Emilia Barna | Budapest University of Technology and Economics (original) (raw)

Books by Emilia Barna

This book explores the relationships between popular music, technology, and the changing media ec... more This book explores the relationships between popular music, technology, and the changing media ecosystem. More precisely, it looks at infrastructures and practices of music making and consuming primarily in the post-Napster era of digitization – with some chapters looking back on the technological precursors to digital culture – marked by the emergence of digital tools and platforms such as YouTube or Spotify. The first section provides a critical overview of theories addressing popular music and digital technology, while the second section offers an analysis of the relationship between musical cultures, taste, constructions of authenticity, and technology. The third section offers case studies on the materialities of music consumption from outside the western core of popular music production. The final section reflects on music scenes and the uses and discourses of social media.

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by Barbara Ilg, Izso Balazs, Zoltan Kacsuk, Tamas Tofalvy, Gelegonya Edina, Botond Vitos, SzÉkely Levente, Ágnes Patakfalvi-Czirják, Attila Gyulai, Kovács Balázs, Attila Bátorfy, Emilia Barna, Barnabás Batta, and Gergő Pulay

http://zeneihalozatok.hu/

Articles, book chapters, conference papers by Emilia Barna

Populismus kritisieren: Kunst – Politik – Geschlecht, 2024

Hungary and the post-2010 Fidesz-led governments are often cited as an emblematic case in the ris... more Hungary and the post-2010 Fidesz-led governments are often cited as an emblematic case in the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, or even globally. In our chapter, we build on a sociocultural theoretical approach to populism (Ostiguy 2017; Westheuser 2020) in order to analyse the example of the popular musician Ákos in Hungary, focusing on particular aspects of his career in relation to the respective political context, as well as on his performances, public persona, and communication with his audience. We argue that Ákos's music, performances, and public persona contribute to the spreading and affective embedding of certain hegemonic populist discourses in Hungarian society. At the same time, instead of addressing "the people" through low cultural markers and promising emancipation, as described in Ostiguy's sociocultural approach to populism, his performances and public persona aim "higher" in the social and cultural hierarchy. The dominant cultural markers he performs can be considered to be aligned with the government's class and gender politics, which are aimed at the creation of a loyal "national bourgeoisie" (Éber et al. 2019; Scheiring 2021) and favouring an imagined middle class. This finding also points towards the limitations of the populism approach which is frequently used to describe the relation between politics and popular culture in post-2010 Hungary.

Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe, 2024

This chapter looks at the relationship between populism and popular music in Hungary after the po... more This chapter looks at the relationship between populism and popular music in Hungary after the political turn of 2010 that saw the beginning of a new political regime led by the Fidesz party. It combines a focus on song aesthetics, music consumption in various settings, and an analysis of structural transformations that have brought about a new pattern of dependency on the market and the state for artists. Drawing on song analyses, fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and focus group interviews, the chapter demonstrates that in Hungary, populism has become a central ideological framework and source of legitimation in popular music as much as political speech, shaping not only pro-government but also oppositional, and even anti-establishment, discourses. It argues that mainstream pop-rock may serve to spread hegemonic right-wing populist discourses, and thus shore up the cultural and ideological pillars that support the hegemony-building of the new semi-peripheral accumulation regime. The authors also point to the limited possibilities for counter-hegemonic meaning-making within the mainstream of the popular music field.

Populáris kultúra és politika, 2024

Fordulat, 2022

Our paper looks at the relation between populism and popular music in the context of Hungarian so... more Our paper looks at the relation between populism and popular music in the context of Hungarian society and politics after 2010. We aim to answer the question of how popular music is able to pave the way for populist discourses, and how this is connected to both musical aesthetic and form, and the economic, social and political embeddedness of musicians. The paper understands populist discourses as part of the hegemony building of the Orbán regime, as an ideological pillar that underpins certain elements of post-2010 governance, while obscuring others. Our analysis is aimed at three songs, namely “Hazatalál” (Finding home) (2018) by Ákos, “Tizenötmillióból egy” (One of fifteen million) (2016) by Kowalsky meg a Vega, and “Akit a hazája nem szeretett” (They who were not loved by their country) (2020) by János Bródy. In addition to analysing the songs as texts, we consider the context of production, distribution, as well as performance, where the capitalist logic of the music industry becomes combined with the assertion of political power. Moreover, we analyse the songs together with the – at times changing – music industry and social position of the musicians. Within the music industry position of the musicians, a dependence on market relations appears together with a closely related reliance on state cultural and media politics.

