Social media in Chile’s indie music scene: crossing local and global boundaries
Arturo Arriagada & Macarena Lavín
In Ballico, C. (2021). Geographically Isolated and Peripheral Music Scenes Global Insights and
Perspectives. Palgrave, pp. 97-116.
Abstract
This chapter examines how social media platforms strengthen the independent scene in
Chile by bringing artists closer to their fan base and helping them make decisions about
their music in looking to international reach. Chile, isolated by distance and geography, has
a small population (17 million) compared to other Latin countries, and is not as attractive
to investments from the music industry. Based on data gathered from different actors within
the current scene (bands, solo projects, label personnel, fans) from three cities (Santiago,
Valparaíso, and Concepción) (N: 30), we discusses the impact social media has on the
promotion and consumption of music; and on the organization of the scene across local
and international boundaries. We argue that Chile’s indie scene centrally revolves around
social media, not only for the promotion of music and gigs, but also to facilitate the exchange
between music, fans, and labels. The centrality of social media has overcomes an otherwise
sense of isolation from global music scenes. Indie values are configured around an
entrepreneurial and adaptable spirit, and so has seen the most growth through social media,
even though some tensions emerge for different actors of the scene in relation to selfpromotion, socialization, and precariousness.
1
Introduction
In this chapter we examine how social media platforms strengthen the independent scene
in Chile by bringing artists closer to their fan base and helping them make decisions about
their music in looking to international reach. Chile, isolated by distance and geography, has
a small population (19.4 million) compared to other Latin American countries, and is not as
attractive to investments from the music industry. Indeed, and in spite of some efforts by
major labels (e.g. EMI, Sony) to lift Chilean music during the nineties, the less than promising
outcomes dissuaded future investment in local records. Soon after the advent of the internet,
a crisis struck the independent scene hardest; it had to rebuild from nearly ashes in order
to put out material. With some new small labels, the sector started to grow, helped by new
social media like MySpace, and specialized press began in earnest in the form of blogs and
some magazines. From garage to electro-pop, the scene was healthier than ever, and the
community grew. The local scene, however —concentrated mainly in Santiago, Chile’s
capital, with many independent record labels, and a wide range of styles in bands and solo
projects — continued to receive lukewarm coverage from the press, which tends to cover
international acts. Alongside specialized press, social Media has become one of the most
relevant tools in the Chilean independent scene in promoting local labels and acts. Metrics
provided by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify inform musician touring
locations and influence live music promoters on which acts have enough audience to be
included in international festivals.
This chapter reports on data gathered from different actors within the current scene (bands,
solo projects, label personnel, fans) from three cities (Santiago, Valparaíso, and Concepción)
(N: 30), and discusses the impact social media has on the promotion and consumption of
music; and on the organization of the scene across local and international boundaries. We
argue that Chile’s indie scene centrally revolves around social media, not only for the
promotion of music and gigs, but also to facilitate the exchange between music, fans, and
labels. The centrality of social media has overcomes an otherwise sense of isolation from
global music scenes. Indie values are configured around an entrepreneurial and adaptable
spirit, and so has seen the most growth through social media, even though some tensions
emerge for different actors of the scene in relation to self-promotion, socialization, and
precariousness.
2
The first section describes the methodology and case studies. The second section goes on
to analyze social media impact on musician activities, and on the structure of music scenes
themselves. Then, we present a brief account of the evolution of Chile’s music industry, as
well as the emergence of the indie music scene in parallel with that of the internet. Third,
we present some reflections from actors involved in Chile’s indie music scene on the role of
social media platforms in locally and internationally promoting their music, and close with
commentary on those reflections.
Methodology and case studies
This chapter is based on 30 interviews with musicians (18), record label executives (7), and
fans (6) based in three different cities: Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción. The selection
of participants was made after interviewing a group of experts (8) including music
journalists, major international label executives, and musicians. Music fans were contacted
after interviewing musicians who were asked about their experiences with fans. Interview
topics included uses of social media platforms (e.g. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and
Twitter) for promotion, music consumption, and socialization experiences. Interviews were
conducted in person and lasted approximately 45 minutes to an hour. They were all
recorded with participants’ consent between May 2016 and January 2017. For privacy
concerns, the names of interviewees are changed. Interview transcripts were coded and
analyzed using a grounded theory approach, analyzing the data as it was collected and
contrasting each interviews’ topic with the other (Glaser & Strauss, 1969).
