Why Should We Care About Social Media

Introduction: Why Should We Care About Social Media?

Janice L. Waldron, Stephanie Horsley, and Kari K. Veblen
The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning
Edited by Janice L. Waldron, Stephanie Horsley, and Kari K. Veblen
Print Publication Date: Nov 2020 Subject: Music, Music Education

Online Publication Date: Oct 2020 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190660772.013.42
Abstract and Keywords
The rapid development of social media reflects both technologies and a field of scholar
ship that are constantly in flux. However, as boyd (2014) explains, although “the spaces
may change, the organizing principles aren’t different” (p. 4). The chapters in this book
explore theory, research, and practice in social media, along with the resulting implica
tions for both how people think about social media and the practical applications for mu
sic learning and teaching. This includes informing and lowering boundaries between for
mal and informal music education practices in a digitally networked society. Social media
and social networking in the 21st century have quickly changed the landscape of music
learning and will continue to do so.
Keywords: Social media and music learning, social media and music teaching, social network sites, YouTube, Face
book, Trello
What Is Social Media?

WE are in the midst of a technological social revolution (boyd, 2014; Rainie & Wellman,
2012; Van Dijck, 2013). The rapid pace of technological change since 2010, particularly in
relation to social media and network connectivity, has rapidly and deeply affected the
ways in which we interact socially among individuals, groups, and institutions. Indeed, it
is difficult to grasp what it would be like for those of us with access to these technologies
to lose this everyday aspect of modern life. From a socio-monetary meta-perspective,
“digital technology [has] changed the way power (or an avatar of power), such as money
or political office, is gained, distributed, and defended in human affairs” (Lanier, 2013, p.
19). Social media now facilitates large-scale political activist movements (Lievrouw,
2011), where and from whom we get our news (Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013), how we
share personal life events with those in our networks (Miller, 2011), and how we generate
and share content (Jenkins et al., 2009). It shapes how we work as well as the environ
ments in which we work (Rainie & Wellman, 2012).
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Most importantly for the readers of this book, social media is changing the ways we think
about and “do” teaching and learning—specifically in relation to music—and, in the
process, raising critical questions of access, ethics, content production, control, reproduc
tion, and content sharing (Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013; Lanier, 2013). Music education
scholars have largely overlooked such questions. The authors in this book contend that
the application of questions, ideas, theories, methodologies, and research from the field
of new media and communications has the potential to be as influential and transforma
tive to the field of music education as have the intersections between and among music
education and philosophy, psychology, sociology, and education.
But what do we mean when we talk about social media and social network sites (SNSs)?
The term social media itself has a controversial history among new media (p. 2) re
searchers, because, as Baym (2015) argues, “communications media have always been
social” (p. 1). Specifically,
[a]ny medium that allows people to make meaning together is social. There is
nothing more “social” about “social media” than there is about postcards, landline
telephones, television shows, newspapers, books, or cuneiform. There are distinc
tive qualities to what we call “social media,” but being social is not among them
(p. 1).
New media researcher boyd (2008) describes what these “distinctive qualities” of social
media are in what is considered an early, but seminal, definition of the term:
Social media is an umbrella term that refers to the set of tools, services, and appli
cations that allow people to interact with others using network technologies. So
cial media encompasses groupware, online communities, peer-to-peer and media-
sharing technologies, and networked gaming. Instant messaging, blogging, mi
croblogging, forums, email, virtual worlds, texting, and social network sites are all
genres of social media. Social media includes systems that support one-to-one,
one-to-many, and many-to-many interactions. Some enable many-to-many interac
tions and support the creation of spaces for people to gather and publics to form
(p. 94, emphasis added).
Although the terms social media and social network site are often used interchangeably,
they are not the same thing. Social network site (SNS) refers to a subset of platforms situ
ated within the larger category of social media; all SNSs—including Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram, to name a few—can be categorized as “social media,” but not all social
media sites are necessarily SNSs. The first SNSs appeared in the 1990s, and by that time
new media and communications researchers had already explored, theorized, framed,
and critiqued earlier forms of social media. SNSs are relatively new additions to the larg
er category of social media, and they build on and retain features of earlier social media
forms, such as “blogs, instant messaging, email, bulletin boards, chatrooms, and media-
sharing sites. They are an amalgamation of many prior genres” (boyd, 2008, p. 94). Fur
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ther, all social network sites are web-based services that reflect three foundational princi
pals. SNSs allow users to:
1. construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,

2. articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and,
3. view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the
system (boyd & Ellison, 2007, p. 212).
Thus, what differentiates SNSs from earlier online, forum-based communities (which still
exist) is that, rather than being based around a common subject or topic, SNSs are “pri
marily organized around people, not interests” (boyd and Ellison, 2007, p. 219), and this
was a major change to how communities form online. Specifically, (p. 3) “[s]ocial network
sites are structured as personal (or ‘egocentric’) networks, with the individual at the cen
ter of their own community. This more accurately mirrors unmediated social structures,
where ‘the world is composed of networks, not groups’” (Wellman, 1988, p. 37, in boyd &
Ellison, 2007, p. 219). SNS participants, then, are most likely “communicating with peo
ple who are already a part of their extended social network” (boyd & Ellison, 2007, p.
213).
Adding to the conceptual frames of social media and social media sites, Van Dijck (2013)
has since delineated branded social media platforms by type, arguing that, although it
would be “virtually impossible to inventory all platforms,” it does make “analytical sense
to distinguish various types of social media” by how they function. She provides the fol
lowing four categories:
1. Social network sites (SNSs). These sites primarily promote interpersonal contact,
whether between individuals or groups; they forge personal, professional, or geo
graphical connections and encourage weak ties. Examples are Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Google+, and Foursquare.
2. Sites for “user-generated content” (UGC). These support creativity, foreground
cultural activity, and promote the exchange of amateur or professional content. Well-
known UGC sites are YouTube, Flickr, Myspace, GarageBand, and Wikipedia.
3. Trading and marketing sites (TMS). These sites principally aim at exchanging
products or selling them. Amazon, eBay, Groupon, and Craigslist come to mind as
noteworthy examples.
4. Play and game sites (PGS). This is a flourishing genre, with popular games such as
FarmVille, CityVille, The Sims Social, Word Feud, and Angry Birds (p. 9).
Almost all branded social media platforms fall into one of the above categories and may
combine aspects from one category with another, as seen in the ability of Facebook and
YouTube to integrate socializing with making and/or posting user-generated content. Both
sites are designed to primarily perform one function rather than the other: Facebook’s
priority is to function as a SNS, but it also allows users to post and share UGC, while
YouTube is first and foremost a UGC sharing site that has built-in social features as well
(Van Dijck, 2013). Of the four branded social media categories, Van Dijck identifies three
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in particular—SNSs, UGC sites, and PGS sites—that have implications and practical appli
cations for how we approach music teaching and learning in the 21st century.
Besides understanding the basic organizational framework that differentiates SNSs from
other types of social media platforms and online affinity-based interest communities, so
cial media in general can be viewed through a critical eye by situating it within an his
toric sociocultural perspective. Although originally developed for military use, the early
World Wide Web reflected the utopian ideals of the 1960s counterculture era in which it
was first conceived and designed. For example, its founding software developers and ear
ly adopters envisioned the web as a technological (p. 4) platform that would enable peo
ple to share knowledge freely with one another in computer-mediated networked commu
nities with no interference from government or commercial interests (Turner, 2008). Suc
cessful SNSs emerged only after venture capitalists and internet companies began ex
ploiting “what people were already doing online,” in what Baym (2015) described as “the
takeover of the social by the corporate” (p. 2). The unfortunate and all too predictable re
sult was that “social media is now intertwined with neoliberal capitalism and data
surveillance” (boyd, 2015, p. 2). However, recognizing that social media functions as a
tool of neoliberalism does not negate its place or usefulness. Rather, as Baym (2015) ar
gues, “we need to fight for media that help build better societies rather than those that
view people as data profiles to be sold to advertisers” (p. 2). For music educators, this is
good advice to heed. Critical thinking and questioning of who benefits from our online in
teractions is a part of using social media wisely in all facets of our lives, and that includes
music learning and teaching. Our challenge as music educators—and the purpose and in
tent of this book—is to examine what social media usage “looks like” in music learning
across a variety of contexts and to explore how those practices might be guided and im
plemented in ethically and pedagogically reflective and successful ways.
Intersecting Social Media and Music Education

