Sociology Plus
Music Consumption Definition
Music consumption has emerged as a central and evolving area within music sociology over the last three decades, investigated using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Historically, early scholarship focused on music’s function as a means of establishing social status distinctions. More recently, this focus has shifted to understanding the complex links between musical taste and social positioning, moving beyond simple hierarchies to models that account for phenomena like the highbrow/lowbrow divide modulating into an omnivore–univore framework.
Historical Shifts in Focus
The trajectory of music consumption research reflects broader shifts in sociological inquiry. Work stemming from the Birmingham Cultural Studies tradition redirected attention away from mere taste and boundary maintenance towards the construction of social identity, exploring style, subcultures, and the self. This shift involved examining the process of meaning-making and how musical engagement shapes lived experience. For instance, studies investigated how individuals forge connections between preferred musical forms and broader social activities, suggesting that music serves as a repository of tools and repertoires for action.
The Interactive Nature of Reception
Contemporary research has turned towards individual and group listening practices, incorporating concepts such as aesthetic ecology. Scholars have explored the minute ways in which actors imbue music with meaning and power. Research, such as that by Gomart and Hennion, details these processes as ‘techniques of preparation,’ describing how listeners frame musical experiences to elicit specific emotional responses under particular conditions. This highlights the interactive nature of musical effects, demonstrating how listeners empower music to influence their experience within listening contexts.
Technology, Artifacts, and the Listener
The history of consumption has also been re-examined through the lens of technology. The development of recording technology since the early twentieth century afforded vastly increased possibilities for private consumption. Scholars like Maisonneuve focused on the ‘configuration’ of the listening subject, proposing the concept of the listening ‘set up’—the combination of technological devices and material cultural environments (such as liner notes or CD players)—which positions the listener as a node within a network of artifacts and people. This framework illuminates music’s role in self-regulatory strategies and institutional requirements for emotional engagement.
Embodiment and Agency
More recent sociological attention has broadened consumption to encompass subtle, tacit features, particularly in educational settings where performance choices and distribution can reinforce sexual stereotyping. Furthermore, there is a growing focus on the non-cognitive, embodied dimension of music as a resource. This perspective investigates how music provides parameters for agency, whether consciously or subconsciously, particularly within retail contexts. This line of inquiry extends into areas like music therapy, examining the nexus between musical experience, bodily praxis, and physiological phenomena, such as heart rate and pain perception, offering new micro-mechanisms for understanding the interaction between the mind and body in social settings.