Music scenes, locality and digital technologies
Previous studies of music scenes (Bennett & Peterson, 2004, Becker, 2004, Lloyd, 2005)
have thoroughly explored the social and spatial processes through which they are
configured, e.g., the spaces that shape cultural production and involve musicians, producers
and fans. These exclusive spaces create networks of co-existing cultural producers,
comparable to urban neighbors (Florida, 2003, Hauge & Hracs, 2010, Lloyd, 2005). The
networks of relations that emerge in such spaces have been classified as “local, global, [or]
virtual” scenes based on the spatial and socio-cultural diversity of actors and the physical
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places of their activities (Bennett & Peterson, 2004). A local scene is a ‘social activity that
takes place in a delimited space and over a specific span of time in which clusters of
producers, musicians, and fans realise their common musical taste’ (2004, p. 8); ‘translocal
scenes’ are local music scenes oriented towards one style of music that has established
contact and exchanges with other local scenes in different places – as enabled by fanzines,
recordings, and digital technologies; and ‘virtual’ music scenes are the result of
communications via the internet between fan clubs separated geographically, relegated to
chat rooms or mailing lists where fans control communication and the exchange of
information.
As Arriagada (2014) points out, Bennett and Peterson neglect to trace the relationships of
digital technologies situated within networks and localities, or, more importantly, the
meanings musicians and fans give to the scenes’ cultural production and digital
technologies. Other authors have not overlooked the material arrangements and symbolic
production around music and the activities involved in the making of a scene. For instance,
in his account of Santiago’s indie music scene, Tironi (2012) describes the role of “sociotechnical mediators” as key agents (e.g. fans, musicians, producers) who promote and
circulate the scene’s cultural production through virtual and face-to-face networks facilitated
by digital technologies (e.g. music websites, social media and online forums). Such actors
assemble different spatialities, actors, and networks of exchange, production and circulation
of music.
Social media, musicians and music scenes
Musicians, in making their music visible and available for audiences through social media
platforms, take on roles of self-promotion for their music, gigs and merchandising. These
may be understood as a set of practices for establishing connections with audiences at
different geographic scales: as Baym (2015) suggests, musicians not only seek to build
relations with audiences, but also expect to make money from their work. To achieve this
“intimate work of connection” (Baym 2015, p. 26-27), they rely on social media to situate
themselves in networks where different flows of objects, symbols, and relations (Appadurai,
1986) take form around music. However, in spite of the opportunities these tools give them,
musicians are unsure of the role of social media in their activities; while they celebrate their
4
promotional uses, they are critical against how algorithms organize and present their
content (Bucher, 2017; Scolere et al., 2018).
Social media has also affected the consumption and socialization of music fans. In the
exchange of music and content across platforms, fans are no longer passive consumers of
musicians’ work and activities, but rather promoters (Arriagada, 2014; Baym & Burnett,
2009). Similarly, through “digital cultural capital” (Arriagada & Concha, 2019), fans connect
the values and identities of a scene to brands and consumers at branded music events. This
also impacts the configuration of music scenes, for instance, by facilitating multiple
spatialities around music production and consumption, and a constant redefinition of
scenes’ identities. The sense of “locality” within a scene based on shared real-world or faceto-face encounters is now contested by the use of digital technologies (Tironi, 2012). Music
fans also curate music and information on musicians, virtually creating “buzz”, no longer
performed in the immediacy and closeness of face-to-face interactions (Tironi, 2012;
Arriagada, 2014). Where Chile is small, and indie music is niche, the term local is here not
referring to a specific city. Rather, we include the current virtual sphere and its past
contributions to the local scene with Fotolog, Myspace, and later with social media such as
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (Arriagada, 2014; Arriagada & Cruz, 2014).
Chile’s music industry
Chilean popular music was buoyant during the sixties two very distinctive styles spilled ink
and filled airtime. The first of these, La Nueva Ola (New Wave), was led by performers
influenced by whitewashed American rock and roll or twists on pop singers. The industry
backed them profusely with heavy rotation and media exposure and carried a tight
relationship with the fanbase through letters and the creations of fan clubs. By the end of
the decade, a new force came in the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song), which
explored social issues and was rooted in guitars and Andean instruments. These acts were
signed by the communist party record label, later called DICAP, and their fans were largely
working class and University students (Garcia, 2013).
The 1973 Coup, however, meant a cultural black out for Chile. Music content was dominated
by American influence, much more than other countries of the region (Negus, 1996).