There are few phenomena more ubiquitous in a technology-based society than music.
Among its other uses, music is a tool for constructing and reflecting personal and cultural
identities (e.g., Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003; Partti & Karlsen, 2010) and forms the basis
of significant economic engagement and exploitation (e.g., Cloonan, Williamson, & Firth,
2004; Stokes, 2004). The discovery and preservation of musical styles and performers re
lies largely on social and commercial networks (e.g., Cohen, 2002; Gaffney & Rafferty,
2009), and digital technologies now make accessing practically any genre of music possi
ble at any time (for those who have access to the technology). In these combined con
texts, social media has the potential to play a pivotal role in a critical approach to music
education for 21st-century citizens. Music, much like social media, is by its nature a co-
constructed, “living” phenomenon that relies on genre-based community members to help
create, define, reinforce, stretch, and transform the boundaries of each genre (Elliott,
1995; Salavuo, 2008).
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Social media has the potential to add additional dimensions to musical practice and con
sumption that are both broad and deep all along the formal-informal music education con
tinuum. This is particularly relevant as we continue to explore how we might lower or
erase boundaries among formal, nonformal, and informal contexts and (p. 5) the lived re
alities of individuals in ways that honor musical traditions while simultaneously develop
ing lifelong musical participation. Social media also has a place in discussions about how
we support learners’ abilities to critically examine personal musical choices and in under
standing the role that music plays in underpinning or breaking cultural, social, political,
and identity norms. Everyday practices of musical engagement are intensified through so
cial media, where issues of identity (boyd, 2014), sense of community (Lovejoy & Saxton,
2012), participatory culture (Jenkins et al., 2009), professional networking (Salavuo, 2008),
and marketization (Hunter, 2015) have already been explored, lauded, and problematized
in nonmusic contexts in relation to everyday and professional lives. These social media re
search foci also have a place within the more formal music classroom and can be extend
ed to address other social media–related areas of research, such as giving feedback
through computer-media communication (Groshek & Cutino, 2016), the construction of
personal learning environments (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012), and issues of creation and
copyright (Kim, 2007), among others. Also of interest to the field is the role that social
media plays in the creating and sharing of musical identities and securing work as a paid
musician.
Consider YouTube as an example of one social media platform that might impact music
learning and teaching across a variety of research areas in both formal and informal mu
sic learning and teaching. YouTube, both as a platform and an area of research, was origi
nally envisioned as an online space where people could upload and share personal home
videos (Burgess & Green, 2009). But, as scholars have noted, YouTube has become much
more than that, particularly when explored from a music learning perspective (Lange,
2014; Waldron, 2018). Through YouTube, individuals can engage in making and sharing
user-generated content, consume and critique their musical idols through established fan
communities, post and learn from content intended to instruct others in the acquisition of
musical skills, experiment with and establish their own musical prowess and identity, and
develop a fan base and receive feedback about their musical and performative abilities.
YouTube also acts as an informal site of musical learning and instruction supported by the
observation of others’ musical performances (Cayari, 2011, 2015; Kruse, 2012; Kruse &
Veblen, 2012; Waldron 2009, 2011, 2013a, 2013b, 2016).
Working from the notion that “understanding the overall learning environment and con
text of musical conduct is vitally important when developing the conditions and pedagogi
cal basis for learning” (Salavuo, 2008, p. 122), we disregard the potential for the ways in
which new media and communication studies have been and can be incorporated into mu
sic education at our own risk. Given how ubiquitous music is in our lives and the ways in
which individuals both use and are used by music to shape their individual and social
worlds—particularly as we gain increasing access to music and musical activities through
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social media networks—it is imperative that the field of music education engage with the
reality of social media and its transformative potential.
(p. 6) Why This Book?

