"Every Home Is Wired": 3 -- The Progressive Rock Community on the Net

"Every Home Is Wired":
3 -- The Progressive Rock Community on the Net

This finding underlines Rheingold's view that "the combination of free expression, lack of central control, many-to-many communication access, and volunteer effort has created a new kind of social organisation. Much of this growth has benefitted from the way it has taken place outside the public eye" (131). Centrally among the collective goods created or preserved through such virtual communities, he lists 'social network capital', 'knowledge capital', and an opportunity for 'communion' (13); it is easy to apply these concepts to Prog's newsgroups, Web sites, and generally to its online community. Here, they stand for the newsgroups' role as a meeting-place for the community (this social network capital has thus made online specialty marketing viable, and created an audience for new and re-released music, and events such as ProgFest), the Web sites' position as scriptures and annals of the community (offering knowledge capital included in FAQ lists and institutions like the Gibraltar Encyclopedia), and the general community's supportive and identity-giving function (from rec.music.progressive cosmopolitanism to alt.music.yes localism, and from Notes from the Edge positivism to the more or less light-hearted factional in-fighting on a.m.y, individual readers can thus feel communion with those they most agree with³²).	Bit 77
All signs thus indicate the vibrancy of the Progressive Rock community on the Internet: the Net has allowed the Prog community to come together, define and refine its identity, and support fans, artists, and the subcultural music industry. In this process, the major characteristics of Progressive Rock which we saw in the previous section -- its heterogeneity, its interest in outside sources that may be incorporated in the genre, and its tactical opposition to mainstream culture -- were kept intact, and perhaps even strengthened; disruptive tendencies, on the other hand -- such as the conflict between progressive cosmopolitans and conservative localists, or the pressure to be compatible with the musical mainstream -- were contained, or even largely eliminated. In addition to its fora for open discussion, the revitalised Progressive Rock subculture has therefore finally also been able to convert its community knowledge into more definitive, fixed, institutionalised resources.	Bit 78

This finding underlines Rheingold's view that "the combination of free expression, lack of central control, many-to-many communication access, and volunteer effort has created a new kind of social organisation. Much of this growth has benefitted from the way it has taken place outside the public eye" (131). Centrally among the collective goods created or preserved through such virtual communities, he lists 'social network capital', 'knowledge capital', and an opportunity for 'communion' (13); it is easy to apply these concepts to Prog's newsgroups, Web sites, and generally to its online community. Here, they stand for the newsgroups' role as a meeting-place for the community (this social network capital has thus made online specialty marketing viable, and created an audience for new and re-released music, and events such as ProgFest), the Web sites' position as scriptures and annals of the community (offering knowledge capital included in FAQ lists and institutions like the Gibraltar Encyclopedia), and the general community's supportive and identity-giving function (from rec.music.progressive cosmopolitanism to alt.music.yes localism, and from Notes from the Edge positivism to the more or less light-hearted factional in-fighting on a.m.y, individual readers can thus feel communion with those they most agree with³²).

Bit 77

All signs thus indicate the vibrancy of the Progressive Rock community on the Internet: the Net has allowed the Prog community to come together, define and refine its identity, and support fans, artists, and the subcultural music industry. In this process, the major characteristics of Progressive Rock which we saw in the previous section -- its heterogeneity, its interest in outside sources that may be incorporated in the genre, and its tactical opposition to mainstream culture -- were kept intact, and perhaps even strengthened; disruptive tendencies, on the other hand -- such as the conflict between progressive cosmopolitans and conservative localists, or the pressure to be compatible with the musical mainstream -- were contained, or even largely eliminated. In addition to its fora for open discussion, the revitalised Progressive Rock subculture has therefore finally also been able to convert its community knowledge into more definitive, fixed, institutionalised resources.

Bit 78

Section 3 -- Go on to Bite:

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11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40