Fãs ou amigos? enxergando a mídia social como fazem os músicos

In the last decade, engaging audiences through social media has become an important element of life as a musician. Tis 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.Na última década, as audiências engajadas através das mídias sociais se tornaram um importante elemento na vida dos músicos. O artigo analisa entrevistas com trinta e seis músicos para compreender como eles apreendem suas interações e relações com audiências online. Também ressalta os limites incertos entre fãs e amigos, identifcando como interações online podem trazer recompensas interpessoais para músicos, assim como gerar desafos interpessoais. Músicos equilibram estas tensões através de uma gama de estratégias que dependem da necessidade de protegerem a si mesmos, seus entes queridos e a integridade da experiência de seus fãs. Ao invés de se aproximar da plateia online como fãs que são necessariamente menos poderosos, muitos dos músicos os tratam como iguais

Interpreting Soap Operas and Creating Community: Inside a Computer-Mediated Fan Culture

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The publisher's version is available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814314

Internet Research as is Isn’t, Is, Could Be, and Should Be

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The publisher's version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01972240591007535

Fãs ou amigos? enxergando a mídia social como fazem os músicos

Na última década, as audiências engajadas através das mídias sociais se tornaram um importante elemento na vida dos músicos. O artigo analisa entrevistas com trinta e seis músicos para compreender como eles apreendem suas interações e relações com audiências online. Também ressalta os limites incertos entre fãs e amigos, identifcando como interações online podem trazer recompensas interpessoais para músicos, assim como gerar desafos interpessoais. Músicos equilibram estas tensões através de uma gama de estratégias que dependem da necessidade de protegerem a si mesmos, seus entes queridos e a integridade da experiência de seus fãs. Ao invés de se aproximar da plateia online como fãs que são necessariamente menos poderosos, muitos dos músicos os tratam como iguais

The Swedish Model: Balancing Markets and Gifts in the Music Industry

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available from Taylor & Francis at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2011.536680.The internet has destabilized media industries. This article uses the case of Swedish independent music labels, musicians, and fans to articulate one model for understanding the new roles each can take in this new context. Interviews, participant observation, and popular media coverage are used to show how labels and musicians in this scene loosely organize with fans to create a gift economy among themselves. Although they seek to earn money, they are not focused getting it from the audience. Instead, they engage the audience as equals with whom they can build a larger community that benefits them all. The article shows how they use giving songs away and engaging directly with audience members through the internet to pursue this goal. In contrast to discourses against file sharing, the analysis demonstrates how media producers may reconcile themselves to the participatory culture of the Internet

The Performance of Humor in Computer-Mediated Communication

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.There has been very little work on humor in computer-mediated communication. Indeed, the implication of some CMC work is that the medium is inhospitable to humor. This essay argues that humor can be accomplished in CMC and can be critical to creating social meaning on-line. The humor of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.tv.soaps (r.a.t.s.), which discusses soap operas, is analyzed. The method combines user surveys with message analysis to show the prevalence and importance of humor in r.a.t.s. Close analysis of five exemplary humorous messages shows how the group’s humor arises from the juxtaposition of close and distant readings of the soap opera, which place the participants in close relationships to one another, and distance them from the soap opera’s writers and producers. Group solidarity is also created as participants draw extensively on previous messages to ground their own humor. Humor is also shown to be a primary mechanism for the establishment of individuality, as participants combine the shared meanings and play with the shared parameters of the group in idiosyncratic ways

Agreements and Disagreements in a Computer-Mediated Discussion

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The publisher's version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2904_2.Agreements and disagreements in a predominantly female computer-mediated discussion group which discusses soap operas are analyzed in terms of their message features. The findings differ from those on agreements and disagreements in oral interaction and in written letters. These agreements included qualifications, provision of reasoning, elaborations, and other features uncommon in oral and epistolary agreements. The disagreements were more mitigated than the agreements, but were more likely to contain direct contradictory assertions than agreements were to contain affirming assertions. They too were likely to include elaborations. These findings are attributed interactions between the medium, the topic under discussion, the context of media use, participant gender and the context participants strive to create

Put Down that Phone and Talk to Me: Understanding the Roles of Mobile Phone Norm Adherence and Similarity in Relationships

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The published version will be available in 2014 from http://www.sagepub.com/journals/Journal202140.This study uses co-orientation theory to examine the impact of mobile phone use on relational quality across three co-present contexts. It investigates the relationship between perceived similarity, actual similarity, and understanding of mobile phone usage on relationship outcomes, and uses a new measure of mobile relational interference to assess how commitment, satisfaction, and liking are affected by perceptions of relational partners' mobile phone use. Contrary to popular belief, the results from this study of 69 dyads reveals that, at least within a sample of young Americans, failing to adhere to injunctive (i.e., societal) norms regarding mobile phone usage does not impact relational quality. Rather, results indicate that perceived adherence to participants' own internal standards —by both the participant, and the participant's relational partner— and perceived similarity between partners were more influential. Keywords: commitment; co-orientation theory; etiquette; liking; mobile phone; satisfactio

Tunes that Bind?: Predicting Friendship Strength in a Music-Based Social Network

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available from Taylor & Francis at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691180802635430.Despite the popularity of social network sites based on common interests, the association between these shared interests and relational development is not well understood. This manuscript reports results of an empirical investigation of interpersonal relationships on Last.fm, a music-based social network site with a multinational user base. In addition to baseline descriptors of relational behavior, the chief goals of this study were to examine the degree to which Last.fm relationships are characterized by homophily (and particularly by shared musical taste), the extent to which communication via Last.fm is associated with other forms of communication (both offline and online), how such communication behavior is associated with demographic and relational characteristics, and whether these variables predict strength of relational development. Results indicate that although Last.fm relational partners exhibit shared musical taste, this shared taste is not associated with relational development. Rather, following media multiplexity theory, relational development is strongly and uniquely associated with communication behavior across almost all forms of communication (including Last.fm). These results suggest that shared interests may foster the creation of weak ties, but conversion of these connections to strong ties is relatively rare