Huib Schippers inaugurates this handbook, smashing the champagne bottle across the
bow:
[T]he essence of this volume lies not so much in its technical specifics, but the
change of mindset that we as music educators must embrace to accommodate in
our work how deeply social media affects our musical lives and those of all other
music learners in the first decades of the 21st century.
As William Gibson has written, “The future is with us now, it’s just not evenly
distributed” (William Gibson, n.d.). As editors of this book, we recognize that the rapid de
velopment of social media reflects both technologies and a field of scholarship that are
constantly in flux. However, as boyd (2014) explains, although “the spaces may change,
the organizing principles aren’t different” (p. 4).
Social media sites such as SoundCloud, Facebook, and Twitter embody Jenkins’s “if it
doesn’t spread, it’s dead” description of a networked society, where the ability to link to
music, videos, and online text-based articles result in the worldwide “trending” that re
flects and influences musical ideas, performances, and taste (Jenkins, Ford, & Green,
2013). The reality of contemporary life is that we can be (and often are) plugged into so
cial media at any moment of the day, regardless of our physical setting or which platform
we are using. Sometimes we are connected consciously, but sometimes unconsciously. In
addition, we cannot ignore the reality that social media, much like music, is largely made
publicly available through corporatization.
The multiple ways in which social media and social networking intersect with the every
day life of the musical learner are at the heart of this book. The Oxford Handbook of So
cial Media and Music Learning opens up an international discussion of what it means to
be a music teacher, learner, producer, consumer, individual, and community member in an
age of technologically mediated or enhanced relationships that continue to break down
the limits of geographical, cultural, political, and economic place.
To that end, we have asked our contributing authors to consider some or all of the follow
ing questions within their chapters:
1. How do social media and social networking enable and support music learning in
diverse contexts?
2. How meaningful is the notion of participatory culture for thinking about social me
dia and music learning?
3. How are issues such as communication, mass self-communication, power, democ
racy, and identity negotiated in a networked society, and what are the implications
for music learning and making?
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4. How does the business of social media support or exploit the ways in which musi
cians learn and interact? How does it support musical agency?
(p. 7) 5. What roles might social media and social networking play in supporting mu
sic learning and making from a social justice perspective?

6. What are the implications for future music learning in diverse contexts?
This handbook takes these questions as a framework and a point of departure. Fifty-three
international authors situated in music education, social media, popular music, sociology,
ethnomusicology, critical studies, and communication studies combine their interdiscipli
nary expertise in this comprehensive dialogue on emerging social media and music learn
ing. The volume comprises 31 chapters assembled into five principle themes that overlap
and pollinate each other. Chapters are punctuated with three reflections from scholars
from the interdisciplinary areas of new media and communications as well as six shorter
case studies to serve as reports from the field.
It should be noted that the authors generated their work with an opportunity to partici
pate in an open online forum via Trello, a project management social media site. Reflec
tive of the ways in which social media can be harnessed to support collaboration and re
flexivity, Trello served as a platform to collect and share our chapters throughout their
development. This would have been much more challenging using communication and
workflow models based solely around email. It was our hope that the Trello board would
support a digital community of practice of sorts (Wenger, White, & Smith 2009), where
experts (i.e., our chapter authors) who share an interest in social media could come to
gether to create a work that would advance the knowledge of how social media is enacted
in the field of music education, suggest best practices, and generally provide information
and resources for all music educators. If textual interaction (an affordance of Trello) was
not as prevalent on the Trello board as we had hoped, we see this as an extension of the
idea discussed by many of our chapter authors: that social media is a tool for mediating
and transforming human interactions, but that mere exposure to such tools does not en
sure particular forms of interaction or behaviors. However, in using a project-workflow
social media platform to organize and document our collective efforts, we believe this ap
proach created a sense of community and engendered a deeper curiosity about, connec
tion to, and sense of place/space within the wider project that was the creation of this
handbook. It allowed authors to engage with each other’s work from first drafts to com
pleted versions, promoting those authors who wished to do so an easy way to cross-refer
ence across chapters and, we believe, dispel the usual sense of writing from the “isolated
isle.”
The handbook divides into five thematically organized sections:
(1) Community Identity and Social Media

(2) Convergent Music Making and Social Media
(3) Musical Identity and Social Media
(4) Continuity and Change in Teaching and Learning Through Social Media
(5) Provocations and Social Media
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(p. 8) Part I: Community Identity and Social Media
This Part illuminates the formation, roles, and significance of online communities. Au
thors in this part address all the above questions, but with a particular focus on Question
2: “How meaningful is the notion of participatory culture for thinking about social media
and music learning?”
Janice L. Waldron’s chapter on networked musical communities chronicles theoretical ap