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Importing international music was cheaper than to produce it locally. Like television
programming, national radio shows and record shops were filled with foreign content, and
radio broadcasters often chose international music for the quality of sound (García, 2013).
By the time Chile was connected with the rest of the world, it was unable to properly produce
its own music, and could not export it either. The industry continued to give more space to
international music for at least a few more decades. All these factors weakened the local
Chilean music scene, preventing the creation of a strong community around music, and
bolstered the sense of isolation from other parts of the world.
Rock, folk, and pop music styles were much more rarely published than were ballads and
tropical records. This changed with the eruption of Los Prisioneros in the mid-eighties, and
the influence of Argentinian rock changed the music industry. Major labels such as EMI
opened a local office to sign Chilean bands and artists, who were more often backed by new
media and youth magazines. The hype, unfortunately, did not match the success of the
bands - with the exception of Los Prisioneros and, to a lesser extent, UPA! – and the socalled “boom” was over within a couple of years. This ended up being more an “industry
movement rather than an artistic one” (Jürgensen 2019, p. 82). The audience still preferred
foreign, and especially Anglo, music, soon reflected in the radio stations and local magazines
that once supported the few Chilean pop bands.
The return of democracy promised new horizons in 1990, with seemingly better possibilities
for the development of the music industry in Chile. More clubs played live, and the media
shifted toward juvenile segments in newspapers (e.g., Zona de Contacto in El Mercurio), and
the new radio station Rock & Pop freshened up the broadcasting industry (Jofré, 2011).
These initiatives gave space to new or local bands, as well as a voice to the fans. The major
labels had their stake too. In the mid-90s, EMI launched a project called El Nuevo Rock
Chileno (The New Chilean Rock) that contracted three albums from eight different local
bands; while only a few of these enjoyed popularity, others, such as Polygram or BMG, also
produced successful local music (Jofré, 2011). This was referred to as media imperialism
by Negus (1996, p. 169), who describes how conglomerates exerted “direct control over
local media organization by appointing particular staff, or by directly intervening in day to
day operations, or by withdrawing or supplying investment”.
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As record label investments came with too many caveats to outweigh the outcomes, they
stopped investing in local records. Chile solidified its peripheral status - the main music
services and record labels have no offices in the country (Ballico, 2013).
Chile’s indie music scene
As in other countries, the emergence of Chile’s indie music scene at the beginning of 2000s
was parallel to the global music record industry crisis and the increasing use of the internet
as a tool for the production, distribution and consumption of music (Erlij & Ponce, 2011).
Napster's breakthrough in 1999 heralded the era of the mp3 and the digitization of music
culture. However, as Leyshon et al. (2005, p. 180-181) suggest:
The rise of Internet piracy cannot be held solely responsible for the depth and severity
of the crisis of the musical economy... the emergence of software formats and Internet
distribution systems represent what can be described as a ‘tipping point’ … that has
triggered a wholesale reorganisation of the music industry towards a new business
model.
The later rise of social media, along with ever-increasing broadband speeds, further
transformed the terrain of culture into a multiple-mediated space of clashing interests,
actors and objects, ideas and aesthetics, which proliferate and come together in new, hybrid
forms, and where the lines between structure and agency can no longer be clearly discerned.
There is a tension, then, between the present configuration of cultural fields - described and
analyzed by scholars as ‘post subcultural’ (Muggleton, 2003) - pursuant to large-scale social,
economic, cultural and technological shifts known all together as ‘globalisation’. The
meanings of music consumption, production, content, and scope undergo significant
changes as well: thus the persistence of ‘indie’ as a mode of self-identification. To the extent
that consumers are proficient in their use of a variety of digital technologies, they have also
come to acquire a new status and function in the field of cultural production.
Soon after the crisis struck the Chilean music industry, the well-known major labels were
not particularly keen to produce new, and less so alternative, music. With no space,
musicians were only received negatively by record companies. Soon, the independent sector
was forced into self-entrepreneurship based on “uncertainty and risk; competence in
7
deciding on location, structure, and the use of goods, resources, and institutions; and
creative opportunism” (Heebels & van Aalst, 2010), rebuilding, putting out their own
material, and setting up their own record labels with little resources. Record labels like
Quemasucabeza, Algorecords, Capsula Discos, and Jacobino discos, to name a few, were
founded. In the mid-2000s, the live industry continued a path of self-production by
organizing small festivals like Neutral and Pirata. Musicians and labels in this era advanced
little by little, opting for the available opportunities and resources. In working independently,
to paraphrase Connell and Gibson (2003, p. 96), this remote and isolated scene put
emphasis in pre-capitalist ‘craft’ production values. The Do-It-Yourself (DIY)1 spirit was the
driving force in the soon to be united scene. Between 2005 and 2011, the Chilean
independent music industry increased by 400% in the number of companies created in this
area, while sales grew by 500%. According to Chile’s National Arts Council, 60% of the total
of music produced and distributed came from independent labels (CNCA 2014).