Tanulmányunk a populizmus és a populáris zene kapcsolatát vizsgálja a 2010 utáni magyar társadalom és politika kontextusában, arra keresve a választ, hogy a populáris zene milyen módon segítheti elő a populista diskurzusok terjedését. Továbbá, hogy ez milyen összefüggésben van mind a zenei esztétika és forma, mind a zenészek gazdasági, társadalmi és politikai beágyazottságával. A tanulmány a populista diskurzusokat az Orbán-rezsim hegemóniaépítésének részeként, ideológiai pilléreként értelmezi, amely a 2010 utáni kormányzás egyes elemeit alátámasztja, más elemeit pedig elfedi. Elemzésünk három dalra fókuszál: Ákos „Hazatalál” (2018), a Kowalsky meg a Vega „Tizenötmillióból egy” (2017), valamint Bródy János „Akit a hazája nem szeretett” (2020) című felvételeire. A dalok „szövegekként” történő elemzése mellett figyelembe vesszük a termelés, a terjesztés, valamint az előadások kontextusát is, amely a zeneipar kapitalista logikájának és a politikai hatalomgyakorlásnak egyszerre képezi terepét. A dalokat továbbá együtt elemezzük az előadók – adott esetben változó – zeneipari, illetve társadalmi pozíciójával. Az előadók zeneipari pozíciójában a piaci viszonyoknak és az ezzel szorosan összefüggő állami kultúr- és médiapolitikának való kitettség egyaránt megjelenik.

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2022

This paper addresses the relationship between popular music, nationalism and political power in a... more This paper addresses the relationship between popular music, nationalism and political power in a local context through the case of Hungary. Through the combination of musicological group analysis, fieldwork, interviews and media analysis, we follow the trajectory of the song “Nélküled” (Ismerős Arcok 2007) between 2007 and 2021 through its changing musical, social, media and political contexts. We identify three processes: firstly, the radicalization of the band in a subcultural context parallel to the development of the so-called national rock genre; secondly, the popularization and folklorization of the song, whereby it becomes at least partly detached from the original performing artists and embedded into the everyday culture of broader population segments; and finally, the parallel processes of political legitimation and cultural consecration. Our enquiry contributes a political economic perspective to the relatively under-theorized system of relationships between popular music, its social-cultural (genre, taste) and industrial logics, politics and the media by complementing media-based theories of subculture and mainstream with an understanding of political actors and processes. Through this, we also complement studies of everyday nationalism with viewing cultural practices in the political context of hegemonic right-wing ideology and increasing government control of the cultural and media industries.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place, 2022

This chapter explores the bedroom as a space for listening to, creating and performing music. The... more This chapter explores the bedroom as a space for listening to, creating and performing music. The bedroom is understood as a social, cultural, technological, as well as psychological space – a space within which household relations, family relations, gender and generational relations are being shaped and played out; a space wherein meanings are generated and appropriated; a material and technological space that is open to other spaces – whether through analogue media technology such as radio, or digital and online technology, such as online music platforms; and psychological space, a material extension one’s identity, a storage of one’s memories and feelings, as well as a technology for evoking these. It can function as a space for rest, a space for leisure and play and a space for work, and it may contribute to the blurring of the boundaries between these. It may be private and shared, individualized and collective, often each of these at the same time. The chapter proceeds by exploring, first, the bedroom as a space for listening to music for teenagers in particular, for whom the bedroom, if they have one, is the first space where they are able to exert control (Lincoln 2005: 400). The bedroom for them acts as both private and collective space for the creation and representation of identities, of participation in subcultural activities, even acts of resistance, through music. This section revisits McRobbie and Garber’s (1976) classic study, where the bedroom is described as the central space for young women’s ‘teeny bopper’ subculture, as well as reflecting on more recent research on young women’s use of the bedroom for engaging in cultural consumption and the formation and representation of individual and collective identities, increasingly with the augmentation of digital and online technology (Baker 2004; Lincoln 2005; Davies 2010, 2013). Taking a critical view of ‘teeny bopper’ culture as passive consumer culture primarily centred around the adoration of (male) stars, it also demonstrates how consumption and production are often practically inseparable social and cultural activities, as exemplified by teenagers singing along to music, practicing dance routines and creating their own mixtapes. I then proceed to explore the bedroom studio as a location for cultural production embedded into broader social and economic structures; as a meeting point of musical practices, technologies – old and new – and social relations. Through referring to relevant studies, I also reflect on the changing function of the bedroom studio within the structure of the music industries. I invoke literature exploring the bedroom as a site for creating and recording music for women in particular and consider the question of whether, and in what ways, accessible and affordable technology has resulted in a democratization of music making, and whether it has opened up a space for change of the patriarchal power relations of the music industries. The fourth section examines the question of access and use of resources, focusing on bedroom music making as a DIY (do-it-yourself) practice, and the significance of this in the context of underground and mainstream relations.

