creare un vuoto di ricerche e rifl essioni attorno al " genere " musicale, sia sul piano estetico, sia rispetto alle implicazioni culturali, sociali e industriali della produzione musicale italiana degli ultimi trent'anni 1. La traiettoria dell'italodisco costituisce dunque anche lo spunto per una rifl essione più generale attorno ad alcune questioni che riguardano, in primo luogo, i processi di circolazione dei prodotti culturali in un mondo globalizzato e attorno quello che il sociologo culturale Motti Regev ha defi nito come l'emergere di un " cosmopolitismo estetico " , incentrato sulla produzione, circolazione, appropriazione di contenuti culturali e delle loro identità a livello eminentemente transnazionale e globale 2. Nel considerare il caso dell'italodisco possiamo quindi domandarci: in che modo la cultura disco, affermatasi in particolare in Usa, è stata articolata in un paese " periferico " come l'Italia, generando un sottogenere che è stato costruito simbolicamente a partire dalla sua specifi ca identità nazionale? In quali forme la musica italodisco è emersa, si è diffusa e ha continuato a proliferare a livello transazionale? E, inoltre, quali sono gli aspetti in gioco nella costruzione simbolica dell'italianità dell'italodisco, un insieme di elementi identitari diventati signifi cativi prevalentemente al di fuori dei nostri confi ni nazionali? Sebbene qui non sia possibile discutere in modo esaustivo queste varie questioni, l'obiettivo che mi pongo è quello di tracciare alcuni spunti di partenza per un'analisi socio-culturale della musica italodisco nel più ampio contesto della globalizzazione culturale degli ultimi decenni, mettendo in luce alcune delle principali implicazioni produttive, artistiche e simboliche rilevanti nella diffusione di questo " oggetto culturale ". Dunque, in una prima parte dell'articolo considererò la nascita della musica italodisco alla fi ne degli anni Settanta e la sua traiettoria temporale che giunge ai giorni nostri nella forma di una " retromania " nei confronti di un sottogenere musicale precedentemente abbandonato; successivamente mi soffermerò sulle trasformazioni artistiche, organizzative e di mercato che hanno reso possibile il successo della prima ondata di produttori italodisco, osservando in questo contesto l'emergere della centralità della fi gura del " produttore " ; infi ne, approfondirò la questione relativa alle articolazioni della musica italodisco a livello transnazionale, concentrandomi su alcuni aspetti della costruzione simbolica dell'identità dell'italodisco all'interno di fl ussi estetici tipici della globalizzazione culturale. Ricostruire il caso dell'italodisco è anche un'occasione per ragionare più in generale sui processi di costruzione dell'italianità all'interno dei fl ussi culturali transnazionali e, in particolar modo, sulle forme ambigue e contraddittorie attraverso le quali l'identità musicale italiana è divenuta oggetto di appropriazioni, identifi cazioni e alterazioni. Qui l'idea di italianità non è intesa tanto come un'attribuzione oggettiva, riferita ad un'origine geografi ca certifi cata (come nel caso dell'espressione made in Italy), quanto piuttosto alla costruzione simbolica di una relazione tra l'identità di un paese e una serie di caratteristiche estetiche e culturali, che includono anche la moda, l'arte, il design, lo sport e altre forme espressive che si prestino a circolare a livello transnazionale 3. Come vedremo, a partire dal caso dell'italodisco, l'associazione tra produzione culturale e italianità si presenta come una sorta di " gioco di
"The iPad and The «Mosaic» in the Becoming of the Digital Cultural Industry
The article descri... more "The iPad and The «Mosaic» in the Becoming of the Digital Cultural Industry
The article describes the relationship between the recent commercialisation of Apple’s new portable digital device, the iPad – launched at the beginning of 2010 – and the transformation of the world of publishing, of the cultural industry, and more in general of the forms of circulation of digital culture. In particular, this is focused on four questions. Firstly, we consider the role of the iPad with regard to the actual crisis of book and periodical publishing. Then the article examines the technical system of creation and distribution of the applications and contents destined for the iPad, describing their innovative characteristics and their notable impact on the work of creation and diffusion of content. Successively we con- sider the critiques levelled at Apple regarding the excessive control – according to some a genuine kind of censorship – wielded by the company with regard to distributed content. In conclusion, the article finishes by tracing a panorama of the future of the distribution of cultural content which sees the confrontation of two different models of the circulation of content: the model proposed by Apple, and exemplified by the commercialization of the iPad, and the free model opened by the Google search engine.
Keywords: iPad, publishing, cultural industry, digital culture, Google."
In this article it is argued that, in the last few years, hacking practices consisting in the mod... more In this article it is argued that, in the last few years, hacking practices consisting in the modification and subversion of digital devices are undergoing a process of popularization, and hacking-related cultural references and discourses are growing in terms of visibility among new segments of the population, including not only software experts and computer “geeks”, but also amateurs, laypersons and non-experts. To explain this idea, the article focuses on the emerging practice of the creation of a “Hackintosh”, that consists into the modification of a non-Apple computer in order to be able to be used with an Apple operating system. Then I will consider more closely one specific articulation of the Hackintosh practice: the creation of a so-called “MacBook Nano”, a low-cost netbook transformed to an Apple run software. It is precisely around this particular modification that the hackintosh practice has spread through new cultural representations and new ways of circulation of technical skills required, showing that the heterogeneous realm of hacking is today undergoing a change influenced by discourses and representations typical of different social spheres and especially of the cultural environment where ordinary people appropriate, consume, use and readapts products in their everyday lives. The story of the Hackintosh is theoretically and discussed by adopting a “Practice Theory” perspective, thus looking at the process by which hacking objects, skills and cultures are increasingly influenced by cultural elements and discursive strategies belonging to the realm of consumer practices.
Keywords: Hacking, consumption, hackintosh, “consumerization”, Practice theory
"Abstract
Appropriation of listening music technologies: successes, problems and failures in lis... more "Abstract
Appropriation of listening music technologies: successes, problems and failures in listeners’ practices
This paper deals with the forms through which music listeners who uses different kinds of technologies – HiFi equipments, computers, portable players, peer-to-peer software - need to actively appropriate those technologies required to listen to recorder music. Materials presented in this work come from a research conducted between 2005 and 2007 and based on 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with users of music equipments. Data produced with this methodology are thus presented and discussed adopting an approach common in the field of science & technology studies (S&TS). The article stress that the forms thought which people listen to recorded music are, on the one hand, the outcome of technologies’ features and constrains and, on the other hand, the result of an active process of appropriation of these technologies in the context of listeners everyday life.
