scholarly journals It's not all about the music: Online fan communities and collecting Hard Rock Café pins

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lincoln Geraghty

Previous studies of music fan culture have largely centered on the diverse range of subcultures devoted to particular genres, groups, and stars. Where studies have moved beyond the actual music and examined the fashion, concerts, and collecting ephemera such as vinyl records and posters, they have tended to remain closely allied to notions of subcultural distinction, emphasizing hierarchies of taste. This paper shifts the focus in music fan studies beyond the appreciation of the music and discusses the popular fan practice of collecting souvenir pins produced and sold by the Hard Rock Café (HRC) within a framework of fan tourism. Traveling to and collecting unique pins from locations across the globe creates a fan dialogue that centers on tourism and the collecting practices associated with souvenir consumption. Collectors engage in practices such as blogging, travel writing, and administration that become important indicators of their particular expression of fandom: pin collecting. Membership requires both time and money; recording visits around the world and collecting unique pins from every café builds fans' cultural capital. This indicates an internationalization of popular fandom, with the Internet acting as a connective virtual space between local and national, personal and public physical space. The study of HRC pin collecting and its fan community suggests that HRC enthusiasts are not so because they enjoy rock music or follow any particular artist but due to the physical ephemera that they collect and the places and spaces they visit.

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Young

This paper describes an exploration of utilising the World Wide Web for interactive music. The origin of this investigation was the intermedia work Telemusic #1, by Randall Packer, which combined live performers with live public participation via the Web. During the event, visitors to the site navigated through a virtual interface, and while manipulating elements, projected their actions in the form of triggered sounds into the physical space. Simultaneously, the live audio performance was streamed back out to the Internet participants. Thus, anyone could take part in the collective realisation of the work and hear the musical results in real time. The underlying technology is, to our knowledge, the first standards-based implementation linking the Web with Cycling '74 MAX. Using only ECMAScript/JavaScript, Java, and the OTUDP external from UC Berkeley CNMAT, virtually any conceivable interaction with a Web page can send data to a MAX patch for processing. The code can also be readily adapted to work with Pd, jMAX and other network-enabled applications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ria Narai

In the scholarship of fan studies, a lot has been said about why female fan communities enjoy writing about male characters and relationships in fan fiction. In contrast, there has been a dearth of research into female fan communities that are centered around female characters and their relationships with each other. Here I examine the heretofore unnamed female-centered fan fiction genre of homoaffection fic through a close reading of examples chosen from the Star Trek fandom. I show how this fan fictional genre reworks the masculine narratives of the television series and movies in order to define female experience and demonstrate the way in which this in turn creates female communities in both the world of the fic and our own world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-16
Author(s):  
Amjad Mohamed-Saleem

With nearly three million Sri Lankans living overseas, across the world, there is a significant role that can be played by this constituency in post-conflict reconciliation.  This paper will highlight the lessons learnt from a process facilitated by International Alert (IA) and led by the author, working to engage proactively with the diaspora on post-conflict reconciliation in Sri Lanka.  The paper shows that for any sustainable impact, it is also critical that opportunities are provided to diaspora members representing the different communities of the country to interact and develop horizontal relations, whilst also ensuring positive vertical relations with the state. The foundation of such effective engagement strategies is trust-building. Instilling trust and gaining confidence involves the integration of the diaspora into the national framework for development and reconciliation. This will allow them to share their human, social and cultural capital, as well as to foster economic growth by bridging their countries of residence and origin.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Víctor Lafuente ◽  
José Ángel Sanz ◽  
María Devesa

Holy Week is one of the most important traditions in many parts of the world and a complex expression of cultural heritage. The main goal of this article is to explore which factors determine participation in Holy Week celebrations in the city of Palencia (Spain), measured through the number of processions attended. For this purpose, an econometric count data model is used. Variables included in the model not only reflect participants' sociodemographic features but other factors reflecting cultural capital, accumulated experience, and social aspects of the event. A distinction is drawn between three types of participants: brotherhood members, local residents, and visitors, among whom a survey was conducted to collect the information required. A total of 248 surveys were carried out among brotherhood members, 209 among local residents, and 259 among visitors. The results confirm the religious and social nature of this event, especially in the case of local participants. However, in the case of visitors, participation also depends on aspects reflecting the celebration's cultural and tourist dimension—such as visiting other religious and cultural attractions—suggesting the existence of specific tourism linked to the event. All of this suggests the need to manage the event, ensuring a balance is struck between the various stakeholders' interests and developing a tourist strategy that prioritizes public-private cooperation.


Author(s):  
Gerhard Preyer

The study of meaning in language embraces a diverse range of problems and methods. Philosophers think through the relationship between language and the world; linguists document speakers’ knowledge of meaning; psychologists investigate the mechanisms of understanding and production. Up through the early 2000s, these investigations were generally compartmentalized: indeed, researchers often regarded both the subject matter and the methods of other disciplines with skepticism. Since then, however, there has been a sea change in the field, enabling researchers increasingly to synthesize the perspectives of philosophy, linguistics, and psychology and to energize all the fields with rich new intellectual perspectives that facilitate meaningful interchange. One illustration of the trend is the publication of Lepore and Stone’s ...


