Dissonance

Does the Internet Help Demanding Music in Getting More Visibility?

Reflections on the Intertwining of Media, Economic, and Social Factors in the Instance of Contemporary Jazz

Daniel Schläppi
Digital media have led to a democratisation with respect to the technical possibilities of production and diffusion of music. Yet this new configuration did not bring any substantial economic change for musicians from the pre-digital era, nor any increase in the reception of jazz. In the struggle for visibility, the effects of the market logic already at work in the analogue age seem, at least in the view of artists, to have been ever more intense. Despite electronic media and new opportunities of communication, a culture of presence and performance in the jazz scene had to reaffirm its importance.

by moxi