proaches to social media with an exposition of musical community formation online. Wal
dron illustrates online community dynamics through two case studies: the first focuses on
on- and offline convergent music learning with jazz/pop undergrads at university and the
second concentrates on a narrative of a “networked individual.” Next, Evan S. Tobias sur
veys the ways people use online participatory culture in educational contexts. Noting that
engagement in participatory cultures involves affiliations, collaborative problem solving,
and expressions and circulations, Tobias suggests numerous ways in which music educa
tors might facilitate students’ engagement with and through social media. Jared O’Leary’s
chapter then amplifies notions of affinity spaces and music education, beginning with
Duncan and Hayes’s (2012) definition: “the physical, virtual, or combination of locations
where people come together around a shared affinity (interest).” O’Leary explores quali
ties and potential applications of affinity spaces within formal education settings, subse
quently contrasting the notion of affinity spaces with the familiar paradigm of communi
ties of practice.
In the first of the chapters with responses from new media and communication scholars,
Jonathan Savage employs the narrative of an adolescent guitarist learning from YouTube
to ponder potentials of relocation of space and actions through digital media. Savage as
sesses possible drawbacks and benefits of social media use within a UK context. Somrita
Ganchoudhuri and Barry Wellman then reflect on Savage’s chapter from their perspective
of communications studies. They conclude that “[t]he teacher-student relationship is em
bedded in a sea of diverse relationships.…This does not mean that formal music learning
will disappear, but that it will become embedded in the networked revolution.”
Finally, John O’Flynn examines socially mediated musical belonging by exploring the ways
in which immigrant groups assert, reclaim, and reinterpret musical community as part of
migrant diasporas and transnational networks. He draws on two musical “field sites”—
Polish residents in Dublin and young South Asians in North America and Britain—to ex
amine online sharing of traditional, older, and newer popular genres. O’Flynn gathers his
information through engagement with open access data, which includes blogs, forums,
YouTube, Facebook, and community websites.
Part II: Convergent Music Making and Social Media
This part traces the development and range of music making possibilities afforded
through emerging media. Authors in this part may consider all questions, but they (p. 9)
focus specifically on Question 1: “How do social media and social networking enable and
support music learning in diverse contexts?” In his chapter on media literacy and music
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education, Daniel A. Walzer asks, “In what ways do music and media educators advance
critical thinking, reflective learning, and new modes of networked creativity through mak
ing philosophy and curriculum?” Walzer answers the questions he poses through examin
ing current research, a typology of media skills advanced by Henry Jenkins et al. (2009),
and four teaching scenarios to illustrate best practice. Radio Cremata and Bryan Powell
examine two private Facebook groups to determine the ways in which music teachers
build community via social media. They analyze posts and surveys from Music Teachers
and Little Kids Rock Teachers that reveal how members take on both teacher and learner
roles as they collaborate and share resources. In their chapter on the Swedish hip-hop
youth association “The Movement,” Alexandra Söderman and Johan Söderman consider
social media among young people from immigrant backgrounds. “The Movement” takes
inspiration from the political dimensions of global hip-hop as well as digital music making
and collaboration. Söderman and Söderman note that this group uses social media in
branding, member recruitment, and accountability to funders. Finally, Ethan Hein draws
upon his involvement with the Disquiet Junto, an online community of composers and pro
ducers. Asserting that “[l]earning is not simply a matter of receiving and retaining infor
mation, but rather a social process,” Hein explores the origins, structure, and member
motivations of this international community of practice through member survey and a vir
tual ethnography.
This handbook features a series of six shorter field-report chapters that serve to link prac
tice to research/theoretical concepts. Two of these chapters are in the area of classical
Western music. The Florida-based New World Symphony’s (NWS) Connect initiative is the
subject of Patrick Schmidt’s field report. Schmidt details his findings when hired to evalu
ate the initiative, which consisted of NWS Virtual Hangouts (a series of digital interac
tions) and NWS Side-by-Side events that brought symphony fellows and high school stu
dents together for ten days. Heidi Partti examines opportunities and affordances that so
cial media provides for the professional development of classical composers, performers,
and professionals; Partti offers the Lentoon! mentoring project organized by Music Fin
land in 2013 and 2017 as an exemplary program.
The next two field-report chapters are taken from popular music genres. Gareth Dylan
Smith reflects on the blurring of the professional and the personal through social media.
Even as he notes messiness as well as increasing levels of risk and vulnerability in allow
ing sometimes transparent spheres of narrative, Smith encourages peers to “engage with
social media’s immediate and powerful, punk pedagogical potential.” Anne-Marie Burns
and Caroline Traube from Canada report on ways the Novaxe online learning platform
(OLP) for guitar learners, created in partnership with the Laboratoire de recherche sur le