Music as Labour: Inequalities and Activism in the Past and Present, 2022

This chapter relies on Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour and Zelizer’s concept of relationa... more This chapter relies on Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour and Zelizer’s concept of relational work to present an analysis of personal and professional-creative relationships from a feminist perspective through the work of musicians and other music industry workers. My inquiry is based on 36 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2018 and 2020 in Hungary. I explore the ways in which professional and personal relationships intersect in the work of musicians and music industry workers, how these workers negotiate the boundaries between professional and personal in their work – that is, the production of music – and how this negotiation is divided and gendered. Specifically, I examine the negotiation of the boundaries and fusions between professional and personal in relation to creative collaboration between musicians, as well as the working relationships between musicians and manager, in the framework of relational labour. I look at the emotional labour involved in networking from a gender perspective, drawing attention to how the demands for ‘being friends with everyone’ places an additional burden on women in the industry, which functions to reinforce patriarchal power relations. Lastly, I present the particular case of amateur helpers from the point of view of relational labour. This inquiry sheds light on how the boundaries between (paid) work and (unpaid) assistance are constructed in work around early-career musicians, and how this is embedded in a broader social and economic context.

LeftEast, 2022

Hungary’s political climate is increasingly dominated by the tensions related to the coming elect... more Hungary’s political climate is increasingly dominated by the tensions related to the coming elections in Spring 2022. While all oppositional parties from far-right to the left had joined forces to fight the ruling party Fidesz, a new player entered the political arena in December 2021. György Gattyán, one of the richest people in Hungary, announced his new movement and newly-founded party called Megoldás Mozgalom (MEMO, “Solution Movement”). After several years of distancing himself almost completely from the public arena despite his well-known wealth and potential political and economic power, Gattyán is now highly active in the Hungarian media. His political program is focused on digitalization, which he identifies as the potential solution to all social evils in Hungary. While he is portrayed in PR interviews as an innovative and successful self-made businessman with a strong sense of social responsibility and high moral standards, the main source of his wealth is either obscured or narrated in positive terms. Gattyán’s money mostly comes from the sexcam site LiveJasmin, which is the most profitable business within Docler Holding, Gattyán’s main enterprise. But how does the sexcam industry operate and why is it problematic from a leftist feminist perspective? To explore these questions, we rely on interviews we conducted between 2020–2022 with people formerly or currently working in various roles in the sexcam industry in Hungary, as well as an overview of chat forum discussions around sexcam work. While digitalization is often portrayed in the media as empowering, and LiveJasmin as a platform providing opportunities for women to make good money by selling sexual content, in this article we point to the ways in which the sexcam industry is built on global economic and gender inequalities, and how digital platform companies like LiveJasmin primarily profit from exploiting vulnerable female workers selling sex. We argue that Gattyán is simultaneously promoting the mainstreaming of commodified sexuality and obscuring his and his company’s own role in this process.

Intersections. EEJSP, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in 2020 included the cancellation of live music events in larg... more The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in 2020 included the cancellation of live music events in large numbers, leaving a majority of music industry workersnot only musicians, but also sound and light technicians, roadies, managers, and promoters-at least temporarily out of work. The situation was characterised by general uncertainty, both with regard to future restrictions or their easing, and with regard to the willingness of the Hungarian government to lend a hand to the industry and its workers. The question of state support and reliance on it was thus brought into sharp focus-the fate of the music industry and industry actors taking a stance received significant media attention, and online discussions involving organisers and concert or festival promoters abounded, especially during the first two 'lockdown' months. Our paper explores the collective images, perceptions, and attitudes of cultural workers working in the Hungarian music industries related to their own work, their creative autonomy, and the relations of dependence in the industry through an analysis of six sociodrama groups undertaken with the participation of music industry workers before and during the pandemic. We explored, first, how workers view the role of the state and the market in their work, and the playing field in which they are situated, and whether and how the pandemic crisis has affected this. Second, what kinds of potential strategies of coping and surviving the workers identify in light of the crisis situation.