Keywords: Music listening, technologies, appropriation, «domestication», technological practices."
"Abstract
This article analyses the role of music digital innovations in shaping the social prac... more "Abstract
This article analyses the role of music digital innovations in shaping the social practice of musical consumption. It faces with this research object presenting an analytical frame useful for understanding of the relation between ordinary users and everyday technologies, in so doing focussing on three different analytic dimensions: the symbolic, the cognitive and the pragmatic ones. Therefore this analytical frame is applied in order to understand the processes of appropriation of digital music technologies, thought the analysis of 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with users of digital music devices. Firstly, it's shown how new technologies need to be culturally interpreted by users, and how meanings generated around technologies can be converted in social resources mobilized for listening music as well as for interacting with other people. Secondly, it's considered how technical competences and knowledge represent a key element in shaping the uses of digital music and also how they are embedded in social relations, at the same time shaping the appropriation of technologies and transforming people's social interaction. Finally, the role of the pragmatic interaction between people and technical object is addressed, stressing how social practices emerge as the result of a mutual "co-construction" process occurring between cultural, relational and material dimensions of people's everyday life.
Keywords
technology, social practices, digital music, appropriation, everyday life"
This volume seeks to offer a new approach to the study of music through the lens of recent works ... more This volume seeks to offer a new approach to the study of music through the lens of recent works in science and technology studies (STS), which propose that facts are neither absolute truths, nor completely relative, but emerge from an intensely collective process of construction. Applied to the study of music, this approach enables us to reconcile the human, social, factual, and technological aspects of the musical world, and opens the prospect of new areas of inquiry in musicology and sound studies. Rethinking Music through Science and Technology Studies draws together a wide range of both leading and emerging scholars to offer a critical survey of STS applications to music studies, considering topics ranging from classical music instrument-making to the ethos of DIY in punk music. The book's four sections focus on key areas of music study that are impacted by STS: organology, sound studies, music history, and epistemology. Raising crucial methodological and epistemological questions about the study of music, this book will be relevant to scholars studying the interactions between music, culture, and technology from many disciplinary perspectives. Antoine Hennion is Professor at Mines ParisTech, and the former Director of the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation. He has written extensively on the sociology of music, media, and cultural industries. Christophe Levaux is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liège, Belgium. His research focuses on approaches to 20th-century American music and Actor-Network Theory.
Chapter in In, L. Giorgi, M. Sassatelli and G. Delanty (eds) 'Festivals and the Cultural Public S... more Chapter in In, L. Giorgi, M. Sassatelli and G. Delanty (eds) 'Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere'. London: Routledge (2011)
Sound makes places, and as organised sound music contributes to the sonic organisation of place. ... more Sound makes places, and as organised sound music contributes to the sonic organisation of place. Some sounds, some music genres, make places more than others. Think of folk or ethnic music. As they emanate from shops, cars, or radios, the sounds of folk and traditional music genres typ- ically demarcate neighbourhoods, cities, even whole countries, by signalling that these places ‘belong’ to a specific cultural space (Stokes 1995). Also life-style subcultures often work in this way, that is, by demarcating places in different urban settings. Venues for youth are often char- acterised by the loud music associated with their subcultures, which in this way reclaim certain urban places as their ’natural’ habitat (Bennet 2000; Connell and Gibson 2002). In sum, we can say that music works as a cultural tool in the construction of locality, in the domestication of space, transforming it into a place that could be associated with, and claimed to belong to, par- ticular groups – be they age groups, ethnic groups, or social classes. Anthropologists, ethnomu- sicologists, geographers and sociologists have documented how music can help define the cultural ownership of space by ethnic, regional, generational, national and even economically based groups (e.g. Mitchell 1996; Leyshon, Matless, Revill 1998; Connell and Gibson 2002; Krims 2007). We suggest that with respect to place, music works like architecture or public art: while build- ings, posters or graffiti create particular semiotic spaces, loading them with special meanings, music can function as a marker of specific meaningful places inside geographical spaces... ... ...
Il volume raccoglie i risultati di una ricerca interdisciplinare in tema di Wireless Community Ne... more Il volume raccoglie i risultati di una ricerca interdisciplinare in tema di Wireless Community Networks (WCNs). Le WCNs sono reti wireless basate su tecnologie di frontiera (le wireless mesh networks), territoriali, senza infrastruttura centralizzata, gestite da comunità locali. Le WCNs costituiscono forme di aggregazione sociale, all’interno delle quali gli utenti sono compartecipi di principi e idee, secondo le logiche dei movimenti «open» di condivisione dell’informazione e della conoscenza. Il libro si propone di esplorare questo nuovo fenomeno sotto tre distinti profili: informatico, sociologico, giuridico. Il primo capitolo (di Leonardo Maccari, Tania Bailoni) è dedicato all’analisi tecnologica delle WCNs, spiegandone le funzioni, le ragioni e le potenzialità. Il contributo illustra inoltre un percorso di creazione di una WCN, mediante un caso studio in territorio trentino. Il secondo capitolo (di Stefano Crabu, Paolo Magaudda) analizza il fenomeno delle WCNs dal punto di vist...
From popular music to sound studies: the study of sound cultures
Keywords: sound studies, soun... more From popular music to sound studies: the study of sound cultures
The article offers an introduction to the themes and content of the special issue of «Cultural Studies» dedicated to studying the aural and sonic dimension of culture and society. Starting by considering the different traditions in social and cultural studies focussed on analysis of popular music, the authors trace the lines of continuity and fracture that led to the establishment, during the last decade, of studies of sound as a new and vibrant area of intellectual inquiry on the intertwined relationship between sound, culture and society. The introduction defines the main steps and the intellectual figures that contributed to the establishment of sound studies, paying particular attention on the variety and multiplicity of disciplines and perspectives involved in it. The article also notes that, on the national Italian level, the weakness in interdisciplinary convergence has certainly not helped to develop a shared framework where experimenting a fruitful intellectual interaction on sound cultures, thus this special issue clearly represents a significant step forward on this way. Finally, the article ends by outlining briefly contents of the articles that follows in the issue.
The concept of " digital circulation " , together with the idea of 'social life of digital things... more The concept of " digital circulation " , together with the idea of 'social life of digital things', is highly evocative. Yet science and technology studies have not addressed it in depth to date. This introduction looks at the major converging dimensions examined in the papers in the first part of a special issue focusing on the notion of digital circulation. Specifically, if fo-cuses on digital circulaton's material ontology and on the infrastructures that sustain the processes of circulation, seeing them as pivotal points in theoretical considerations aimed at bridging science and technology studies, media and communication studies and other neighboring fields. This introduction also provides an overview of the articles that make up this issue of Tecnoscienza.