Chile’s indie music scene took on a hybrid identity resulting from the precarious
characteristics of indie cultural industries (e.g. flexible work, freelancing, unstable
conditions), gathering different genres of music - from folk to rock and electronic - and was
characterized by its limited access to mainstream markets and audiences (Tironi, 2009). Its
three main principles may be summarized as: 1) the hybridity of music creation - mixed
styles - is difficult to identify; 2) all musical projects expand and engage in non-conventional
procedures for creation (field recordings, circuit bending, and instrument recycling) and
diffusion (net labels, art performances); 3) and suffers from commercial marginalization in
the limited access to mainstream commercial markets and audiences (Tironi, 2009, p. 32).
Chile’s music industry, as well as the emergence of an indie scene across different cities,
was particularly receptive of the reconfiguration from digital technologies. We suggest social
media has opened new doors for music distribution, connections with different networks of
exchange (e.g. local, national, and international), and has redefined the sense of isolation of
Chile as a periphery of the global music industry. We examine how musicians, fans, and
labels experience the emergence of social media on their activities and their relationship
with their, and other international, scenes.
This ethos arose out of the early punk movement and encourages ‘regular’ people to make culture, rather than
remaining confined to commercially produced cultural goods (Spencer, 2005).
1
8
Discussion
Building an audience, connecting through networks of exchange
The first transformation described by interviewees, especially label executives (from majors
and indie labels), was the redefinition of the role of mass media and social media for
promotional uses. Where independent labels saw opportunity in the wake of the internet to
promote their catalogues, the majors were occasionally disoriented with the newly
omnipresent and rapidly changing business model. The traditional networks through which
music was promoted (e.g., radio, newspapers, specialized magazines, spaces for gigs) were
redefined when musicians took some control of promotional aspects of their careers with
emergent platforms like MySpace. As a Chilean executive from Universal label recalled, the
permissions were ill-defined and “that created a space in which not, so long ago, like 10 or
15 years ago, we didn’t know which download platform was legal or illegal”. The industry
heyday was about to change as well, and not everyone would integrate the new forms of
functions instantly.
Independent labels or artists tend to work with small teams. Most are artists themselves
who, apart from recording songs and playing gigs, promote music and live shows, release
records, and so on (Tironi, 2009). It has taken some years to hire extra staff to professionalize
this work, and since they have incorporated publishers, and from the 2010s onwards, social
media managers. The independent sector recognizes platforms uses in promoting their
music; usually they connect with the younger, technology literate audiences.
Some newer small labels started to grow with the help of social media platforms like
MySpace. At that time, Andrea, the founder of one of the most important indie labels based
in Santiago, recalls that she used to follow music related accounts in order to reach a larger
audience:
In terms of diffusion, for a long time, you had to do a very thorough investigation of
who was who on the Internet at that time, because the networks did not exist as
clearly as they do now. And that example of Myspace is one, it was my home base. I
saw posters for someone's gig and I got into the followers that they had and, there I
was, promoting or ‘viralizing’ what seemed to me (needed) to be known at that time.
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MySpace was used by all sorts of musicians and music styles, especially singers/songwriters,
to meet up and organize gigs. It was also primordial to independent musicians, as Juan —a
musician from a hip-hop indie band—remembers:
The first (platform) that helped us as a band was MySpace. That helped Chilean hip
hop in general to spread the word, because it was flashy, it was about music, and
several rap groups that I know now I met them on MySpace. I think that helped us a
lot, we had several followers.
There is a shared sense described by musicians and label executives in relation to the
possibilities social media has in reaching specific audiences. Compared to mass media like
television, radio, or newspapers, which promote music “to the masses”, musicians may now
reach specific audiences according to location, age, and other preferences that platforms
offer as part of their services. Musicians and executives describe social media as “windows”
for potential audiences to look through. In this sense, they are useful tools to connect with
other scenes or audiences and become part of local, national, and international networks.
Their sense of place or locality is hybrid, where face-to-face and virtual interactions collide.