Popular Music & Society, 2021

This paper examines the ways in which the digitalization of the music industries has impacted the... more This paper examines the ways in which the digitalization of the music industries has impacted the work of musicians locally, in the semi-peripheral country of Hungary. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which the work of musicians is shaped by gender relations. It aims to critique the democratization discourse of the digitalization of musical production by exploring, first, the local policy and industry context of digitalized musical labor, and, secondly, the role of gender relations within the household in the labor and careers of musicians in Hungary.

The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies, eds. Eugenia Paulicelli, Veronica Manlow, Elizabeth Wissinger , 2021

The “Made in” label plays an important role in the consumption of fashion by functioning as a gua... more The “Made in” label plays an important role in the consumption of fashion by functioning as a guarantee of quality and craftsmanship, as well as a source of trust regarding the conditions of production. Regardless, it may in effect also serve to obscure the geography of the global commodity chain, as well as the – often deeply exploitative – conditions of production. Moreover, the meaning of labels change along with global economic movements. The chapter explores this transformation of the “Made in” label and the relations of global production that it obscures through the cases of Italy and Eastern Europe.

Eastern European Music Industries and Policies after the Fall of Communism: From State Control to Free Market, ed. Patryk Galuszka, Routledge, 2021

Following the 1989–90 transition and formal reintegration into the world-system (Wallerstein 2004... more Following the 1989–90 transition and formal reintegration into the
world-system (Wallerstein 2004), the ‘opening up’ of post-socialist countries towards the global cultural industries, and within them, the music industries, primarily meant a creation of new markets for major record labels and other central actors of the global music economy during a time of significant economic growth for the recorded music industry. In the 1990s, subsidiaries of major record labels (Warner, Universal, Sony, EMI1), which, up until the 2000s, undoubtedly constituted the most powerful actors in the economy of music, appeared in Eastern European countries, including Hungary. The operation of these subsidiaries typically consisted of selling both local and international – primarily Anglo-American – artists, thus creating new markets on the semi-periphery for their musical commodities. At the same time, local artists signed to these labels tended not to cross borders; the international flow of musical commodities thus remained mostly one-way. Culturally, the post-transition era in Hungary and other Eastern European countries can be characterised by a strong western orientation parallel to the process of reintegration, which could also be observed in popular music consumption (the introduction of MTV and other music television channels, for instance, was highly influential on the cultural socialisation of the generation growing up in the 1990s). At the same time, there was also a significant growth in local music production – resulting in Hungarian-language pop, rock and dance music, for instance – and a multiplicity of newly emerging actors such as radio stations, record labels, venues, and a much higher number of specialised magazines than today.

The turn of the twenty-first century, however, saw the escalation of a rad-
ical structural transformation the music industries along with digitisation, symbolised by the appearance of global file-sharing platform Napster in
1999. The new channels of distribution and sharing enabled by digital and
online media temporarily weakened the economic power of record com-
panies by leading to a drastic decline in the sales of recordings – at the
time still mostly physical. This global process could certainly be felt locally too, in the decreasing sales and the accompanying decreasing number, and
power, of industry actors, and even less interest from majors in local artists
due to increasing constraints on the subsidies themselves (Elavsky 2011). It was also a time when optimistic discourses around disintermediation – for instance, that record companies no longer appeared necessary for artists to reach an audience – and individual musical entrepreneurship relying on dig- ital and online media thrived. In Eastern European countries, belonging to the global semi-periphery, references to the small size of the local market, as well as a lack of a professional environment, interpreted as a post-socialist legacy, mitigated this optimism to an extent. Nevertheless, the entry of tech companies into the music economy – Amazon, Apple (through iTunes), Google (through purchasing video streaming platform YouTube in 2006) –, followed by the emergence of music streaming companies, helped along the commodification of digital music (Morris 2015), and ultimately led the way towards a new era of consolidation, and concentration, for the recording industry. This also meant a reinforcing of the power inequalities inherent in the industry’s capitalistic logic.

Andrew Leyshon (2001; 2014) brought attention to the continued impor-
tance of geographical networks, and the geographical embeddedness of the production of music, in the era of digital music. More recently, Timothy D. Taylor (2015) has demonstrated, through the phenomenon of ‘world music,’ how industrial practices, as well as recorded music aesthetics, function to reinforce global economic and cultural inequalities. The starting point of this chapter is that the (im)balance between music import and export, along with the proportion of local (national) versus international music in national markets, is an area where global relations, and the positions of countries within the global economy of music and the global capitalistic world-system in general, can be fruitfully studied.