In this presentation I will discuss one specific form of “responsibility” that emerges in the pro... more In this presentation I will discuss one specific form of “responsibility” that emerges in the processes of collaboration between scientific research and business firms in the field of nanotechnology. More specifically, I will consider the question of responsibility for successes and failure in the process of collaboration and innovation, considering how the responsibility is discursively constructed during the establishment of the collaboration between the actors involved in the innovation
The issue of who is responsible for the failure during the collaboration is a crucial problem for the development of the innovation of new products or processes. Indeed, the forms of collaboration aimed at innovating always requires investments, but often they imply the possibility of failure and, therefore, also the eventuality that the collaboration between actors end up with errors and loss of resources, time and money. While this circumstance could represent an obvious and relatively simple issue, a closer analysis of the work of collaboration between different actors shows that the relation between responsibility and trust is a crucial one for the establishment of these collaborations. This presentation aims at showing in what terms the question of the responsibility for the success or failure in innovation processes is raised and discussed within an Italian consortium based in the Veneto Region and focussed on the development of processes of innovation in the field of nanotechnology. The empirical materials used come from a research on the processes of technological collaboration of this consortium and are mainly based on qualitative interviews and the analysis of documents. The analysis shows how this specific dimension of responsibility represents a critical dimension in the work of the innovators. The presentation ends focusing on how this dimension of responsibility has to be take into account when trying to unravel all the different articulations of “responsibility” in the sector of nanotechnology as well as in other technoscientific sectors that imply the collaboration between different actors.
Since the work of classic media theorists such as Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman on " media ec... more Since the work of classic media theorists such as Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman on " media ecology " , media studies have frequently relied on environmental metaphors to address how media technologies are inextricably interwoven with the social world. In more recent years, the use of nature-based metaphors has combined with a growing interest in the relationship between media technology and the physical and natural environment. The relevance of the materiality of media raised in STS (Gillespie et al. 2014), as well as the adoption of an infrastructural perspective to study digital networks (Musiani et al. 2015; Parks and Starosielski 2015) have contributed to highlight how media are interlocked at multiple levels with the material, physical and natural world. These STS perspectives to study media technologies have now begun to converge with other approaches rooted in media studies, such as the work of Parikka on the Geology of Media (2015), putting more and more emphasis on the fact that media are integral part of the physical and natural world. What this whole debate brings to the foreground is the complex and dynamic relationship between media infrastructural materialities with our contemporary socio-technical and natural environment.
With in mind the progressive convergence between STS and media studies, we invite empirical and theoretical presentations that explore in different ways the relationship between media technology and the physical and material environment, intended in a broad and extensive way. The topics relevant for this track include (but are not limited to):
• Studying media as/in environments • The materiality of digital media • Environmental (un)sustainability of media technologies • The " infrastructural turn " in media studies • Ecological media theories and metaphors • De-materialization and re-materialization of digital media • Media sustainability politics and activisms • Users' practices and energy consumption • Media technologies and natural resources • E-waste and the recycling of media technologies
This special issue of Tecnoscienza. The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies will addr... more This special issue of Tecnoscienza. The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies will address the multiple implications of the circulation and the digital life of things, inviting contributions exploring this idea empirically, theoretically and historically from different conceptual perspectives and disciplines. With this special issue we also aim at recalibrating current discussions at the intersection between media studies and STS by using the digital circulation and life of digital things as an entry points to understand politics and materialities of digital networks.
Guest Editors: Gabriele Balbi, University of Lugano (Ch) Alessandro Delfanti, UCSD (Usa) Paolo Magaudda, University of Padova (It)
Deadline for abstract submissions: June 15th, 2015.
Abstracts (in English) with a maximum length of 500 words should be sent as email attachments to redazione@tecnoscienza.net and carbon copied to the guest editors. Notification of acceptance will be communicated by June 30th 2015. Full papers (in English with a maximum length of 8,000 words including notes and references) will be due in October 15th 2015 and will be subject to a double blind peer review process. We expect to publish the special issue in June 2016.
Studi culturali ISSN : 1824-369X. Numero: 2, dicembre 2004, Indice. DOI: 10.1405/17387. T. Pinch ... more Studi culturali ISSN : 1824-369X. Numero: 2, dicembre 2004, Indice. DOI: 10.1405/17387. T. Pinch e F. Trocco, "Analog Days: The invention and Impact of the Moog Synthetizer" Paolo Magaudda, pp. 431-431 € 6 [pdf 105K ...
Studi culturali ISSN : 1824-369X. Numero: 2, dicembre 2006, Indice. DOI: 10.1405/23470. C. Demari... more Studi culturali ISSN : 1824-369X. Numero: 2, dicembre 2006, Indice. DOI: 10.1405/23470. C. Demaria e C. Wright (a cura di), Post-Conflict Cultures. Rituals of Representation Paolo Magaudda, pp. 412-413 7 [pdf 251K ...
Studi culturali ISSN : 1824-369X. Numero: 1, giugno 2006, Indice. DOI: 10.1405/22048. C. Symes, S... more Studi culturali ISSN : 1824-369X. Numero: 1, giugno 2006, Indice. DOI: 10.1405/22048. C. Symes, Setting the Record straight: a Material History of Classical Recordings Paolo Magaudda, pp. 201-204 7 [pdf 313K ...
Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia ISSN : 0486-0349. Numero: 3, luglio-settembre 2007, Indice. DOI: ... more Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia ISSN : 0486-0349. Numero: 3, luglio-settembre 2007, Indice. DOI: 10.1423/25502. M. Bucchi, Scegliere il mondo in cui viviamo. Cittadini, politica, tecnoscienza, 2006 Paolo Magaudda, pp. 585-588 ...
The Symposium is the outcome of a research network established to explore new ways to adopt, crit... more The Symposium is the outcome of a research network established to explore new ways to adopt, criticize and expand the approaches that fall under the definition of practice theory, in relation to different topics, and to answer multiple research questions. The shared foundation underlying the contributions is developed around the metaphor of "contamination": while up to the present the efforts of scholars of major practice theory have been to sharpened to specify a common theoretical framework, we argue that practice theory is at the verge of entering a new stage of diffusion and contamination. Contamination is intended here in a double sense: on the one hand, practice theory is contaminating several fields and domains of social research; on the other hand, its conceptual framework is also being contaminated by other intellectual and theoretical traditions, as it is being innovatively adopted and adapted based on the different topics and questions it addresses. Each of the nine articles comprising the Symposium addresses this contamination in a specific way
Tecnoscienza : Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 2016
: The concept of “digital circulation”, together with the idea of ‘social life of digital things’... more : The concept of “digital circulation”, together with the idea of ‘social life of digital things’, is highly evocative. Yet science and technology studies have not addressed it in depth to date. This introduction looks at the major converging dimensions examined in the papers in the first part of a special issue focusing on the notion of digital circulation. Specifically, if focuses on digital circulaton’s material ontology and on the infrastructures that sustain the processes of circulation, seeing them as pivotal points in theoretical considerations aimed at bridging science and technology studies, media and communication studies and other neighboring fields. This introduction also provides an overview of the articles that make up this issue of Tecnoscienza. Keywords : Digital circulation; media; communication; materiality; infrastructures.
