School of Social and Political Science

Background

Office hours

Semester Times: Thursdays 10-12

Qualifications

• BA (University of York)
• MA (University of York)
• PhD (University of Edinburgh)

Research Interests and Current Projects

Books

My monograph, Popular Music, Digital Technology and Society was published in 2018 (Sage) and aims to move social science-based scholarship on pop music into  contemporary territories shaped by globalised, digitalised, networked relations. Comprising seven chapters, the text explores how the advent of a range of digital technologies and processes including MIDI, smartphones, apps, Virtual Studio Technologies, Auto-Tune, video games, personal computers and streaming services, favours new types of engagements with popular music production and consumption.

I have an interest in mediations of the voice and "electronic vocalities", as well as the changing sounds of popular music in the post-1980s period. I have spent time in Japan collecting materials related to the "world's first crowd-sourced celebrity", Hatsune Miku, and some of that work is finding its way into my writing at present. Current interests and writing projects include:  democratisation and digital technology, including the case of the Roland TB-303, SP-12 and Grime (with Paul Harkins); Bourdieu and "amateur" cultural production; STS and vocaloid music; and taste and distinction "after Bourdieu".

I've also worked on topics in the sociology of museums and visual culture, the sociology of cities and media/popular culture, as well as popular music scenes in Iceland. I have a particular interest in the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and critical conceptual accounts of the hypermodern. I have co-edited a collection with Kate Orton-Johnson called Digital Sociology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) which assesses the methodological and conceptual challenges faced by the discipline as it confronts digitalised social landscapes.

I was Chief Editor then Co-Editor of the journal Cultural Sociology between 2017-2021 and sit on the editorial and advisory boards of New Formations, Audio/Visual: Journal of Cultural Media Studies and Sociologia Italiana. I am a Carnegie Trust Assessor, a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and have been expert reviewer for large-scale grants for the EC, ESRC and AHRC.

In 2017 I was Visiting Fellow at the University of Tokyo of the Arts (Geidai).

I served as Head of Department between 2013-2016.

My work is regularly cited in the media (e.g., "End of the Decade: How the 2010s Changed My Life"), and I've carried out interviews for national broadcasters in Japan, UK and Iceland.

I'm also an electronic musician with experience of composition, remixing, writing scores for films, documentaries and theatre. I'm interested in exploring what doing sociology with rather than of music might offer as a potential way of enriching the sociological imagination. Some of my recent compositions use audio samples taken from a series of sound walks through Tokyo as a means to explore urban soundscapes and, in particular, the location and mediation of the voice in a hyper-connected world.

Sonic Experiments and Video Projects

Jihanki
Voices of Akihabara
Tokyo After Hours

Recent publications

'Interlude II: Tokyo After Hours', in Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night, Derek Pardue, Ailbhe Kenny and Katie Young (eds), Bristol: Intellect, 2023: 79-82.

'(Dis)locating Democratisation: Music Technologies in Practice' (with Paul Harkins), Popular Music and Society, 2021, 44(5).

‘STS Confronts the Vocaloid: Assemblage Thinking with Hatsune Miku’, in Rethinking Music Through Science and Technology Studies, Antoine Hennion and Christophe Levaux (eds),  London: Routledge, 2021.

'Afterword: Taste and Distinction After Bourdieu', in Musical Gentrification: Popular Music, Distinction and Social Mobility, Petter Dyndhal, Sidsel Karlsen and Ruth Wright (eds), London: Routledge, 2020: 172-177.

'New Amateurs Revisited: Popular Music, Digital Technology and the Fate of Cultural Production', in Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology, John R. Hall, Laura Grindstaff and Ming-cheng Lo (eds), London: Routledge, 2019, Second Edition.

'Spatiality, Sociality and Circulation: Popular Music Scenes in Reykjavík, in Sounds Icelandic, edited by Þorbjörg Daphne Hall, Nicola Dibben, Árni Heimir Ingólfsson and Tony Mitchell, London: Equinox, 2019.

Popular Music, Digital Technology and Society, Sage, 2018.

'On Vocal Assemblages: From Edison to Miku', Contemporary Music Review, 36, special issue on Music and Mediation, edited by Professor Georgina Born, 2017.

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/PFKFmhTQ2SMHi6tKdRbh/full

'Editorial Statement: Tracing, Making and Locating Cultural Sociology', with Lisa McCormick and Isabelle Darmon, Cultural Sociology, 11:1, 2017: 3-11.

'Sociological Imagination: Digital Sociology and the Future of the Discipline', with Kate Orton-Johnson and Karen Gregory, special Section on Digital Sociology. The Sociological Review, 2015.

