"Every Home Is Wired":
1 -- The Net in Relation to Music Subcultures
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While it seems that "there has been a distinct shift in values in contemporary societies", as Longhurst also notes (113), then, it already emerges from this description that the technical globalisation of media and markets has not led to an inevitable homogenisation of world cultures. Wallis & Malm hypothetically describe the establishment of such a "transnationalised culture or transculture" (300) as a "movement where more and more musical features will become common to more and more music cultures. ... We would then live in a music environment that would give a little satisfaction to a lot of people, and a lot of satisfaction to very, very few" (323-4); however, such an environment would require a considerable homogenisation of audiences first, along with a strong decrease in audiences' abilities to influence the music market. By all reports, the opposite is occurring today. Bit 10
In reality, then,

the possibility for world cultural homogenisation certainly exists. But what we see in almost every country are local musicians who are producing new combinations of musical elements and who are adding to global cultural diversity. They are not all sounding alike. ... A countervailing tendency then is also part of the information age, the exposure of people to many more kinds of information than ever before and consequently an environment conducive to unprecedented creative inspiration. (Campbell Robinson et al. 109-10)

This is a view echoed by Wallis & Malm, who point out the central role of technology in this environment: the process starts "as the music and electronic industries spread their hardware and software to different countries" (301). It is a process, too, which is taking place regardless of the oligopolistic, Anglo-American-dominated structure of the industry.3

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© 1998 Axel Bruns