Tecnoscienza : Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 2020
: The paper introduces the ten years anniversary issue of Tecnoscienza. A short history of the jo... more : The paper introduces the ten years anniversary issue of Tecnoscienza. A short history of the journal is presented, together with some reflections about its evolution along the years. Sketching the texts that compose the anniversay issue, we identify some past, present and future themes in STS. Keywords : Tecnoscienza; anniversary; do-it-yourself; academic publishing; STS.
Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem, 2020
The chapter aims at expanding the music scenes studies’ theoretical toolbox by focusing on the no... more The chapter aims at expanding the music scenes studies’ theoretical toolbox by focusing on the notion of infrastructure. The chapter addresses how the notion has been adopted in early music scenes research, arguing that a lack of theorization has characterized seminal works in this field. Then, the chapter takes into account how digital infrastructures have become much more important with the rise of the Internet and digital media, yet research on virtual music scenes has focused more on contents circulating on forums and Web sites than on the influence exerted by digital media’s infrastructural logic. Finally, the chapter explores emerging phenomena, including the role of platforms, algorithmic data flows, and future scenarios opened up by the adoption of blockchain technology in music industry.
Cet article analyse l’émergence de la technologie blockchain au sein de l’industrie de la musique... more Cet article analyse l’émergence de la technologie blockchain au sein de l’industrie de la musique, en prêtant attention aux récits et promesses à propos de son impact sur la circulation de musique enregistrée dans les réseaux numériques. La blockchain est en effet de plus en plus considérée comme la prochaine « révolution » qui affectera l’industrie musicale, la « technologie disruptive » qui bouleversera les règles qui régissent actuellement la commercialisation et la distribution de musique. Cet article examine comment des articles, le discours promotionnel de certaines start-up et d’autres acteurs et écrits contribuent à ce récit et l’alimentent. D’un point de vue théorique, l’analyse s’appuie sur des concepts issus du champ des Sciences Technologie et Société (STS), en particulier du côté des Information Infrastructures Studies, dans l’optique de nourrir les échanges entre sound studies et STS. Afin de rendre compte de l’engouement actuel (hype) pour la blockchain, l’article décrit cinq promesses technologiques que l’on retrouve régulièrement dans les discours vantant cette technologie. Enfin, l’article entend montrer les conséquences potentiellement problématiques, notamment pour ce qui concerne l’établissement de la valeur de la musique et sa circulation, que l’adoption de la blockchain pourrait impliquer.The article analyses the emergence of blockchain technology in music industry, unfolding narratives, expectations and promises surrounding blockchain’s impact on the circulation of digital recorded music. Blockchain is increasingly addressed as the upcoming “revolution” in music industry and is often acclaimed as a new “disruptive technology”, able to change the game in the music business. The article analyses how this innovation is discursively constructed by news articles, start-ups self-presentations and other documents. From a theoretical point of view, the analysis relies on concepts coming from Science & Technology Studies (STS) and especially information infrastructure studies and the study of technological promises, thus enriching the intersection between sound studies and STS. On these bases, the article outlines an overview of the ‘hype’ discourse generated around music blockchain, recognizing five main technological promises supporting the adoption of blockchain. Moreover, it also brings to the foreground some concerns about the possible consequences of this adoption for the evolution of music value and music circulation processes.Este artículo analiza la aparición de la tecnología blockchain dentro de la industria musical. Se interesa a las historias y a las promesas en cuento a su impacto en la circulación de la música grabada en las redes digitales. La blockchain aparece como la próxima «revolución» que afectará a la industria de la música, y como la «tecnología disruptiva» que cambiaría las reglas de comercialización y distribución de la música. Este artículo examina cómo el discurso promocional de ciertas empresas emergentes y otros actores o otros escritos, contribuyen a esta narrativa y la alimentan. Desde un punto de vista teórico, el análisis se basa en conceptos de los estudios sociales de ciencias (CTS), particularmente los estudios de infraestructura de la información, para enriquecer los intercambios entre sound studies y estudios sociales de ciencias. Para describir el hype por la blockchain, el artículo describe cinco promesas tecnológicas que se encuentran regularmente en los discursos de promoción de esa tecnología. Finalmente, el artículo intenta mostrar las consecuencias potencialmente problemáticas de la blockchain, particularmente para el establecimiento del valor de la música y su circulación
Moving from a theory of iconic power, the article offers an understanding on the ways the iconic ... more Moving from a theory of iconic power, the article offers an understanding on the ways the iconic power of Apple technologies has emerged since the first Macintosh advertising cam- paign in 1984. This description of Apple’s iconic power will be the basis for a preliminary re- flection concerning the interwoven dimensions that bond together mobile technologies, cultural meanings and consumer experience in today’s capitalist society. The article shows three different processes through which Apple has become a powerful iconic presence in today’s digital society. The first dimension directly refers to the firm’s communicative strategies and the ways in which Apple has developed its iconic status with advertising by mobilizing wider cultural frameworks and symbolic structures in society. The second dimension refers to the processes involving users’ and consumers’ appropriation of Apple’s meanings and images, with specific reference to the way consumers have developed spiritual involvements toward Apple’s brand as well as a sense of sacral participation in Apple’s identity. Finally, a third dimension concerns how Apple’s icon has become “reframed” and subverted by fans and media, often as a way to articulate and make sense of very different events in society. The appropriation of Apple’s iconic power for different and alternative purposes reveals the partial autonomy of the iconic power gained by digital tech- nologies, which can become the surface on which to articulate cultural structures, dualities and oppositions in contemporary society.
