Making Sweet Music Together: The Affordances of Networked Media for Building Performance Capital by YouTube Musicians

Abstract

Following Miller, who looked at offline performance capital for musicians and discovered important gender and genre impacts, we examined the role of gender and genre in the development of performance capital for YouTube top cover song artists. This case study suggests that online performance capital on YouTube is slightly different than offline performance capital, and benefits from the affordances of networked media, and specifically YouTube. While there is some gender-based homophily in channel linking behaviors, there are also connections between weakly tied individuals with respect to video category, meaning that musicians are linking to others outside of the music community and vice versa. While music video channels tend to link to other music video channels, and non-music channels tend to link to other non-music channels, the most popular videos tend to post from multiple categories including both music and non-music. Findings suggest that being a long-time poster and having a rich and diverse network are likely elements of building performance capital for YouTube musicians.

Examining the views of trainers and trainees on the effectiveness of on-line Youtube guitar training

“…The contents uploaded to the YouTube channel can be watched beyond geographical borders in terms of being independent of global location and time. YouTube is one of the shortest paths to international fame for many amateur artists (Gruzd & Hodson, 2021). One of the best examples of this is the piece "Gangnam Style" uploaded to the YouTube channel of the group PSY.…”

“…YouTube, where professional or amateur trainers can easily upload content, has become one of the distance education channels especially preferred by the young population (Baek, 2015) because it is free and easily accessible. Music videos that ranked first in YouTube content (Ünal, 2019) made professional or amateur musicians make their voices heard globally (Gruzd & Hodson, 2021) and also influenced the world culturally. This radical change in the field of music has brought along new approaches in music education.…”

‘Azadi’s political until you’re pressing play’: Capitalist realism, hip-hop, and platform affordances

“…The digital platforms which provide a semblance of democracy by providing the opportunity for musicians to produce and distribute their music independently remain constrained by the platform’s economic and interface models. The platforms make certain affordances possible and impossible through the platform’s constrain on the users navigating the platform (Ammari et al, 2019; DeVito et al, 2017; Gruzd and Hodson, 2021; Weltevrede and Borra, 2016). Such platform affordances bring together musicians and listeners in different ways across various platforms.…”

Discussing the Impact of New Media Communication on Classical Music

“…Gruzd further pointed out in his article that the basis of the cognitive process of this parasocial relationship comes from the artist's personal construction. For example, artists are encouraged to show their personalities and uniqueness in daily life, in order to establish a process of social interaction with the audience [3]. Classical musicians can use YouTube and other social platforms to create their own personalized labels to attract followers and audiences.…”

“…As one of the most influential and efficient new media social platforms in the world, YouTube is so attractive that countless music creators use it as the preferred platform for sharing their work [9]. Compared with traditional media, YouTube, which is built on the Internet platform, breaks the limitations of space and region, greatly improving its transmission rate and efficiency [3]. It is like Moonlight by Debussy, the founder of modern Impressionism, it not only can bring great auditory enjoyment to the appreciators, but also allow them to see the transformation of cold preheat, color and light, and see a gorgeous and colorful imagery scene，which is loved by many famous performers.…”