"Every Home Is Wired": 4 -- Towards a Strategic Progressive Rock Community

"Every Home Is Wired":
4 -- Towards a Strategic Progressive Rock Community

As Shepherd points out, "the 'music industry' is not a monolith with uncontested centralised control over the music consumption of the world's peoples. ... It is at best an uneasy alliance of different institutions and sectors" ("Value" 183). In particular, the less than uniform nature of the practices employed by the major players in the music industry has shaped the industry's stance towards the Internet, as has already been shown; approaches have ranged from utter ignorance to gross underestimation of the Net's potential, to highly successful new business ventures such as online retailers like CDnow and Music Boulevard. Especially these successful institutions have often emerged despite the industry, not because of it: largely, they have filled a vacuum created by the major players' absence from and lethargic reaction to the new medium. Institutions growing more out of the Net than out of the music industry were able to establish the spaces for music-related commerce and interaction on the Internet, and define their boundaries and norms.	Bit 2
Such phenomena are nothing new: for many radically new mass communication technologies enthusiasts rather than established societal institutions were the first to form structures of usage; early uses of radio technology mostly for two-way communication rather than one-way broadcasting are just one example. Neither are these processes today limited to the music industry: even commercial enterprises much closer to the Net's technological core, like industrial giant Microsoft, long ignored online culture. This allowed that culture to develop largely undisturbed by hegemonic interests, and is now forcing Microsoft to invest and intervene massively in order to regain at least some leverage over the Net's future.	Bit 3

As Shepherd points out, "the 'music industry' is not a monolith with uncontested centralised control over the music consumption of the world's peoples. ... It is at best an uneasy alliance of different institutions and sectors" ("Value" 183). In particular, the less than uniform nature of the practices employed by the major players in the music industry has shaped the industry's stance towards the Internet, as has already been shown; approaches have ranged from utter ignorance to gross underestimation of the Net's potential, to highly successful new business ventures such as online retailers like CDnow and Music Boulevard. Especially these successful institutions have often emerged despite the industry, not because of it: largely, they have filled a vacuum created by the major players' absence from and lethargic reaction to the new medium. Institutions growing more out of the Net than out of the music industry were able to establish the spaces for music-related commerce and interaction on the Internet, and define their boundaries and norms.

Bit 2

Such phenomena are nothing new: for many radically new mass communication technologies enthusiasts rather than established societal institutions were the first to form structures of usage; early uses of radio technology mostly for two-way communication rather than one-way broadcasting are just one example. Neither are these processes today limited to the music industry: even commercial enterprises much closer to the Net's technological core, like industrial giant Microsoft, long ignored online culture. This allowed that culture to develop largely undisturbed by hegemonic interests, and is now forcing Microsoft to invest and intervene massively in order to regain at least some leverage over the Net's future.

Bit 3

Section 4 -- Go on to Bite:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18