Art Worlds, Collective Action and Music Production in the Digital Age

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of Howard Becker’s “collective action” on music producers and artists in this digital age of music in which we now find ourselves. This includes producers and artists integrated enough within music art worlds for their content to be available for study. This paper shows how the standards of art worlds are shaped and established over many years, how practices that are repeated and agreed upon in music industries such as studios, factories, and performance arenas become so thoroughly engrained that the members of these art worlds consider them “common sense.” In addition, this paper examines music production through the lens of production of culture theory, showing how niche or even rebellious art is still informed by the overarching culture from which it emerges, no matter how independent it may seem. This paper also explores how new technologies inform the decisions and behavior of everyone involved in music production today; these new technologies have completely revolutionized the way producers operate within their respective art worlds. The paper concludes that Becker’s theory of collective action is clearly evident in the many art words in which today’s music is produced.