"Every Home Is Wired": 2 -- The Progressive Rock Subculture and the Net

"Every Home Is Wired":
2 -- The Progressive Rock Subculture and the Net

On the most basic level, Prog is "largely a male affair" (Macan 135): as Straw points out, "the cultivation of connoisseurship in rock culture ... has traditionally been one rite of passage through which the masculinism of rock-music culture has been perpetuated" ("Systems of Articulation" 378). Similarly, the Internet (and computer technology in general) also remains male-dominated so far, although increasing numbers of women find their way online. Indeed, the generally free choice of user names on the Net can mean that gender-based distinctions can be overcome -- ultimately, the online Prog community may therefore also gain more female participants. While this is not the place to search for explanations why Prog fandom and Internet use are so biased towards males (chauvinist arguments that 'women don't like complex music' or that 'women and technology don't go together' have clearly and repeatedly been refuted), the fact that both are 'largely male affairs' is a further link between them. At the same time, it may also limit the applicability of the results of this study to the online future of other, less biased subcultures, however.	Bit 47
Members of both subcultures are also fairly well-educated -- "art schools are the natural setting for ideas of counter-culture" (Frith & Horne 48), while the Internet is strongly university-based --, were still relatively young at their introduction into the subcultures, and largely come from an (at least as a second language) English-speaking white middle-class background; for Macan, Prog fans are a "middle-class intelligentsia" (144). In both cases their background also accounts for a reasonable affluence which allows them to be part of their respective music or computer equipment consumer cultures (it is their access to credit cards, too, which makes Internet commerce viable). Finally, both groups are also considerably language-oriented: "the text display ... appeals to people who love wordplay, language and writing. And it appeals to people with active minds. The classic couch potato just isn't going to be that interested" (Coate, n. pag.), while similarly, Prog values both lyrics and liner notes (often metaphysical and philosophical), and text-based community interaction through fanzines and the Net.²⁷ It is obvious, too, that members of both cultures are highly privileged: they are mostly living in leading Western societies (centrally the U.S. and the U.K.), and thus have easy access to music and computing technology and media connectivity -- a fact on which both subcultures centrally depend.²⁸	Bit 48

On the most basic level, Prog is "largely a male affair" (Macan 135): as Straw points out, "the cultivation of connoisseurship in rock culture ... has traditionally been one rite of passage through which the masculinism of rock-music culture has been perpetuated" ("Systems of Articulation" 378). Similarly, the Internet (and computer technology in general) also remains male-dominated so far, although increasing numbers of women find their way online. Indeed, the generally free choice of user names on the Net can mean that gender-based distinctions can be overcome -- ultimately, the online Prog community may therefore also gain more female participants. While this is not the place to search for explanations why Prog fandom and Internet use are so biased towards males (chauvinist arguments that 'women don't like complex music' or that 'women and technology don't go together' have clearly and repeatedly been refuted), the fact that both are 'largely male affairs' is a further link between them. At the same time, it may also limit the applicability of the results of this study to the online future of other, less biased subcultures, however.

Bit 47

Members of both subcultures are also fairly well-educated -- "art schools are the natural setting for ideas of counter-culture" (Frith & Horne 48), while the Internet is strongly university-based --, were still relatively young at their introduction into the subcultures, and largely come from an (at least as a second language) English-speaking white middle-class background; for Macan, Prog fans are a "middle-class intelligentsia" (144). In both cases their background also accounts for a reasonable affluence which allows them to be part of their respective music or computer equipment consumer cultures (it is their access to credit cards, too, which makes Internet commerce viable). Finally, both groups are also considerably language-oriented: "the text display ... appeals to people who love wordplay, language and writing. And it appeals to people with active minds. The classic couch potato just isn't going to be that interested" (Coate, n. pag.), while similarly, Prog values both lyrics and liner notes (often metaphysical and philosophical), and text-based community interaction through fanzines and the Net.²⁷ It is obvious, too, that members of both cultures are highly privileged: they are mostly living in leading Western societies (centrally the U.S. and the U.K.), and thus have easy access to music and computing technology and media connectivity -- a fact on which both subcultures centrally depend.²⁸

Bit 48

Section 2 -- 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