Music Management: Popular Music Studies

This special section of Participations is focused on music audiences. This collection of
articles touch upon a variety of the different ways audience members, including fans, can
approach and receive popular music, the different platforms that are used by these
individuals to express their understandings of this medium, and how technology is working
to shape listening and nostalgic experiences.

By Lucy Benett, 2012. Click on the link to go to the PDF.

This paper analyses interviews with thirty-six musicians to understand how they perceive their interactions and relationships with audiences online. It highlights the blurred boundaries between fans and friends, identifying how online interactions can bring interpersonal rewards for musicians, as well as how they can raise interpersonal
challenges. Musicians balance these tensions through a range of strategies
that depend on their need to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the integrity of their fans’ experiences. Rather than approaching online audiences as ‘fans’ who are necessarily less powerful, many of the musicians engaged them as equals.

By Nancy K. Baym, 2012. Click on the link to go to the PDF.