"Every Home Is Wired": 1 -- The Net in Relation to Music Subcultures

"Every Home Is Wired":
1 -- The Net in Relation to Music Subcultures

Music subcultures in particular are frequently opposed to the interests and practices of the major industry players, since these are often seen as less than supportive of the particular genres' musical interests. Thus, the subcultures' artists are forced to find tactical ways to continue making their music and earning a living without 'selling out' (that is, giving in to the industry's strategies), while fans are forced to act tactically to find channels through which to exchange information and purchase the subcultures' music. As Frith has stated, "this is the culture industry challenge of the 1990s: to build up an international network of information and sound that can act as an open and unpredictable alternative to that presently being put in place by the global leisure corporations" ("Popular Music" 23). A few years later, it is not difficult to see the Internet as that network, of course.	Bit 68
The Net's general ideology, too, is opposed to strategic attempts to take control of Internet communication, and many of the Net's communication technologies must also be regarded as tactical uses of network resources.¹⁵ Newsgroups continually circumvent the dominant media structures and strategies: "one of the most interesting things about USENET has been its resiliency, partly as a consequence of the inventiveness of its users within the programming community, partly because of the steady increase in communication speed" (Salus 148). In a way, thus, the Net's "impression of multiplicity and multivocality may in fact conceal a more fundamental homogeneity" (Interrogate the Internet [research group] 127) -- a predisposition towards tactical action in the face of traditional strategic control. Importantly, such action is also made all the easier since so far there is a general lack of strategic control of the Internet itself through the institutions and organisations dominant in other media forms -- finally, then, the Net is a medium particularly inviting to tactical use by as yet underprivileged subcultural communities. How one such community makes use of the Internet will be shown in the following sections.	Bit 69

Music subcultures in particular are frequently opposed to the interests and practices of the major industry players, since these are often seen as less than supportive of the particular genres' musical interests. Thus, the subcultures' artists are forced to find tactical ways to continue making their music and earning a living without 'selling out' (that is, giving in to the industry's strategies), while fans are forced to act tactically to find channels through which to exchange information and purchase the subcultures' music. As Frith has stated, "this is the culture industry challenge of the 1990s: to build up an international network of information and sound that can act as an open and unpredictable alternative to that presently being put in place by the global leisure corporations" ("Popular Music" 23). A few years later, it is not difficult to see the Internet as that network, of course.

Bit 68

The Net's general ideology, too, is opposed to strategic attempts to take control of Internet communication, and many of the Net's communication technologies must also be regarded as tactical uses of network resources.¹⁵ Newsgroups continually circumvent the dominant media structures and strategies: "one of the most interesting things about USENET has been its resiliency, partly as a consequence of the inventiveness of its users within the programming community, partly because of the steady increase in communication speed" (Salus 148). In a way, thus, the Net's "impression of multiplicity and multivocality may in fact conceal a more fundamental homogeneity" (Interrogate the Internet [research group] 127) -- a predisposition towards tactical action in the face of traditional strategic control. Importantly, such action is also made all the easier since so far there is a general lack of strategic control of the Internet itself through the institutions and organisations dominant in other media forms -- finally, then, the Net is a medium particularly inviting to tactical use by as yet underprivileged subcultural communities. How one such community makes use of the Internet will be shown in the following sections.

Bit 69

Section 1 -- Go on to Bite:

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