Research Focuses

 

  • History and Theory of Music Sociology

The Department of Music Sociology is the only institution in Europe that engages comprehensively with the sociology of music in all its facets. Research in this area is dedicated to the history of the “Viennese School” of music sociology, for which the Kurt Blaukopf Archive housed at the department provides an important starting point, and to the further development of the theoretical foundations of the sociology of music as an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary subject. In recent years, the department has been engaged in a research project concerning the collaborative scholarly efforts and scientific partnership of Kurt Blaukopf and his wife Herta Blaukopf (née Singer).

  • Reception Studies – (Non-)Visitor Research – Sociology of Music Transmission

At the centre of this focus is empirical research on music reception, listening preferences, and musical taste, as well as studies on the participation of individuals and social groups in the musical and cultural offerings of a region, a city, or a country. Visitor and non-visitor research and the still-young field of a sociology of music mediation expand upon this focus with relevant theoretical approaches and empirical findings.

  • Sociology of Music Education – Music School Research – Sociology of Music Labour Markets

Central to this focus are questions about the training of music professionals at music conservatories and universities, the transmission and acquisition of artistic knowledge, and the evaluation of musical and artistic performance, as well as the transition from education to the music labour market, the career paths of music professionals, and the changes in the music and cultural labour markets. The emphasis is on institutionalized contexts as well as on forms of informal knowledge acquisition and the careers of amateur musicians in different musical and cultural worlds.

  • Music, Gender, and Other Dimensions of Social Inequality

Research in this area began with studies on the topic of “women and music” in the 1970s. With the further expansion of sociological and historical research on women in music since the 1990s, questions about the significance of gender in the shaping of musical and cultural fields and practices have increasingly come to the fore. In addition to an understanding of gender as an intersectional category, other categories such as class, ethnicity, and sexuality are increasingly being integrated into research on music and social inequality.

  • Mediamorphosis Research

The question of how the development of new technologies affects the organisation and structure of musical and cultural worlds and the situation of cultural and musical creators forms the starting point of mediamorphosis research. Specifically, this field deals with the historical transformation of music production, distribution, and reception through technological developments and the far-reaching effects of digitization on these areas.

  • Music, Young People and Youth Cultures

Of central interest here are the topics of musical socialization and the identity-forming functions of music for adolescents, which include, for example, the articulation of belonging to specific musical youth cultures or symbolic forms of youth cultural resistance in the past and present. Research in this area is also devoted to the question of how young people appropriate music and media, develop their musical taste, and challenge the established distinction between production and reception by becoming active as music and media producers.

  • Music, the City, and Cultural Spaces

This research focus deals with the interrelationships between music and space. Studies address, for example, the social, economic, and cultural policy aspects of street music, the historical genesis of “music cities” that use music as a resource for local and national identity formation and position it as cultural heritage, and urban “soundscapes,” as well as the growing importance of “living room concerts” and of music production and reception in spaces that have traditionally been assigned to the private sphere.

  • Cultural Enterprise and Music Industry Research

This research field is dedicated to cultural business enterprises, the production of cultural performances and their transformation into commodities, as well as value creation processes in the cultural sector. A sociological perspective on cultural enterprises and the music industry focuses on the observation and interpretation of social actions that lead to value creation.

  • Cultural Policy Research

Observing and describing cultural policy and analysing it in conjunction with other policy fields is a central starting point of this research focus. The relationship of this empirical and scientific research to politics is a consultative one. Studies in this area are devoted to, among other things, social, educational, and media policy, as well as to the cultural policy significance of technological change or barriers in access to state subsidies and other resources.

  • Artistic Creation Processes

When artistic and musical creation processes are examined in music sociology, individualistic concepts such as “genius” and psychological notions of “creativity” are replaced by descriptions of work processes and sociological analyses of knowledge. The aim of this field of music sociology is to examine the interpretation of the collective dimension of creative processes as well as their material and media penetration.