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Valuing Electronic Music

The Valuing Electronic Music project combines social network analysis of the SoundCloud website with ethnographic interviewing and observation to study the value of electronic music. We focus on music-makers such as DJs and producers, looking at how they express appreciation for each other’s work and how they respond to other people’s evaluations of their own work.

This is important because public debates on the value of culture tend to revolve around heavily-subsidised ‘highbrow’ art forms such as opera. We’re more interested in the passion that sustains subcultural forms of music, often in the total absence of monetary income and official recognition.

Although we focus primarily on the SoundCloud website and on London’s electronic music scene, our findings will have broader application, contributing to understanding of the vital role that peer dialogue and esteem play in nurturing and recognising artistic success.

Daniel Allington, Anna Jordanous, and Byron Dueck

Thanks to Sam Dorrell for the design, to Jake Davis for the photograph (which arises from his brilliant Clubland project), and to Edward Hathaway for the logo. Edward also did the graphics for this website, and Jake’s photographs from our public event (at which the print version of this flyer was distributed) can be seen in an earlier blog post.