As Andrés, from an emergent indie band that constantly use Facebook to promote their
music describes:
The internet and social media allow a guy from Perú or Mexico to write you, and be
able to hear or like your music before someone who lives one block from your place.
From that point of view, social media are valuable.
For Andrea, the director of an indie music label based in Santiago, social media gave their
label opportunities to reach international scenes, with her first breakthrough a music festival
in Mexico in 2015. Some of their catalog’s artists were playing small gigs in Mexico, and
they have a considerable fan base. The label decided to organize Neutral, a music festival
with Chilean artists in the Ciudad de Mexico. Andrea contacted different music websites and
media partners, for instance, Remezcla —the U.S. website dedicated to Latin population—
and Panamerika, from Mexico, to promote Neutral. Something —according to her— that
would be impossible to achieve in Chile, because is difficult to facilitate cooperation among
competitors, in this case, music websites, mass media, and record labels.
We organized a campaign on social media —especially on Twitter— that began at 12
noon, and lasted an hour, and every 5 minutes, a media partner was announcing an
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artist name of the festival. Every five minutes Remezcla announced an artist of the
Neutral festival. Five minutes passed and Remezcla announced the new artist and it
was a success… all the Mexican fans and our media partners retweeted our content.
(...) If one of them was late, everything would get messy, but it was perfect. And we
finished the activity and became a trending topic in Mexico!
Contesting isolation through marketized forms of promotion
Musicians, label executives, and fans constantly referred to a sense of isolation. Chile’s small
population affects their abilities to make a living, is a small market for music investment,
and has few venues (Garland, 2019). It is common for musicians and labels to think about
larger markets for their music, especially Mexico. Competition over scarce resources is
intense, especially governmental resources distributed across different national regions to
fund music festivals or record production. Actors have experienced important changes to
their scenes, in their relations with marketized forms of promotion, and with social media in
accumulating audiences and getting the attention of brands to sponsor their activities. In
the same way, there are blogs and webpages covering the scene and looking to get funds
from brands via advertising (Arriagada & Cruz, 2014). For musicians and label executives, it
is difficult to define a strategy to reach brands, even though they understand that social
media metrics (e.g., reproductions, followers, likes) prove impact across audiences. However,
metrics are key for musicians to reach new audiences, especially outside Chile. As a
musician based in Santiago describes:
Each time I collect metrics from our social media accounts, I write them down. It is
useful because it allows you to take out that number from the platform and convert
into a potential fan or a person that comes to a gig. Also, if I know that 100 followers
are based in Mexico City, I’ll try to do my best to play there with the band.
In the last decade, new international festivals like Lollapalooza and Fauna Primavera have
helped to revitalize the Chilean independent scene, including some acts in their lineups,
positioning them related to popularity with international indie acts, giving these musicians
more visibility to a wider audience, and securing a place in future iterations. Those goals
rely on social relations built by musicians, labels, and fans, locally and internationally. For
instance, the director of a label based in Concepción (Chile’s largest southern city) relies on
11
Facebook to organize tours for international acts to play in Chile, and tries to promote their
catalog across those networks.
The people of (the Puerto Rican band) Cultura Profética contacted us. That’s what
social media has, they bring you closer to unimaginable people. That happened
because we brought a band called Dread Mar I —which is quite popular in Latin
America as part of a festival we organized in Concepción— and thanks to that we will
bring Cultura Profética and they will play with a band from our catalog, so we have
the opportunity to promote their work through Cultura Profética’s networks.
As Garland (2019) suggests, indie in Chile has emerged in relation to “transnationally
circulating indie media generated in the global north, with which Chileans engage but within
which they are rarely represented” (p. 3). Indie bands from the U.S. or Europe regularly play
in Chile, helping to build “an outside public sphere of indie seldom interpolated by indie
practices taking place within Chile, whose center is Santiago” (Garland 2019, p. 3).
Interviewees had a shared desire that Chile’s indie music scene and bands would be
recognized by the global north media and scenes. Some policies have been created to
finance the internationalization of bands through governmental agencies (Chile Creativo) or
Chile’s National Council of Culture and the Arts (CNCA), and are useful for bands and
musicians to finance their trips to global north events like South by Southwest (SXSW) in
Austin or Sonar Festival in Barcelona; however, resources are scarce, and some musicians
are critical against these initiatives. For instance, Andrés —a musician based in Santiago—
travelled to SXSW with his band after get funding from Chile’s National Arts Council in 2017.
