Why producers of music use discourses of consumption (and why we shouldn’t think that makes them prosumers)

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how people making music represent their production activities using images of consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

Supporting evidence is based on in-depth interviews with musicians and support personnel. The data are structured through a thematic analysis.

Findings

The paper argues that consumption serves as a discursive resource that allows cultural producers to make sense of production activities which do not conform to an image of production as an alienated form of labour.

Originality/value

Relating the analysis to the ongoing attempts to conceptualise cultural producers through the concept of prosumption, the paper concludes that there are limits to cultural producers’ abilities to represent their production activities as production rather than a structural change in social or economic organisation, as suggested by some consumer researchers.

Citation

Cluley, R. (2013), "Why producers of music use discourses of consumption (and why we shouldn’t think that makes them prosumers)", Arts Marketing: An International Journal, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 117-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/AM-09-2012-0016