A multi-level perspective analysis of the change in music consumption 1989-2014

Abstract

This thesis seeks to examine the historical socio-technical transitions in the music industry through the 1990s and 2000s which fundamentally altered the way in which music is consumed along with the environmental resource impact of such transitions. Specifically, the investigation seeks to establish a historical narrative of events that are significant to the story of this transition through the use of the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions as a framework. This thesis adopts a multi-level perspective for socio-technical transitions approach to analyse this historical narrative seeking to identify key events and actors that influenced the transition as well as enhance the methodological implementation of the multi-level perspective. Additionally, this thesis utilised the Material Intensity Per Service unit methodology to derive several illustrative scenarios of music consumption and their associated resource usage to establish whether the socio-technical transitions experienced by the music industry can be said to be dematerialising socio-technical transitions. This thesis provides a number of original empirical and theoretical contributions to knowledge. This is achieved by presenting a multi-level perspective analysis of a historical narrative established using over 1000 primary sources. The research identifies, examines and discusses key events, actors and transition pathways denote the complex nature of dematerialising socio-technical systems as well as highlights specifically the influence different actors and actor groups can have on the pathways that transitions take. The thesis also provides a broader contribution to the understanding of dematerialisation and technology convergence

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