Through the case of popular music export initiatives in Hungary, I pro-
ceed to reflect on the particular semi-peripheral position of the national
music industries of Eastern Europe within global relations of dependency.
I explore what music export in Hungary looks like, and what its particular-
ities and expressed aims and objectives are. Has the focus on ‘making it’ in
the West in terms of international success shifted? How can the observed
objectives and strategies be linked to shifts in the structure of the music
industries? And how do the observed discourses, aims, and strategies fit into the moral order of the capitalist world-system?

In order to answer these questions, I rely on semi-structured interviews
with professionals involved in the Hungarian export programme HOTS (I1;
I2) and the Budapest Showcase Hub (BUSH) (I3), which I have interpreted
as expressions of narratives, discourses, attitudes, values, and positions;
the analysis of promotional and educational material (e.g. videos) related
to music export in Hungary; observation of events (e.g. BUSH); as well as a
review of international literature and published statistical data.

Café Bábel, 2020

Jelen tanulmány azt vizsgálja, hogy a zeneipar digitalizációja, amelyet a globális kapitalizmus v... more Jelen tanulmány azt vizsgálja, hogy a zeneipar digitalizációja, amelyet a globális kapitalizmus viszonyai formálnak, milyen hatással van lokálisan a magyarországi női zenészek munkájára. A női zenészek munkáját feminista perspektívából vizsgálom, és annak járok utána, a genderviszonyok szempontjából hogyan jellemezhető a digitalizált zeneipar lokális szinten – ugyanakkor a globális zeneipar szempontjából is központi szerepet betöltő centrumországokon (Egyesült Államok, Japán, Németország és Egyesült Királyság) kívül. A zeneiparban folytatott digitális vállalkozás, valamint önmenedzselés feminista elemzésén keresztül egyúttal a digitalizált környezetben folytatott kreatív munka kritikájához is hozzá kívánok járulni.

LeftEast, 2021

Articles starting with “COVID-19 has shown…” became a meme during the first lockdown of 2020. In ... more Articles starting with “COVID-19 has shown…” became a meme during the first lockdown of 2020. In fact, the crisis following the virus has not only shown, but also enhanced the contradictions rooted in the social relations of existing global capitalism. In Hungarian cultural production and the local policies reacting to the crisis, we can observe an interplay between conscious exploitation of the crisis to strengthen the hegemonic process of the right-wing Orbán regime, and processes which are the result of structural contingencies.

Replika, 2020

A tanulmányban a szexkamera-iparág kialakulását és működését elemezzük a platformcégek központi s... more A tanulmányban a szexkamera-iparág kialakulását és működését elemezzük a platformcégek központi szerepére és az iparágban dolgozók munkájára fókuszálva. Magyarországi példán, az iparágban dolgozókkal folytatott interjús kutatásunk alapján vizsgáljuk, miként változott a digitalizáció nyomán a szexipar és azon belül a szexkamera-iparág a globális gazdaságban, és hogyan működnek azok a platformcégek, amelyek ennek az át-alakulásnak központi szereplői-köztük a magyarországi alapítású LiveJasmin. Vizsgáljuk, hogy Magyarország félperifériás pozíciója a kapitalista világrendszerben hogyan határozza meg az itteni szereplők munkakörülményeit, lehetőségeit a globális iparágon belül. Elemzésünkben tehát a platformkapitalizmusban és a digitális munkában megjelenő globális egyenlőtlenségeket mutatjuk be a szexkamera-iparágban magyarországi, félperifériás szereplők szemszögéből, valamint arra is rámutatunk, hogy milyen szerepet játszanak a szexkamera-platformok-mint a LiveJasmin-a szexipar normalizálásában. Kulcsszavak: szexipar, szexkamera-iparág, platformkapitalizmus, digitális munka, streaming , globális árulánc, genderviszonyok replika 2020 (117-118): 93-125. © A szerző(k) 2020 replika.hu/replika/117-118

In our paper we analyse the emergence and functioning of the sex camera industry, focusing on the central role of platform companies and the labour of those working in the industry. Through the example of Hungary, based on interview research conducted with people working in the industry, we look at how the sex industry, and within that, the sex camera industry, has changed with digitalisation in the global economy, and how the platform companies that are at the centre of this transformation operate – among them, LiveJasmin, founded in Hungary. We look at how Hungary’s semi-peripheral position within the capitalist world system determines the working conditions and possibilities of local workers in the global industry. In our analysis, we therefore explore the global inequalities of platform capitalism and digital labour from the perspective of Hungarian, semi-peripheral actors. In addition, we show what role sex camera platforms such as LiveJasmin have played in the normalisation of the sex industry.

Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem: From Cassettes to Stream, 2020

This chapter argues for a theoretical approach that combines an understanding of the musical form... more This chapter argues for a theoretical approach that combines an understanding of the musical form, the technological and media environment of its consumption, and the social relations within which cultural consumption assumes symbolic meaning. A central question in this enquiry relates to tendencies associated with the rise of “cultural omnivorousness” as the legitimate taste and practice of cultural consumption, and, as a parallel process, the rise of cultural hybridity in the popular music mainstream. I will argue that although these tendencies have been associated with cultural diversity and the social process of democratization, this picture is complicated by symbolic power that continue to be asserted through taste and distinction, if in ever more subtle and complex ways.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

http://zeneihalozatok.hu/

Populismus kritisieren: Kunst – Politik – Geschlecht, 2024

Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe, 2024

Populáris kultúra és politika, 2024

Fordulat, 2022

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2022

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place, 2022

Music as Labour: Inequalities and Activism in the Past and Present, 2022

LeftEast, 2022

Intersections. EEJSP, 2021

Popular Music & Society, 2021

The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies, eds. Eugenia Paulicelli, Veronica Manlow, Elizabeth Wissinger , 2021

Eastern European Music Industries and Policies after the Fall of Communism: From State Control to Free Market, ed. Patryk Galuszka, Routledge, 2021

Café Bábel, 2020

LeftEast, 2021

Replika, 2020

Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem: From Cassettes to Stream, 2020

Barna R. Emília, Csányi Gergely, Gagyi Ágnes és Gerőcs Tamás (2018): A rendszerváltozás utáni mag... more Barna R. Emília, Csányi Gergely, Gagyi Ágnes és Gerőcs Tamás (2018): A rendszerváltozás utáni magyar feminista mozgalom globális, történeti perspektívából In: Replika, No. 108–109.: 241–262.

Tanulmányunkban a rendszerváltozás utáni kelet-európai és azon belül a magyar feminizmus kialakulását a globális egyenlőtlen történeti fejlődés részeként értelmezzük. Megközelítésünk alapvető gondolata, hogy egy adott korszak adott társadalmának jelenségeit – így a nőiség tapasztalatát és a feminista mozgalmakat – nem önmagukban, hanem annak a tágabb viszonyrendszernek a kontextusában kell vizsgálnunk, amelynek részei. Az általunk választott kontextus, amiben az alábbiakban fogjuk értelmezni ezeknek a mozgalmaknak a lehetőségeit, a „hosszú 16. századtól” kialakuló, az egész glóbuszra kiterjedő egyre szorosabban integrálódó tőkés árutermelési és munkamegosztási rendszer, röviden a kapitalista világrendszer. Azt vizsgáljuk, hogy a nyugati centrumbeli és a keleti feminizmus egymáshoz való viszonya hogyan alakult ki a kelet-európai országok – elsősorban Magyarország – legújabb kori világgazdasági integrációja során, amit az 1970-es évektől datálunk. Először rögzítjük elméleti keretünket, amely megmutatja, hogy hogyan értelmezhető a nőiség strukturális pozícióként. Majd vázlatosan bemutatjuk a nyugat-európai és észak-amerikai nemi viszonyokat és feminizmusokat részint a II. világháború után kialakuló észak-amerikai hegemónia prosperáló időszakában, de nagyobb hangsúlyt az 1970-es évektől jelenlevő nemzetközi politikai és kulturális hegemónia válságidőszakának szentelünk, amivel párhuzamosan a kelet-európai országok lassú visszacsatlakozása is beindult a tőkés világgazdaságba. Ezt követően bemutatjuk a rendszerváltozás utáni magyar feminizmust a kelet-európai félperiféria tőkés világrendszerbe való formális visszacsatlakozásának kontextusában. Végül bemutatjuk a magyar feminizmusban végbemenő változásokat a 2008-as világgazdasági válságot követően kibontakozó társadalmi és mozgalmi átrendeződés után.