Nel corso dell’ultima decade, un numero crescente di discipline interessate ai processi dell’inno... more Nel corso dell’ultima decade, un numero crescente di discipline interessate ai processi dell’innovazione ha rivolto l’attenzione al fenomeno delle reti wireless comunitarie (RWC). Queste ultime, consolidatesi ormai a livello globale, si configurano come un’infrastruttura costruita e autogestita da appassionati e cittadini, interessati a collaborare su base volontaristica con l’obiettivo di generare un nuovo modello di comunicazione digitale alternativo a Internet e ai servizi commerciali offerti sul mercato dagli Internet Service Provider (ISP). Le RWC rappresentano un caso emblematico per esplorare non solo gli aspetti tecnici di tecnologie sempre più pervasive nella società contemporanea, ma anche per mettere a fuoco le relazioni fra dimensioni sociali, politiche e tecnoscientifiche che sostengono le pratiche di innovazione. Infatti, le più recenti esperienze di RWC hanno acquisito un ruolo centrale nella ridefinizione delle forme di partecipazione e attivismo politico legato ai media digitali, e alle sue forme di innovazione. Questo saggio, sulla base dei dati raccolti attraverso una ricerca qualitativa sulla nascita e sviluppo della principale RWC attiva in Italia, mette in luce in che modo le reti comunitarie rappresentano una peculiare forma di innovazione sociale, là dove un insieme di individui – al di fuori delle tradizionali istituzioni di innovazione e sviluppo e sulla base di valori e credenze politiche – cooperano per dare vita a una nuova infrastruttura capace di sostenere la partecipazione e l’inclusione sociale nella società digitale. Nel fare questo, l’articolo enfatizza la dimensione processuale dell’innovazione sociale quale pratica emergente dalla cooperazione attiva fra soggetti umani e tecnologie, nel corso della quale visioni politiche, strumenti tecnici e partecipazione sociale si influenzano e si trasformano vicendevolmente.
The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, 2014
The chapter focuses on the way responsibility is performed in the actual work of a nanotechnology... more The chapter focuses on the way responsibility is performed in the actual work of a nanotechnology facility in Italy, called Nanofab. In this case, the attention of the analysis is moved on the activation of different forms of mutual responsibility between the actors involved in the work of nanotechnological innovation. Nanofab is described as a “boundary organization” working at the intersection between different spheres (political, economical, scientific). The analysis highlights that the construction of frameworks of responsibility in this situation is linked to at least two aspects: on the one hand to the organizational forms developed to give life to the collective actors emerging during the planning of the research centre considered; and on the other hand to the strategies and practices of collaboration with other actors, implying the establishment of frameworks of responsibility as well as of distribution of risks and of the construction of regimes of reciprocal trust.
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, espe... more Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, especially when we consider the ongoing changes regarding the consumption of cultural goods. This article adopts a theory-of-practice approach to analyse the consequences of dematerialization on the practices of digital music consumption. From an empirical point of view, the article is based on data collected during research into the appropriation of digital music technologies and based on 25 in-depth narrative semi-structured interviews with young Italian digital music consumers. The analysis mainly focuses on the appropriation of three specific technologies involved into the contemporary consumption of music: the iPod, the external hard drive and the vinyl disc. In order to understand the role of materiality in the age of dematerialization, the article adopts the ‘circuit of practice’, an explicative model that enables empirical analysis and that is aimed at highlighting the changing relat...
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of digital com muni cation, adding an understudied historical layer to the exam - ination of digital media and societies. Discussion questions, a timeline, and previously unpub lished tables and maps are included to guide readers as they learn to contextualize and critically analyze the digital tech nologies we use every day.
English presentation:
[Objects to be listened. Hifi, iPod and the consumption of music technology]
The book based on my PhD research is finally ready! It focuses on the relationship between consumption and technology, considering how people use and consume technologies to listen to the music and how this use intersects and is part of the wider everyday life. After a first introductory theoretical chapter (STS, consumption studies, “Practice theory”, media studies), the book presents two empirical case studies, one devoted to HiFi systems’ enthusiasts and another to the uses of digital music technologies.
It is made up by 9 different chapters (written in italian) dealing with several different topics focussing on science and tv, such as quantitative data, experts in tv, use of science within talk shows and others. Here and italian synopsis:
Superquark, Voyager, Elisir, dibattiti sulla prova del Dna e pareri dei più vari esperti nei diversi talk show; informazioni in tempo reale dai Tg su invenzioni e scoperte: scienziati, esperti, prove scientifiche e controversie tecniche sono diventati «ingredienti» sempre più consueti delle trasmissioni televisive, al punto che
non è più possibile comprendere le implicazioni sociali della tecnoscienza senza considerare come essa viene rappresentata dalla televisione. Il volume, risultato di più di tre anni di attività del gruppo di ricerca PaSTIS dell’Università di Padova, analizza il modo in cui i vari format televisivi descrivono, utilizzano e rappresentano la scienza e la tecnologia. L’indagine spazia dalla quantità di notizie scientifiche riportate annualmente dai telegiornali al ruolo degli esperti nei dibattiti televisivi; dalle discussioni sulle tecnologie nel caso di incidenti nelle fabbriche all’evocazione della prova del Dna nei talk show; dai contenuti delle trasmissioni di divulgazione scientifica alle rappresentazioni degli scienziati nella pubblicità. Per l’ampiezza dei dati raccolti, la varietà dei temi trattati e gli approcci di analisi utilizzati, il libro offre un’inedita e consistente panoramica sul rapporto tra tecnoscienza e Tv.
Inquires about the relationship between the field of nanotechnology and the concept of responsibility
Offers an interdisciplinary focus on the connection between technology innovation and its social, ethic and philosophical implications
Addresses both empirical and theoretic levels, offers numerous case studies and reconnects concepts with practical analysis
Keywords » innovation ethics - nanoscale technologies - nanotechnology and responsibility - nanotechnology dangers - nanotechnology development - nanotechnology ethics
Related subjects » Applied Ethics & Social Responsibility - Epistemology & Philosophy of Science - Nanotechnology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction. Nanotechnologies and the quest for responsibility; Simone Arnaldi, Arianna Ferrari, Paolo Magaudda, Francesca Marin.- Part 1 Scrutinizing responsibility. Theoretical explorations into an entangled concept.- Responsibility and visions in the new and emerging technologies; Arianna Ferrari, Francesca Marin.- Features of intergenerational moral responsibility in the age of the emerging technologies; Silvia Zullo.- The Role of responsible stewardship in nanotechnology and synthetic biology; Ilaria Anna Colussi.- Part 2 Technology assessment and public engagement.- Technology assessment beyond toxicology – the case of
nanomaterials; Torsten Fleischer, Jutta Jahnel, Stefanie B. Seitz.- Ethics Research Committees in reviewing nanotechnology clinical trials protocol; Viviana Daloiso, Antonio G. Spagnolo.-Governance of Nanotechnology: engagement and public participation; Giuseppe Pellegrini.- Part 3 Representations and arrangements of responsibility.- Value chain responsibility in emerging technologies; Colette Bos, Harro van Lente.- On being responsible: Multiplicity in responsible development; Sarah R. Davies, Cecilie Glerup, Maja Horst.- Nanotechnology and configurations of responsibilities in boundary organizations; Paolo Magaudda.- Who is responsible? Nanotechnology and responsibility in the Italian daily press; Simone Arnaldi.- Epilogue: Nanotechnology beyond nanotechnologies Responsible Research and Innovation: an emerging issue in research policy rooted in the debate on nanotechnology; Armin Grunwald.- Index.
