Uploaded June 2019 | Updated September 2026, 7 hours ago
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
Bitter Content: YouTube, the ukulele, and the smokescreen of participatory commodification
Emma Winston - Goldsmiths, University of London
Email: e.winston@gold.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, the ukulele has experienced a resurgence in popularity amongst players spanning a remarkable range of demographics and ability levels. One of the instrument’s most intriguing fields of visibility is the online video platform YouTube, on which thousands of players congregate, performing covers and original songs to camera, and forming social bonds with one another which extend both to other social networks and to the offline sphere. Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) have discussed YouTube’s potential as a site of ‘participatory culture’, in which the lines between creator and consumer become so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Low-cost and portable, with a shallow learning curve, the ukulele and YouTube seem ideally suited to one another, and have become widely viewed as signifiers of participatory independence. Simultaneously, however, YouTubers themselves report a constant navigation of a significant ‘creator-viewer divide’ which seemingly remains almost unobserved in academia, while corporate advertisers have seized upon both the ukulele and YouTube itself to create what I term a ‘smokescreen of smallness’, exploiting their associations with the uncommodified participatory in order to conceal the very act of their appropriation. Combining multimedia analysis with participant-observation conducted both online and at a London-based convention, this paper will explore the ukulele on YouTube in the context of an increasingly ambivalent and entangled relationship with mainstream and corporate media, and will both build upon and challenge established literature on participatory culture in the digital age.
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
Bitter Content: YouTube, the ukulele, and the smokescreen of participatory commodification
Emma Winston - Goldsmiths, University of London
Email: e.winston@gold.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, the ukulele has experienced a resurgence in popularity amongst players spanning a remarkable range of demographics and ability levels. One of the instrument’s most intriguing fields of visibility is the online video platform YouTube, on which thousands of players congregate, performing covers and original songs to camera, and forming social bonds with one another which extend both to other social networks and to the offline sphere. Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) have discussed YouTube’s potential as a site of ‘participatory culture’, in which the lines between creator and consumer become so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Low-cost and portable, with a shallow learning curve, the ukulele and YouTube seem ideally suited to one another, and have become widely viewed as signifiers of participatory independence. Simultaneously, however, YouTubers themselves report a constant navigation of a significant ‘creator-viewer divide’ which seemingly remains almost unobserved in academia, while corporate advertisers have seized upon both the ukulele and YouTube itself to create what I term a ‘smokescreen of smallness’, exploiting their associations with the uncommodified participatory in order to conceal the very act of their appropriation. Combining multimedia analysis with participant-observation conducted both online and at a London-based convention, this paper will explore the ukulele on YouTube in the context of an increasingly ambivalent and entangled relationship with mainstream and corporate media, and will both build upon and challenge established literature on participatory culture in the digital age.