'Beyond Napster: Popular Music and the Normal Internet', Sage Handbook of Popular Music, edited by Andy Bennett and Steve Waksman, Sage, 2015.

'"It's a Social Thing Not a Nature Thing': Popular Music Practices in Reykjavík, Iceland", Cultural Sociology, 2015, 9(1): 81-98.

'The Plural iPod: A Study of Technology in Action', Poetics, Vol.42, Issue 1, February 2014: 22-39. (With a short presentation and discussion of the findings at The Conversation).

Digital Sociology: Critical Perspectives, edited with Kate Orton-Johnson, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, including "Introduction" and "Afterword: Mediating the Digital". Order here.

'Ground Zero', 'Original Accident', in The Virilio Dictionary, edited by John Armitage, Edinburgh University Press, 2013. Order here.

'Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music Consumption: A Critical Assessment of Recent Developments', Sociology Compass, 7: 3, 2013: 181-193.

'Musiques Populaires en Regime Numerique: Acteurs, Equipements, Styles et Pratiques', Réseaux, 30: 172, 2012: 67-90.

'Speed, Rhythm and Time-space: Museums and Cities', Space and Culture, 14:3, 2011: 197-213.

'Critique and Renewal in the Sociology of Music: Bourdieu and Beyond', Cultural Sociology, 5:1, 2011: 121-138. Reprinted in The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music, John Shepherd and Kyle Devine (eds), Routledge, 2015.

'The Rise of the New Amateurs: Popular Music, Digital Technology and the Fate of Cultural Production', in Handbook of Cultural Sociology, John R. Hall, Laura Grindstaff and Ming-cheng Lo (eds), Routledge, 2010.

'Software Sequencers and Cyborg Singers: Popular Music in the Digital Hypermodern', New Formations, 66, Spring 2009: 81-99.

'OK Computer: Mobility, Software and the Laptop Musician', Information, Communication and Society, 11:7, October 2008: 912-932.

'Putting a Glitch in the Field: Bourdieu, Actor Network Theory and Contemporary Music', Cultural Sociology, 2:3, 2008: 301-319.

Electronic music projects

Sponge Monkeys (1999-2006) (2023-)
Funkspiel (2007-2010) (with Bill Walsh)
K Projekt (2011-2013) (with Sara Janssen)
Triviax (2023-present)

Current PhD Students

• Eric Yan: Food and Distinction in Contemporary Urban China
• Dean Chalmers: Ludic Representations of Past(s) in Videogames
• Yiru Zhao: Data Fans in China
• Jade Jiang: Jazz Field in China
• Damian Cheung: Electronic Dance Music in HK

Completed

Addie McGowan: A Processual Exploration of Air BnB and Platforms (2024); Sicong Zhao: Self-Presentation, Music and Social Media in China (2024); Malena Müller: Peruvian Nationalism and Music (2024); Xiaoqing Wang (2023): Art and the Body in China; Nicolas Zehner (2023): Smart Cities and Economic Imaginaries; Jen Kirkwood (2022): Growing Up Global: A Contrast Ethnography of New Cosmopolitan Elites and their World Schools, in Beijing and New York City; Alex Davenport (2018): LGBT Audiences and scripted TV (2018); Arek Dakessian (2018): Casting Nets and Framing Films: An Ethnography of Networks of Cultural Production in Beirut; Ben Twist (2018): Taking the Complexity Turn to Steer Carbon Reduction Policy; Chun-Ming Huang (2018): Taiwanese Popular Music in China; Chi-Chung Wang (2017): Youth Culture and Rock in East Asian Education; Paul Harkins: Sampling and Popular Music (2016); Harriet Kennedy: Les Bandes Dessinées and the Quebec Referendums (2016); Fiona Myers: Sociology of Portraiture (2015); Marios Kampouris: Technological Innovation and the Field of Renewable Energy (2015); Jillian Seaton: Art Security and Theft (2014); Kirsti McGregor: Gender and Web 2.0 (2013); Evangelos Chrysagis: An Ethnography of the Glasgow DIY Music Scene (2013); Orlando Villalobos Guevara: Independent Digital Games Production (2013); Sam Friedman: Comedy and Distinction (2011); Mary Fogarty: Competing Tastes in International B-Boy/B-Girl Culture (2011); Jack Burton: Fatherhood and Advertising (2011); Sarah Hill: Politics and Performance (2010); Alima Bucciantini: Objects, Aura and Museums (2009); Suzanne Schulz: Fashion Forecasting and the Fashion Industry (2004).