Interestingly, while the initial call was open to both the music production and consumption sides, the latter has been especially investigated: is it perhaps the sign of an enhanced relevance of listen-
ing practices today, or the evidence of the relative lack of studies on producers? Certainly, it seems
to us that the two dimensions of producing music and listening to it should be more thoroughly investigated in their close relation, where the interplay of technological and cultural aspects does play a crucial role.
We open this issue medias in res with an enjoyable piece by Nikita A. Kharlamov, who reports on the funny yet also somehow uncanny experience which people may have at Macy’s department store in Philadelphia, where an organ performance may unexpectedly take place in the middle of a shopping mall. Nikita’s piece stimulates a number of noticeable reflections on the regimes of the private and the public, on the relation between the economic, cultural and moral-educational domains, on their discursive and spatial separation, as well as what happens when such separations are trumped.
The two following articles proceed to more general considerations on the relationship between music technologies and urban space. On the basis of in-depth interviews, Michael Bull argues that users of mobile devices equipped with headphones employ them to filter out the sounds of the city, replacing the urban soundscape by private sound bubbles. Elena Biserna, however, stresses that, in fact, por- table music players produce a constant swing and strain between physical and acoustic space, and that the neat outcome is a sort of‘multiple dwelling’entailed by the continuous shifts forth and back between shared and private space-times. A number of experimental art installations since the 1980s are used by Elena to illustrate this point.
Two pieces then follow with a focus on specific cities, respectively Berlin and Bologna. Barbara Grüning describes the transformations of two sections of a Berlin neighbourhood (Friedrichshain North and South) in relation to the practices and styles of music consumption that contradistinguish them. In a report on an in-vivo sound project, Riccardo Balli – a.k.a. Dj Balli – brings us to the heart of Bologna, in Italy, and its unique soundscape. Balli’s project is precisely located at the intersection of a sound archive, a crowdsourced soundscape documentation practice, and a music performance.
After these two case studies, a theoretical interlude follows. Claudio Calzoni invites readers to a return on Adorno’s theses on pop culture as concerns especially its music territories: what is the legacy of Adorno’s message in the context of today’s listening practices? On their part, Nicola Bizzaro and Ales- sandro Bratus reflect on the notion of‘music scene’and its usefulness for understanding the relation between location and style.
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, especially when we consider the ongoing changes regarding the consumption of cultural goods. This article adopts a theory-of-practice approach to analyse the consequences of dematerialization on the practices of digital music consumption. From an empirical point of view, the article is based on data collected during research into the appropriation of digital music technologies and based on 25 in-depth narrative semi-structured interviews with young Italian digital music consumers. The analysis mainly focuses on the appropriation of three specific technologies involved into the contemporary consumption of music: the iPod, the external hard drive and the vinyl disc. In order to understand the role of materiality in the age of dematerialization, the article adopts the ‘circuit of practice’, an explicative model that enables empirical analysis and that is aimed at highlighting the changing relationships between materiality and social practices. The analysis shows that music digitalization does not mean less materiality in the actual practice of listeners, that material ‘stuffs’ still occupy a relevant position in digital music, and that materiality nowadays seems to ‘bite back’, being even more crucial in shaping consumers’ practices.
Over the last fifteen years, independent rock music has become a wider field of cultural production and consumption in Italy. Indeed, while during the 1970s and 1990s the production of independent music was connected predominantly to political movements, alternative subcultures and the antagonistic attitude of the 'centri sociali', in the present decade, independent popular music has moved towards the centre of the national music industry and the mass media of the musical mainstream. This article describes the phases of this process of institutionalisation, showing how the politically based culture of independent music is today at the centre of a symbolic struggle occurring between the values of authenticity, rooted in political youth cultures, and the strategic and pragmatic tendency towards integration into the mainstream of the national music industry. This analysis is carried out applying the Bourdieian concepts of 'field of cultural production' and 'cultural capital', together with their evolutions into the notion of 'subcultural capital'. This theoretical framework is applied in order to show both the process of institutionalisation this cultural field is undergoing, and the symbolic struggle taking place between the original values of the political and cultural autonomy of music and the commoditisation of musical objects in the mainstream mass media and national industrial sector. Finally, it is shown how new agents who represent the independent popular music industry at the national level need to deal with claims for authenticity raised by the alternative and extreme wings of the independent music scene.
Keywords: popular culture; independent music; symbolic capital; field of cultural production; subcultural capital"
of digital com muni cation, adding an understudied historical layer to the exam - ination of digital media and societies. Discussion questions, a timeline, and previously unpub lished tables and maps are included to guide readers as they learn to contextualize and critically analyze the digital tech nologies we use every day.
English presentation:
[Objects to be listened. Hifi, iPod and the consumption of music technology]
The book based on my PhD research is finally ready! It focuses on the relationship between consumption and technology, considering how people use and consume technologies to listen to the music and how this use intersects and is part of the wider everyday life. After a first introductory theoretical chapter (STS, consumption studies, “Practice theory”, media studies), the book presents two empirical case studies, one devoted to HiFi systems’ enthusiasts and another to the uses of digital music technologies.
It is made up by 9 different chapters (written in italian) dealing with several different topics focussing on science and tv, such as quantitative data, experts in tv, use of science within talk shows and others. Here and italian synopsis:
Superquark, Voyager, Elisir, dibattiti sulla prova del Dna e pareri dei più vari esperti nei diversi talk show; informazioni in tempo reale dai Tg su invenzioni e scoperte: scienziati, esperti, prove scientifiche e controversie tecniche sono diventati «ingredienti» sempre più consueti delle trasmissioni televisive, al punto che
non è più possibile comprendere le implicazioni sociali della tecnoscienza senza considerare come essa viene rappresentata dalla televisione. Il volume, risultato di più di tre anni di attività del gruppo di ricerca PaSTIS dell’Università di Padova, analizza il modo in cui i vari format televisivi descrivono, utilizzano e rappresentano la scienza e la tecnologia. L’indagine spazia dalla quantità di notizie scientifiche riportate annualmente dai telegiornali al ruolo degli esperti nei dibattiti televisivi; dalle discussioni sulle tecnologie nel caso di incidenti nelle fabbriche all’evocazione della prova del Dna nei talk show; dai contenuti delle trasmissioni di divulgazione scientifica alle rappresentazioni degli scienziati nella pubblicità. Per l’ampiezza dei dati raccolti, la varietà dei temi trattati e gli approcci di analisi utilizzati, il libro offre un’inedita e consistente panoramica sul rapporto tra tecnoscienza e Tv.
