The Prosumer and the Project Studio: The Battle for Distinction in the Field of Music Recording

Abstract

Using participant observation and content analysis of musicians’ internet newsgroups and bulletin boards, my research examines the creation of a new socio-historic subject (‘the prosumer’) and space of production (‘the project studio’). Prosumers’ practices illustrate a nondeterministic form of structural causation that both supports and refutes Bourdieu’s theory of cultural/social (re)production. In support of Bourdieu, my empirical research illustrates the relative autonomy of the habitus and shows that cultural production can foster social change. Although Bourdieu repeatedly made such theoretical claims, his struggle to empirically support them led critics to characterize his work as a synchronously reproductive form of economic reductionism. While I reject these critiques, my work does problematize Bourdieu’s understanding of ‘capital conversion’ and complicates his somewhat ‘straightforward’ relation of cultural practice to economic class. Such ‘relations and conversions’ presuppose clearly separated economic/cultural and productive/ consumptive social spheres. Since ‘prosumption’ blurs these demarcations, we must subsequently reassess aspects of Bourdieu’s work.