Pigs are one of the most iconic but also paradoxical animals ever to have developed a relationship with humans. This relationship has been a long and varied one: from noble wild beast of the forest to mass produced farmyard animal; from a symbol of status and plenty to a widespread religious food taboo; from revered religious totem to a parodied symbol of filth and debauchery. Pigs and Humans brings together some of the key scholars whose research is highlighting the role wild and domestic pigs have played in human societies around the world over the last 10,000 years. The 22 contributors cover a broad and diverse range of temporal, geographical, and topical themes, grounded within the disciplines of archaeology, zoology, anthropology, and biology, as well as art history and history. They explore such areas as evolution and taxonomy, domestication and husbandry, ethnography, and ritual and art, and present some of the latest theories and methodological techniques. The volume as a whole is generously illustrated and will enhance our understanding of many of the issues regarding our complex and ever changing relationship with the pig.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Jingyi Li ◽  
Ceenu George ◽  
Andrea Ngao ◽  
Kai Holländer ◽  
Stefan Mayer ◽  
...  

Ubiquitous technology lets us work in flexible and decentralised ways. Passengers can already use travel time to be productive, and we envision even better performance and experience in vehicles with emerging technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) headsets. However, the confined physical space constrains interactions while the virtual space may be conceptually borderless. We therefore conducted a VR study (N = 33) to examine the influence of physical restraints and virtual working environments on performance, presence, and the feeling of safety. Our findings show that virtual borders make passengers touch the car interior less, while performance and presence are comparable across conditions. Although passengers prefer a secluded and unlimited virtual environment (nature), they are more productive in a shared and limited one (office). We further discuss choices for virtual borders and environments, social experience, and safety responsiveness. Our work highlights opportunities and challenges for future research and design of rear-seat VR interaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Stella Epifanio ◽  
Federica Andrei ◽  
Giacomo Mancini ◽  
Francesca Agostini ◽  
Marco Andrea Piombo ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world in the year 2020 has put a strain on our ability to cope with events and revolutionized our daily habits. On 9 March, Italy was forced to lockdown to prevent the spread of the infection, with measures including the mandatory closure of schools and nonessential activities, travel restrictions, and the obligation to spend entire weeks in the same physical space. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on quality of life (QoL) in a large Italian sample, in order to investigate possible differences in QoL levels related to both demographic and pandemic-specific variables. A total of 2251 Italian adults (1665 women, mainly young and middle adults) were recruited via a snowball sampling strategy. Participants were requested to answer to an online survey, which included demographic and COVID-related information items, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life BREF questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The results showed statistically significant differences in QoL depending on a number of variables, including sex, area of residence in Italy, and being diagnosed with a medical/psychiatric condition. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess QoL during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, therefore the present findings can offer guidelines regarding which social groups are more vulnerable of a decline in QoL and would benefit of psychological interventions.


Sederi ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 57-78
Author(s):  
Sofía Muñoz-Valdivieso

The present article discusses one of the contributions of the Royal Shakespeare Company to the World Shakespeare Festival, a celebration of the Bard as the world’s playwright that took place in the UK in 2012 as part of the so-called Cultural Olympiad. Iqbal Khan directed for the RSC an all-Indian production of the comedy Much Ado about Nothing that transposed the actions from early modern Messina to contemporary Delhi and presented its story of love, merry war of wits and patriarchal domination in a colourful setting that recreated a world of tradition and modernity. Received with mixed reviews that in general applauded the vibrant relocation while criticising some directorial choices, this 2012 Much Ado about Nothing in modern-day Delhi raises a number of questions about cultural ownership and Shakespeare’s international performance – issues that are particularly relevant if we see the play in relation to other productions of the World Shakespeare Festival in this Olympic year but also in the context of the increasing internationalization of Shakespeare’s cultural capital in contemporary times.


Author(s):  
Joseph Church

Rock ’n’ roll music and its offshoots, including pop, hard rock, rap, r&b, funk, folk, and many others, have become the standard language of today’s musical theatre. Theatre singers, performers, and coaches need a source of information on these styles, their origins, and their performance practices. Rock in the Musical Theatre: A Guide for Singers fills this need. Today’s musical theatre training programs are now including rock music in their coursework and rock songs and musicals in their repertoires. This is a text for those trainees, mentors, courses, and productions. It will also be of great value to working professionals, teachers, music directors, and coaches less familiar with rock styles, or who want to improve their rock-related skills. The author, an experienced music director, vocal coach, and university professor, and an acknowledged expert on rock music in the theatre, examines the many aspects of performing rock music in the theatre and offers practical advice through a combination of aesthetic and theoretical study; extensive discussions of musical, vocal, and acting techniques; and chronicles of coaching sessions. The book also includes advice from working actors, casting directors, and music directors who specialize in rock music for the stage.


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