Digital Club Imaginaries [radio edit]
this essay is adapted from my thesis work detailing the realities of cultural production as they meet at the juncture of political economies and globalization. The work has been lightly edited for clarity, and attempts to highlight the inherent imbrications of internet radio, dance music and a globalized music world.
In light of the trend of global mobility and the development of new communication technologies, interest- and identity-based communities are grounded in their immediate territorial and cultural realities, but can also transcend these local conditions…- Lei Guo
Overview
The untrained eye takes for granted the sheer amount of connectivity and the impact of a networked globe. This essay is built using frameworks provided by Appadurai’s scapes from Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy and Benkler’s assertions on Networked Information Economies (NIE) in the Wealth of Networks. Utilizing these theories offers an alternative way of understanding how the globe is less of a block-y jigsaw puzzle and more of a consist weaving whole with centers of activity with heighten dynamism and difference. I aim to highlight this perspective using the musical connections of emerging club music scenes between the cities of London and Shanghai. To support this assertion, I will: 1) offer contextual details of each city, 2) give an overview of localized-internet radio platforms in each city and 3) highlight the dynamic “glocal” realities of both. While this note isn’t concluding anything particularly groundbreaking, the exercise in pulling apart these dynamics has increased my awareness of the mutually affecting influences of global culture exchange.
Frameworks: The Scapes, and NIE
Arjun Appadurai’s concept of scapes offers a different understanding of cultural formation that moves away from static extrapolations of “order, stability and systematicness” and privileges the emphasis on zones of “flows…uncertainty…[and] chaos” (Appadurai). The scapes asks the user to view cultural formation as a volatile, highly dynamic and constantly adjusting product of mutually interacting forces. I employ this framework to explore how the dynamics of cultural flow are deeply interconnected. Yochai Benkler’s notion of the Networked Information Economics essentially points out how the development of the personalized computer radically shifted and disrupted information production and distribution (Benkler). For this particular paper, NIEs helps explain the enhanced autonomy gained by internet radio stations that they use to operate largely outside of the market sphere.
The Cities: London
Through municipal and national policy, the City of London is establishing itself as a culture and music hub through enabling policies. In pre-pandemic times, the infrastructure of live performance was a large driver for cultural tourism and local economic activity. City infrastructure was created to facilitate the governing of night-life and night-time institutions to address concerns and their fully exploit their offerings (Sound Diplomacy). The Arts Council of England is a similar agent. They are not-for-profit culture institution that is funded through monies allocated by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and from levies on state-sanctioned lottery (BBC). In a 2020–2030 report, the Arts Council of England aims to understand the role of culture in building and sustaining international communities, especially during a time where the UK nation-state is redefining its relationship with the wider world (Arts Council England). Investment from non-commercial entities can provide tremendous support for emerging creative talent. While commercial entities — like live venues, recording labels etc — are effective in providing a pathway for economic success, not every piece of art can be traditionally capitalized by existing market entities. Ambient, experimental music — a large programming facet of NTS’s programming, which’ll be explained later on — does not fit the traditional “pub-vibe” many live venues seek. In adjustments from its community survey, Arts Council England will move towards flexible definitions that embrace individual creation of all types including amateur, voluntary and commercial sectors (Arts Council England). Cultural entities — in order to receive funding in the next decade — will need to prove they are adapting their missions and business models to changes in taste and habits influenced by new technological affordances. These policies offer enabling structures to promote, educate and bolster cultural sector growth.
The Cities: Shanghai
Shanghai promotes a different vision for its cultural policies. In contrast to London’s individual-agency focus; Shanghai constructs cultural policies that restricts creative actors to moving in tandem with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Whose goals have been expressed stated to preserve and promote traditional Chinese culture (Shanghai 70). In Shanghai’s Five-year Plan, the municipality outlines policies aimed to bolster growth for live theatre troupes, tourism agencies, TV/Film and e-Sports companies by encouraging financial institutions and guaranteeing credit to those sectors (79). These policies seem to be on line with building internal structures to support the exportation of Chinese culture through investing in culture production that reflects the image and values of the state (The Soft Power 30). The Five-year Plan also sets out objectives to increase the city’s global reputation in service, manufacturing, shopping and lastly, culture with a motto to “face the world while serving the country” (Shanghai 102). The resulting policies restrict creatives by incentivizing them to align with the state if they wish to receive any funding or support.
