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The Role of Participatory Media in Aesthetic Taste Formation: How do Amateurs Critique Musical Performances and Videos on Youtube.com?

By Hiesun Cecilia Suhr.

Published by The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society

With the advent of participatory culture in the digital era, an alternative mode of marketing and promoting music online has expanded greatly over the past few years. Websites, such as myspace.com, musicfreedom.com and youtube.com, have blurred the boundaries between the producers and the consumers of culture, between the creator and the audience. This phenomenon has allowed not only the rise of non-professional artistic goods, but also the increase in the visibility of ubiquitous artistic commodities (Jenkins, 2003, p. 287). Regardless of this outlet’s contribution to the subversion of mainstream media, the everyday use of participatory media has undoubtedly brought forth a new type of aestheticism, thus reinventing the binary model illustrated by Adorno and Horkheimer (1944). This paper examines the role of participatory media in the formation of aesthetics taste in mainstream society. Through a textual analysis of the established artists' and the newly emerging artists' commentary sections of youtube.com, this research paper addresses the manner in which amateurs critique musical performances and videos in the participatory media. The overarching objective of this paper is to systemize the various themes that emerge out of the commentary sections. Within this context, the users' individual and conflicting opinions will be analyzed.

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Volume 4, Issue 2, pp.213-222. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 576.546KB).

Hiesun Cecilia Suhr

Ph.D. Student, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University, weehawken, NJ, USA