Flow or Stop?
Culture Matters in P3’s Music Radio Production
Public defence of PhD thesis by Katrine Wallevik.
In 1996, Danish Broadcast Corporation (DR) introduced music controlling software in order to index, plan and program music for their public service popular music radio channel P3. This dissertation is an ethnographic investigation of the work practices around this software asking questions about agency and networks, technologies, music and gender in the daily practices making up the music for P3.
Mirroring an ANT (Actor Network Theory) heterogeneous world view the dissertation suggest that the practice of programming and presenting music for contemporary public service youth radio is to be seen as complex processes involving meshworks of humans, things, politics, corporations and technologies of all kinds.
Inspired by different post-ANT and STS’s (Science and Technology Studies) theories of algorithms and politics of circulation of culture, the dissertation discuss questions about the use of digital technology in work practices of contemporary public service music radio production.
The dissertation furthermore investigates questions of agency and processes of learning in the everyday life of the music radio professionals. It investigates the relation between music and the role of the individual actor in the social. It looks at the position of the subject, of gendering in work environments, of acting and of agency in the everyday work practices on P3 in times of global connections, of new digital technologies and of heterogeneity in cultural circulation.
The dissertation can be seen as an ethnomusicological contribution to research on radio as well as a contribution to ethnographic research in contemporary institutions and production cultures.
I 1996 begyndte DR at benytte musikstyringssoftware med det formål at indeksere, planlægge og programmere musik til kanalen. Denne etnografiske afhandling undersøger de daglige arbejdspraksisser omkring dette software og stiller spørgsmål om agens i produktionsnetværk, ”ny” teknologi i arbejdspraksisser, samt om musik og kønnethed i den daglige musikplanlægning.
Afhandlingen tager udgangspunkt i et heterogent ANT (Actor Network Theory) verdenssyn, og foreslår at praksisser omkring musikplanlægning i produktionsmiljøer som DR’s P3 må anskues som komplekse processer der involverer rodede ansamlinger (”meshworks”) af mennesker, ting, politikker, institutionelle anordninger og teknologier af megen forskellig karakter. I lyset af forskellige teorier om algoritmer og de kulturelle cirkulationers politikker (inspireret af post-ANT og STS (Science and Technology Studies)) diskuterer afhandlingen spørgsmål om brugen af digitale hjælpemidler i den daglige kulturproduktion.
Desuden undersøger afhandlingen spørgsmål om agens og læreprocesser i relation til musik i hverdagslige produktionspraksisser. Den undersøger relationer mellem musik og individuelle aktører i sociale (arbejds)rum. Den kigger på relationer mellem subjekter og på kønnede forventninger til arbejdsopgaver og på hvordan agens forhandles i arbejdspraksisser i en tid præget af globalisering, af ”nye” teknologier og af et stigende blik for heterogenitet i kulturelle cirkulationer.
Afhandlingen kan ses som et etnografisk bidrag til radioforskning og som et bidrag til antropologisk forskning i institutioner og i produktionskulturer.
Assessment Committee
- Associate Professor Annemette Kirkegaard, chair (University of Copenhagen)
- Associate Professor Mads Krogh (Aarhus University)
- Dr Tom Western (University of Oslo)
Moderator of the defence
- Professor Michael Fjeldsøe (University of Copenhagen)
Copies of the thesis will be available for consultation at the following three places:
- At the Information Desk of the Library of the Faculty of Humanities
- In Reading Room East of the Royal Library (the Black Diamond)
- At the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Karen Blixens Vej 1