IASPM@Journal, 2018

Popular music studies as a field has been criticized from within for still predominantly favourin... more Popular music studies as a field has been criticized from within for still predominantly favouring sociological approaches, as opposed to offering an analysis of the musical text that incorporates the social. What is missing from such debates, however, is that writings calling for a popular music aesthetic are almost as old as the scholarly study of popular music. Andrew Chester's " For a Rock Aesthetic " , published in New Left Review in 1970 is an example. Popular music studies, however, also produced works in Eastern Europe at around the same time, building on the results of a new Marxist musicology and sociology of music that drew on both musical and sociological aspects in music analysis. We compare British leftist and Marxist analyses of popular music phenomena of the 1960s and early 1970s with the work of Hungarian scholars such as János Maróthy looking at trends in popular music from a Marxist perspective.

Fordulat, 2018

A tanulmányban amellett érvelek, hogy a digitális zeneipart övező domináns diskurzusok, narratívá... more A tanulmányban amellett érvelek, hogy a digitális zeneipart övező domináns diskurzusok, narratívák vizsgálata – melyek főbb csatornái a zeneipari szaksajtó, a zeneipari konferenciák tematikája és nyelvezete, a populáris média és az informális zeneipari interakciók – egy az utóbbi években bekövetkezett ideológiai fordulatra mutat. A digitális zeneipar kialakulásának időszakát a következő optimista narratívák és az ezekhez kapcsolódó fogyasztókép jellemezték: a „hosszú farok” elmélete (Anderson 2006) és a „sláger zsarnokságának” vége; technológiai triumfalizmus és demokratizáció; az egyéni fogyasztói választás ereje, azaz felnőtt, érett, tudatos zenefogyasztó. Az elmúlt években azonban ezzel ellentétes narratívák látszanak megerősödni: a „digitális zenei szennyezés” és „a választék zsarnoksága”; a lemezkiadók, mint a minőség garanciái; infantilis (és feminizált) fogyasztó tömeg, amelynek szüksége van a szakértő ízlésformálókra. Az ideológiai síkot és a zene gazdaságát együtt vizsgálva arra juthatunk, hogy a digitális és online felületeken elérhető, választható zene sokat emlegetett bőségessége egyszerre elfedi, ugyanakkor elő is segíti az iparági koncentrációt. Egy 2014-ben végzett kvalitatív interjús kutatásom eredményeire hagyatkozva, az amszterdami alapítású 22tracks felületet például véve vizsgálom, hogy a playlisteket használó, zenei kurátori feladatokat ellátó felületek és maguk a zenei kurátorok milyen tekintetben jelenthetnek ellenirányú erőként hatva kihívást erre a koncentrációs folyamatra, illetve milyen tekintetben képezik részét annak.

CONSERVATIVE TURN IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND THE NEW ENTREPRENEURS OF DIGITAL MUSIC INDUSTRY

In this paper I argue that by looking at dominant discourses and narratives surrounding
the digital music industry – channels of which include the music industry press, the
themes and language of music business conferences, the popular media as well as
informal interactions in the music industry – we can observe an ideological turn taking
place in the last few years. The emergence of the digital music industry was accompanied by the following optimistic narratives and the corresponding consumer image: the “long tail” (Anderson 2006) and the end of the “tyranny of the hit”; technological triumphalism and democratisation; and the power of individual choice, i.e. a mature and conscious music consumer. In recent years, however, contrary narratives seem to have strengthened: “digital music pollution” and the “tyranny of choice”; record companies as the guarantees of quality; and infantile (and feminised) mass consumers who need the guidance of expert tastemakers. By looking at ideology together with the economy of music, it is possible to conclude that the frequently mentioned plenitude of music available via digital and online platforms simultaneously masks and facilitates industry concentration. Based on the results of qualitative interview research conducted in 2014 on the Amsterdam-based platform 22tracks, I explore the ways in which music curation platforms using playlists are able to challenge this concentration process by acting as a counter-force, while, at the same time, also forming part of it.

KÖNYVSZEMLE Sipos Júlia gondozásában

Steve Collins and Sherman Young Sheffield and Bristol, CT: Equinox, 2014 ISBN 978-1-84553-938-2

TNTeF Társadalmi Nemek Tudománya Interdiszciplináris eFolyóirat (2014) 4.2: 135-143.