For him, it was great playing abroad as part of an important music event, but “this is a
specific activity that allow us to write on Twitter —hey, we are playing at SXSW!”, then
uploading a picture of the band’s Instagram account, and “that’s it, because there is no
continuity —and resources— to build an audience in places where nobody knows about my
band”. Thus, independently of the opportunity musicians have in promoting their work on
social media, sometimes reaching international audiences, these efforts are not always
supported by policies and public funding.
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Working for the love of music
In the mid-2010s, a new music bill was enacted. This measure dictated that radio stations
had to broadcast 20% of their songs from Chilean bands. However, the most well-known
acts are broadcasted during the day, and those less well known, very late at night. So, the
flourishing scene is still not necessarily supported by traditional media, even if it seemed
that way for a moment. For instance, the Spanish newspaper El País published an article
titled “Chile, el nuevo paraíso del pop” (Chile, the new pop paradise) in 2011 (López 2011).
The endorsement and acknowledgment from a Spanish newspaper and the coverage from
other important international music blogs (e.g., Pitchfork and Je Nai Ses Pop) gave the
independent scene fresh air and attention. The local mass media focused on it as never
before, trying to look for the next pop generation in hyping new bands and artists. However,
in recent years some written publications have closed down, so independent music has not
reached full representation and media coverage over a long enough timeline. Many labels
and acts still have promotion strategies in digital platforms and social media. As Elena —a
head of press of an indie record label— describes the relation with mass media and social
media to promote their artists:
When you need to promote a show, an album or whatever, you go to the press to
help you in diffusion, and on the other hand, you post the content yourself. That’s
why you go on social media, because you know that the press is not considering you.
The sense of isolation is not only that of remoteness from the global music scene, but also
to what Garland (2019, p. 3-5) defines as “amiguismo” (friendism): a shared sense by
musicians that the cultural and economic organization of the scene is possible through a
group of people that know and give interpersonal favors to each other —from musicians,
bloggers, to venue owners and show promoters. In this context of “amiguismo”, and without
the support of mass media, label publishers are doing extra work to just be present, to have
the music they are promoting go out and get to the public. That said, musicians and fans
working together for the promotion of music overcomes the sense of isolation —as a
musician from Valparaiso describes— “working for the love of music”. This is what Baym
(2017) calls “relational labor”: being available to fans on Facebook or Instagram, responding
to comments and questions from fans, implementing strategical promotion of gigs, music
13
videos, and albums. As Julio —a musician based in Santiago— explains, his strategy is to
keep the fans updated with his activities, but also to combine that content with his opinions
on public affairs, share his music videos, and hang with fans:
When a gig comes, I tweet three times a day, and when the date gets closer, I tweet
five times a day with links to the venue, and the gig’s poster. I also share jokes with
fans, giving my opinions about politics, especially on Facebook.
Social media works as a connection and tool among labels, artists and the fanbase in
creating their own content. They interact not just as concert goers, but share photos and
videos; these publications are picked up by the artists, so the relationship among them
intensifies. As Tarassi (2017) suggests, digital technologies bring artists and audiences
closer together. Musicians multi-task across activities to promote their music and to make
a living; this combination of music and traditional labor is becoming more common
throughout the world.
Conclusion
In this chapter we examined how social media platforms strengthen the independent scene
in Chile by bringing artists closer to their fan base and helping them make decisions about
their music when looking to expand internationally. We argued that Chile’s indie scene
centrally revolves around social media, not only for the promotion of music and gigs, but to
also facilitate the exchange between music, fans, and labels. The centrality of social media
has overcome a sense of isolation from global music scenes. Particularly, by connecting
them to global flows of music and networks of exchange. These networks of exchange can
be converted into potential audiences and allow for possibilities to participate in music
festivals abroad, and to establish direct contact with fans. Indie values are configured around
an entrepreneurial and adaptable spirit, and so it is in this context that social media are
integrated as key devices for actors’ everyday activities. Social media articulates a set of
relations between different actors that give life to the scene, from musicians’ selfpromotional activities to music venues and label executives that want to promote their
catalog internationally. Even when musicians manage their visibility online, however, they
14
are not always rewarded with greater audiences, more gigs, or other kinds of economic
revenues; the commitment to being visible to fans through social media does not necessarily
translate into new sources of income. The sense of connection with global scenes and
international music felt by Chilean musicians at present has yet to manifest into one of
financial stability or of new possibilities for making a living through just their love of the
music.
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