Inquires about the relationship between the field of nanotechnology and the concept of responsibility
Offers an interdisciplinary focus on the connection between technology innovation and its social, ethic and philosophical implications
Addresses both empirical and theoretic levels, offers numerous case studies and reconnects concepts with practical analysis
Keywords » innovation ethics - nanoscale technologies - nanotechnology and responsibility - nanotechnology dangers - nanotechnology development - nanotechnology ethics
Related subjects » Applied Ethics & Social Responsibility - Epistemology & Philosophy of Science - Nanotechnology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction. Nanotechnologies and the quest for responsibility; Simone Arnaldi, Arianna Ferrari, Paolo Magaudda, Francesca Marin.- Part 1 Scrutinizing responsibility. Theoretical explorations into an entangled concept.- Responsibility and visions in the new and emerging technologies; Arianna Ferrari, Francesca Marin.- Features of intergenerational moral responsibility in the age of the emerging technologies; Silvia Zullo.- The Role of responsible stewardship in nanotechnology and synthetic biology; Ilaria Anna Colussi.- Part 2 Technology assessment and public engagement.- Technology assessment beyond toxicology – the case of
nanomaterials; Torsten Fleischer, Jutta Jahnel, Stefanie B. Seitz.- Ethics Research Committees in reviewing nanotechnology clinical trials protocol; Viviana Daloiso, Antonio G. Spagnolo.-Governance of Nanotechnology: engagement and public participation; Giuseppe Pellegrini.- Part 3 Representations and arrangements of responsibility.- Value chain responsibility in emerging technologies; Colette Bos, Harro van Lente.- On being responsible: Multiplicity in responsible development; Sarah R. Davies, Cecilie Glerup, Maja Horst.- Nanotechnology and configurations of responsibilities in boundary organizations; Paolo Magaudda.- Who is responsible? Nanotechnology and responsibility in the Italian daily press; Simone Arnaldi.- Epilogue: Nanotechnology beyond nanotechnologies Responsible Research and Innovation: an emerging issue in research policy rooted in the debate on nanotechnology; Armin Grunwald.- Index.
Interestingly, while the initial call was open to both the music production and consumption sides, the latter has been especially investigated: is it perhaps the sign of an enhanced relevance of listen-
ing practices today, or the evidence of the relative lack of studies on producers? Certainly, it seems
to us that the two dimensions of producing music and listening to it should be more thoroughly investigated in their close relation, where the interplay of technological and cultural aspects does play a crucial role.
We open this issue medias in res with an enjoyable piece by Nikita A. Kharlamov, who reports on the funny yet also somehow uncanny experience which people may have at Macy’s department store in Philadelphia, where an organ performance may unexpectedly take place in the middle of a shopping mall. Nikita’s piece stimulates a number of noticeable reflections on the regimes of the private and the public, on the relation between the economic, cultural and moral-educational domains, on their discursive and spatial separation, as well as what happens when such separations are trumped.
The two following articles proceed to more general considerations on the relationship between music technologies and urban space. On the basis of in-depth interviews, Michael Bull argues that users of mobile devices equipped with headphones employ them to filter out the sounds of the city, replacing the urban soundscape by private sound bubbles. Elena Biserna, however, stresses that, in fact, por- table music players produce a constant swing and strain between physical and acoustic space, and that the neat outcome is a sort of‘multiple dwelling’entailed by the continuous shifts forth and back between shared and private space-times. A number of experimental art installations since the 1980s are used by Elena to illustrate this point.
Two pieces then follow with a focus on specific cities, respectively Berlin and Bologna. Barbara Grüning describes the transformations of two sections of a Berlin neighbourhood (Friedrichshain North and South) in relation to the practices and styles of music consumption that contradistinguish them. In a report on an in-vivo sound project, Riccardo Balli – a.k.a. Dj Balli – brings us to the heart of Bologna, in Italy, and its unique soundscape. Balli’s project is precisely located at the intersection of a sound archive, a crowdsourced soundscape documentation practice, and a music performance.
After these two case studies, a theoretical interlude follows. Claudio Calzoni invites readers to a return on Adorno’s theses on pop culture as concerns especially its music territories: what is the legacy of Adorno’s message in the context of today’s listening practices? On their part, Nicola Bizzaro and Ales- sandro Bratus reflect on the notion of‘music scene’and its usefulness for understanding the relation between location and style.
Dematerialization of artefacts and material objects is a relevant issue in consumer studies, especially when we consider the ongoing changes regarding the consumption of cultural goods. This article adopts a theory-of-practice approach to analyse the consequences of dematerialization on the practices of digital music consumption. From an empirical point of view, the article is based on data collected during research into the appropriation of digital music technologies and based on 25 in-depth narrative semi-structured interviews with young Italian digital music consumers. The analysis mainly focuses on the appropriation of three specific technologies involved into the contemporary consumption of music: the iPod, the external hard drive and the vinyl disc. In order to understand the role of materiality in the age of dematerialization, the article adopts the ‘circuit of practice’, an explicative model that enables empirical analysis and that is aimed at highlighting the changing relationships between materiality and social practices. The analysis shows that music digitalization does not mean less materiality in the actual practice of listeners, that material ‘stuffs’ still occupy a relevant position in digital music, and that materiality nowadays seems to ‘bite back’, being even more crucial in shaping consumers’ practices.
Over the last fifteen years, independent rock music has become a wider field of cultural production and consumption in Italy. Indeed, while during the 1970s and 1990s the production of independent music was connected predominantly to political movements, alternative subcultures and the antagonistic attitude of the 'centri sociali', in the present decade, independent popular music has moved towards the centre of the national music industry and the mass media of the musical mainstream. This article describes the phases of this process of institutionalisation, showing how the politically based culture of independent music is today at the centre of a symbolic struggle occurring between the values of authenticity, rooted in political youth cultures, and the strategic and pragmatic tendency towards integration into the mainstream of the national music industry. This analysis is carried out applying the Bourdieian concepts of 'field of cultural production' and 'cultural capital', together with their evolutions into the notion of 'subcultural capital'. This theoretical framework is applied in order to show both the process of institutionalisation this cultural field is undergoing, and the symbolic struggle taking place between the original values of the political and cultural autonomy of music and the commoditisation of musical objects in the mainstream mass media and national industrial sector. Finally, it is shown how new agents who represent the independent popular music industry at the national level need to deal with claims for authenticity raised by the alternative and extreme wings of the independent music scene.