Volume!, 2020

Sarah Baker, Lauren Istvandity, Raphaël Nowak, Curating Pop: Exhibiting Popular Music in the Muse... more Sarah Baker, Lauren Istvandity, Raphaël Nowak, Curating Pop: Exhibiting Popular Music in the Museum, New York, London, Oxford, New Delhi & Sydney, Bloomsbury Academic, 2019

This thesis explores the relationship between the online and offline presence and activity of con... more This thesis explores the relationship between the online and offline presence and activity of contemporary indie rock bands in Liverpool. It addresses two main questions: firstly, how should the relationship of music, place, and social groups be described and understood in the age of the Internet; and secondly, what can research on local music making suggest about the relationship between online and offline worlds. These questions are addressed through ethnographic research conducted between 2007-2009. The research involved qualitative analysis of online content, discourse, and connections related to Liverpool indie bands and music events, as well as first-hand observation of offline events and interviews with musicians. On the basis of this, the thesis proposes two main arguments: Firstly, online presentation and interaction surrounding bands and events are closely connected to offline events, places, and personal relationships. Local music ‘scenes’ must therefore be understood as ...

IASPM Journal, 2020

Amidst political and economic changes shaping both the field of popular music and popular music s... more Amidst political and economic changes shaping both the field of popular music and popular music studies in Hungary, including changes in the financing and institutional framework of academic research, as well as a growing intensity in the state funding of popular music – which, at the same time, has contributed to the creation of a system of dependency on the state – the Hungarian branch, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year,
has seen considerable activity in the last few years. This includes the organising of the first international popular music conferences in Hungary, as well as the joining of new, young scholar members, and the strengthening of new research areas. The most prominent areas
are the history of popular music research in Hungary, popular music histories and historiography, jazz studies, studies of (digital) technology and popular music, research on the relationship between popular music and populism, and on popular music and gender.

The starting point of the conference organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on 3 October 201... more The starting point of the conference organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on 3 October 2016 was the idea that care for children, the sick and elderly is an integral part of human life and indispensable for social reproduction. Housework and care are not just issues of work–life balance but prerequisites of taking part in the labour market and of the functioning of the economy. It is not enough to encourage men to take their fair share in these responsibilities, we also need social systems that recognize the importance of care at their full value, and the growing pressure on our societies in relation to care.

Recently, many people all over the Western world rejoiced about the new advertisement of a transn... more Recently, many people all over the Western world rejoiced about the new advertisement of a transnational shoe company, celebrating its sensitizing towards gender equality and the diversity of women's experiences. Others drew the attention to the fact that while using feminism as a marketing strategy, the company exploits hundreds of thousands of female employees in Vietnam with poor working conditions and has only one woman among its executives. Consumption and women's rights, a forum organised by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Budapest on 22 May 2017, discussed questions related to such cases. How do global inequalities come into play when we speak about consumption? What is the role of economic actors in shaping our ideas about what it means to be a " real woman " or even a " good mother/parent " , and what we need to buy to achieve this? How is demand raised in the beauty industry, the sports industry, the parenting industry and beyond? What can we do when we can only afford products produced under inhumane working conditions on the other side of the world? How does the region of East-Central Europe connect to the global economic hierarchy, and how does it affect consumption patterns and aspirations? What is the role of individuals, companies, nation states and supranational actors in making a change?

Fordulat, 2022

Katja Praznik Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism című könyvében arra... more Katja Praznik Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism című könyvében arra vállalkozik, hogy felfedje a művészetről szóló diskurzusban jellemzően elhallgatott munka valóságát. Vagyis a könyv arra világít rá, hogy a művészet gazdasági működésének és beágyazottságának eltagadása megalapozza és fenntartja a művészet és a művészek kizsákmányolását. Mindezt Praznik a szocialista Jugoszlávia kontextusában és példáján keresztül mutatja be. Az itt következő tanulmány a könyv második fejezete, ami a konkrét esettanulmányokat megelőző általános elméleti keret részeként a művészeti munka és a házimunka közötti analógián keresztül vizsgálja a művészet és művészek pozícióját a kapitalizmusban, kifejezetten a munka szempontja felől közelítve. Fő állítása, hogy a művészeti munka és a művészetgazdaság láthatatlanná tétele, illetve el nem ismerése teszi lehetővé a jelenlegi gazdasági és társadalmi viszonyok között a művészet és a művészek kizsákmányolását, és így párhuzamba állítható a jellemzően nők által láthatatlanul végzett reproduktív munkával. A hasonlóságok és különbségek elemzésével arra is rávilágít, ahogy a fennálló genderviszonyok, illetve az ezeken átszűrt fogalmak (mint például az autonómia, a kreativitás, a zseni stb.) meghatározzák a kizsákmányolás különböző módozatait a művészeti munka és a házimunka esetében.