Noticeably absent from Shanghai’s economic outlook was any mention of music or music generating activities. This includes live music-centered events, recordings, or event mention of infrastructure where live music takes place such as bars or nightclubs. It is possible that the influence of the PRC is influencing the attribution of national capital for cultural endeavors and that their focus for music-centered growth is set on another city. In January of 2020, Beijing’s Municipal Committee unveiled a proposal for the city to become an “international music capital” by 2025 with plans to develop digital music offering with better copyright protections and more small-scale venues (Chen). This announcement signals action from the PCR to address its relatively scattered and ineffective musical infrastructure to capitalize on a maturing creative class (Chen). The PRC is targeting support to specific cities for growth in specific cultural areas. Beijing, a traditional music business sources; Shanghai, a film/TV and e-Sports.
This begs the question of what happens to those musicians in Shanghai? Such implications would to signal that musical communities should move to Beijing. Do national policies for culture creation force creatives to locate in different areas? It is in that discrepancy — or as Appadurai calls it disjuncture — that the networked musical tools afford creatives to build their own avenues for culture production; regardless of place or policy. Perhaps these elements surrounding these“displaced” communities give rise to new artistic possibilities.
“Global Community Radio”
“Don’t assume,” is the motto of Hackney-based NTS Radio. Founded in 2011, NTS is a 24/7 internet radio broadcasting platform that seeks to embrace all types of programming without limitation to traditional genre-based verticals embraced by broadcasting licenses or non-human curation by digital service providers (Stassen). In the 2010s, many clubs were facing closure — due to rising rents, and noise complaints from inner-city London — which left their audiences without a physical place to congregate (Plumb). NTS’s programming ethos sought to emulate these now-defunct club spaces by highlighting the conversational and contextual knowledge of its musical community. The resulting radio shows are an acme of the musical complexion of London with diverse curators from an array of backgrounds such as clothing designers, comedians, visual artists, to even average musical enthusiasts (Peters). Listenership on the platform quickly seeped from the local to a global audience. With audiences popping up in cities around the world, NTS co-founder Femi Adeyemi says the station shifted its attention to being a“global community radio” with two separate co-current broadcasts and pop-up events occurring in cities around the globe.
No longer are nightclubs the only place to interact and absorb the influences of a community. To barrow another implication from Benkler, NTS was transmitting a previously rival cultural good — packed clubs — around the globe — anyone with a phone — for free. Highlighting a decentralized production and distribution methods. Anyone with an idea could transmit and anyone with a smart phone could tune in. A dramatically different proposition than packing a sweaty, tiny club.
I contend that the global reach of NTS expands the imagination. NTS Radio recognized its platform had begun to attract listeners from cities around the globe and sought external programmers to highlight their increasing global attention. Of note, China Social Club (CSC) — a collective that broadcasts Shanghai-based DJs, producers, and bands — was born (Greffer). The resulting program has given a platform for China’s underground music scene where physical club spaces have been limited to international touring acts or were nonexistent altogether (Grogan). This is especially impactful given that Chinese nation-state entities have blocked underground scenes from government funding for cultural and creative industries due to the complicated relationship of censorship and centering traditionally-oriented cultural production (Gu 1). That particular reality has left fertile ground for those marginalized creative communities to find their own foothold.