Keywords: popular culture; independent music; symbolic capital; field of cultural production; subcultural capital"
The article describes the relationship between the recent commercialisation of Apple’s new portable digital device, the iPad – launched at the beginning of 2010 – and the transformation of the world of publishing, of the cultural industry, and more in general of the forms of circulation of digital culture. In particular, this is focused on four questions. Firstly, we consider the role of the iPad with regard to the actual crisis of book and periodical publishing. Then the article examines the technical system of creation and distribution of the applications and contents destined for the iPad, describing their innovative characteristics and their notable impact on the work of creation and diffusion of content. Successively we con- sider the critiques levelled at Apple regarding the excessive control – according to some a genuine kind of censorship – wielded by the company with regard to distributed content. In conclusion, the article finishes by tracing a panorama of the future of the distribution of cultural content which sees the confrontation of two different models of the circulation of content: the model proposed by Apple, and exemplified by the commercialization of the iPad, and the free model opened by the Google search engine.
Keywords: iPad, publishing, cultural industry, digital culture, Google."
Keywords: Hacking, consumption, hackintosh, “consumerization”, Practice theory
Appropriation of listening music technologies: successes, problems and failures in listeners’ practices
This paper deals with the forms through which music listeners who uses different kinds of technologies – HiFi equipments, computers, portable players, peer-to-peer software - need to actively appropriate those technologies required to listen to recorder music. Materials presented in this work come from a research conducted between 2005 and 2007 and based on 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with users of music equipments. Data produced with this methodology are thus presented and discussed adopting an approach common in the field of science & technology studies (S&TS). The article stress that the forms thought which people listen to recorded music are, on the one hand, the outcome of technologies’ features and constrains and, on the other hand, the result of an active process of appropriation of these technologies in the context of listeners everyday life.
Keywords: Music listening, technologies, appropriation, «domestication», technological practices."
This article analyses the role of music digital innovations in shaping the social practice of musical consumption. It faces with this research object presenting an analytical frame useful for understanding of the relation between ordinary users and everyday technologies, in so doing focussing on three different analytic dimensions: the symbolic, the cognitive and the pragmatic ones. Therefore this analytical frame is applied in order to understand the processes of appropriation of digital music technologies, thought the analysis of 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with users of digital music devices. Firstly, it's shown how new technologies need to be culturally interpreted by users, and how meanings generated around technologies can be converted in social resources mobilized for listening music as well as for interacting with other people. Secondly, it's considered how technical competences and knowledge represent a key element in shaping the uses of digital music and also how they are embedded in social relations, at the same time shaping the appropriation of technologies and transforming people's social interaction. Finally, the role of the pragmatic interaction between people and technical object is addressed, stressing how social practices emerge as the result of a mutual "co-construction" process occurring between cultural, relational and material dimensions of people's everyday life.
Keywords
technology, social practices, digital music, appropriation, everyday life"
...
...
Keywords: sound studies, sound cultures, space, technology, interdisciplinarity
The article offers an introduction to the themes and content of the special issue of «Cultural Studies» dedicated to studying the aural and sonic dimension of culture and society. Starting by considering the different traditions in social and cultural studies focussed on analysis of popular music, the authors trace the lines of continuity and fracture that led to the establishment, during the last decade, of studies of sound as a new and vibrant area of intellectual inquiry on the intertwined relationship between sound, culture and society. The introduction defines the main steps and the intellectual figures that contributed to the establishment of sound studies, paying particular attention on the variety and multiplicity of disciplines and perspectives involved in it. The article also notes that, on the national Italian level, the weakness in interdisciplinary convergence has certainly not helped to develop a shared framework where experimenting a fruitful intellectual interaction on sound cultures, thus this special issue clearly represents a significant step forward on this way. Finally, the article ends by outlining briefly contents of the articles that follows in the issue.
The issue of who is responsible for the failure during the collaboration is a crucial problem for the development of the innovation of new products or processes. Indeed, the forms of collaboration aimed at innovating always requires investments, but often they imply the possibility of failure and, therefore, also the eventuality that the collaboration between actors end up with errors and loss of resources, time and money. While this circumstance could represent an obvious and relatively simple issue, a closer analysis of the work of collaboration between different actors shows that the relation between responsibility and trust is a crucial one for the establishment of these collaborations. This presentation aims at showing in what terms the question of the responsibility for the success or failure in innovation processes is raised and discussed within an Italian consortium based in the Veneto Region and focussed on the development of processes of innovation in the field of nanotechnology. The empirical materials used come from a research on the processes of technological collaboration of this consortium and are mainly based on qualitative interviews and the analysis of documents. The analysis shows how this specific dimension of responsibility represents a critical dimension in the work of the innovators. The presentation ends focusing on how this dimension of responsibility has to be take into account when trying to unravel all the different articulations of “responsibility” in the sector of nanotechnology as well as in other technoscientific sectors that imply the collaboration between different actors.
With in mind the progressive convergence between STS and media studies, we invite empirical and theoretical presentations that explore in different ways the relationship between media technology and the physical and material environment, intended in a broad and extensive way. The topics relevant for this track include (but are not limited to):
• Studying media as/in environments
• The materiality of digital media
• Environmental (un)sustainability of media technologies
• The " infrastructural turn " in media studies
• Ecological media theories and metaphors
• De-materialization and re-materialization of digital media
• Media sustainability politics and activisms
• Users' practices and energy consumption
• Media technologies and natural resources
• E-waste and the recycling of media technologies
Info on the conference and on submission procedures: http://www.stsitalia.org/conferences/ocs/index.php/STSIC/STE
Guest Editors:
Gabriele Balbi, University of Lugano (Ch)
Alessandro Delfanti, UCSD (Usa)
Paolo Magaudda, University of Padova (It)
Deadline for abstract submissions: June 15th, 2015.
Abstracts (in English) with a maximum length of 500 words should be sent as email attachments to redazione@tecnoscienza.net and carbon copied to the guest editors. Notification of acceptance will be communicated by June 30th 2015. Full papers (in English with a maximum length of 8,000 words including notes and references) will be due in October 15th 2015 and will be subject to a double blind peer review process. We expect to publish the special issue in June 2016.
http://www.tecnoscienza.net/index.php/tsj/announcement/view/19