Shanghai Community Radio (SHCR) is a live broadcasting platform that organizes and operates through sets of local blockages. These blockages, however, have given rise to divergent forms of internet radio to showcase new types of expression. SHCR formed around collective inspiration to build a space that centers experimentation, expression and the documentation of the local scene utilizing visual production and interactivity (TONG). With a single studio space in Shanghai’s Changning district, SHCR’s space broadcasts live three-to-five times a week on Soundcloud and Bilibili. While Soundcloud is familiar to western audiences, BiliBili is a nuanced local platform. BiliBili is live video sharing website that centers content around comics, video games and animation where users can submit videos with commentary (Subtropical Asia). The use of BiliBili allows SHCR to fly under the radar of creative censorship by having the creators stream through video games like Super Smash Bros. or via simple green-screen animations with musical accompaniment (Feola). Due to VPN and IP restrictions in place by PRC, live-broadcasts can’t be accessed outside of China via BiliBili or other live platforms such as Twitch. In reaction, members of SHCR who’re spread across different parts of the continent stitch a multi-cast where the original IP from BiliBili is shared to a computer of an outside IP that could share it to another computer and so on to stretch into a multi-continent stream (TONG). BiliBili, being a native anime/fandom/E-Sport website lets SHCR to fly under-the-radar by hosting its events on a PCR approved interactive media that dually engages its audience and avoid detection. The resulting streams are not only linear audio streams but mixes with anime culture and video game live-interactivity. It is through these factors that dramatically new and innovative media emerges.
Club Music & Hybridity
Club music scenes are an illuminating example to expose the threads of a network society. By growing up in a rural midwestern community with fairly homogenous popular music, the first colloquial dance music “drop” I heard on NTS Radio in 2012 shocked my expectations for popular music. As someone who lived at hundreds of miles away from the nearest club, I felt my own perception of places expand with possibilities. By being able to tune into these platforms, I could feed my imagination of places outside of the bedroom where I was tuning in. With the concept of the imaginary, it’s possible to see that these platforms accentuate the networked world.
In this analysis, I left club music intentionally vague to emphasis the blurring between its use as a noun or a verb. People go to the “club” as one would go “clubbing.” The word club captures the cross-pollination of previously hyperlocal sounds as they make their way across continents and in the clumping of those disparate sounds together, the cultural specificities that gave rise to each style become blurred (Ravens). Especially given the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the club isn’t manifesting as a physical place. Radio — and by extension, internet radio — offers an alternative space for these gatherings. These communities are less tied by their territorial place, but more through horizontal networking links that allow cultures to interact and hybridize. It is in this realization that new forms of agency emerge that can challenge previous structures of cultural imagination and policy enactment.
Both NTS Radio and SHCR facilitate the movement of people through a near constant influx of individuals acting as both senders and receivers in the musical exchange. With DJs and producers from unique backgrounds, experiences and expressions; the meaning of club music is put into near constant reinterpretation. This heightened by London and Shanghai’s positioning as regional centers for people, jobs and capital. While NTS Radio and SHCR are free for users to tune in, these organizations rely on navigating and utilizing tools of capital purposefully allocated and/or subversively obtained. NTS’s platform is funded through brand partnerships and access to grants funded by taxes. SHCR, conversely, uses the BiliBili platform through a mix of socio-political blockages. Unlike platforms like Facebook Live, BiliBili offers deeper levels of interactivity between creator and receiver than linear-stream platforms would bear and, while not a sociopolitically stable situation, the networked platform affordances give divergent avenues of expression.
Conclusions
Internet radio is not dramatically new. It is a hybrid structure of lasting industrial information economics and new networked information economies. The blend of the two give allowances that govern a greater diversity of music to be shared and the possibility for social imaginaries for local creators and for national listeners to be intertwined. In this research, I initially disagreed with the proposition of a networked globe with cities as the hubs. However, I can see how by acknowledging the flows of people, capital, technology, media and ideas that centers of intense hybridization come into focus. London has been known as a global club music destination for decades. These flows have let London be a ripe space for a platform like NTS Radio to blossom. In contrast, creatives in Shanghai navigate blockages in capital allocation, media and ideas reenforcing “appropriate” creative expression to result in several complications where non-the-less, a club scene has found ground to operate.
It is truly inspiring to see how music and expression still find a way. Despite forces of power; hybridization never ceases and for those who can acknowledge it…there is a special opportunity for structure to emerge that an untrained eye would never and could never see.
Works Cited
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Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 2–4.
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