geste musicien (LRGM) at University of Montreal. Burns and Traube analyze teaching
contexts, from private lessons and self-directed online learning to how “blended learning”
environments such as the Novaxe OLP can bridge formal and informal approaches to
learning an instrument.
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The final two chapters of field reports explore how social networking and social
(p. 10)
media create and/or grow and sustain offline music community. First, the Connect Re
sound project in the UK is the subject of a field report by Andrew King, Helen M. Prior,
and Caroline Waddington-Jones. This school-based project is designed to provide high-
quality music education for students in rural England through digital access to music
lessons, access to expertise, and so forth. The authors trace the development of Connect
Resound from its beginnings in 2014 to widespread adoption in 2018.
Finally, Donald DeVito, Gertrude Bien-Aime, Hannah Ehrli, and Jamie Schumacher de
scribe the role of social media in inclusive community music and teacher professional de
velopment in Port au Prince, Haiti. The authors present a case study of social media con
tributing to sustainable efforts in the instance of the Centre d’Éducation Inclusive d’Haïti
(Haitian Center for Inclusive Education). The center opened its doors in 2018 for 48 stu
dents with disabilities and 10 staff members.
Part III: Musical Identity and Social Media
Chapters in this part examine the complex and fluid processes through which individuals
construct, transform, and express themselves musically through the affordances of the
pervasive and dominant cultural environment of social media. These chapters may seek to
answer any of the framing questions, but they especially address Question 3, “How are is
sues such as communication, mass self-communication, power, democracy, and identity
negotiated in a networked society and what are the implications for music learning and
making?” and Question 5, “What roles might social media and social networking play in
supporting music learning and making from a social justice perspective?”
Marissa Silverman interrogates the nature of feminist cyber musical artivism as a poten
tial means to positive transformation. According to Asante (2008), an “artivist (artist +
activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression—
by any medium necessary” (p. 6). Silverman envisions teachable moments from Pussy Ri
ot, k.d. lang, and Playing for Change as small acts of subversion enacted to transform the
status quo through feminist cyber-activism. Julie Derges Kastner, in her chapter on creat
ing and curating an identity through social media, employs a content analysis of 23 em
pirical studies of music, music education, identity, and social media to identify emergent
themes. Key findings investigate identity through (1) personal expressions such as profile
work, branding, and sharing work; (2) social interactions such as fandom, professional
connections, and creative collaborations; and (3) teaching and learning in community and
in self-directed studies. In her chapter, Deanna C. C. Peluso investigates the ways in
which personal learning networks (PLNs), facilitated through social media platforms, are
used for musical development within formal and informal music education contexts. She
considers the (p. 11) ubiquitous, socially constructed, and multimodal nature of digital
technology, where “[s]ocial media…describes a globally networked platform for communi
cation, interaction, creation, and expression that intermeshes into the everyday lives of
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billions of human beings, and where individuals can explore multiple modalities, such as
textual, auditory, 3D, and graphical.”
But is social media a truly benign force? Should we not take a closer look at the dark
side? So argues Ketil Thorgersen in his chapter, noting that those who own a smartphone
may be monitored 24/7. Thorgersen unpacks three common assumptions concerning so
cial media that have implications for music education: (1) social media are for everyone,
(2) social media give free access to free speech, and (3) social media distribute ownership
and empower the individual. Next, Patricia G. Lange examines the ways in which teens
may be drawn to create videos and socialize through lip-synching on YouTube. While
some critics denigrate lip-synching as amateur, silly, or even parasitic, Lange places this
genre of musical performance in the wider analytical domain of musicking. She analyzes
two case studies of female teens, finding themes of ludic self-immersion, social synchro
nization, bonding, parody, and infectious craziness in their videos.
In the handbooks’s next chapter with a response from the field of new media and commu
nication, Christopher Cayari explores musical fan activity on YouTube and introduces the
theory of “fanception” to indicate the phenomenon in which each individual develops
their own fandom with an already established group of fans. Cayari surveys examples of
fan-generated musical content and the ways that this contributes to musical learning and
online communities. Patricia G. Lange offers a response to Cayari’s chapter from the in
tersection of communications and anthropology as she thoughtfully explores “what fan
ception as an analytical construct might mean for the role of educators and the future of
music learning.”
Part IV: Continuity and Change in Teaching and Learning Through

Social Media
The authors in this part place an emphasis on Question 1, “How do social media and so
cial networking enable and support music learning in diverse contexts?” and Question 6,
“What are the implications for future music learning in diverse contexts?” The informa
tion studies/social media scholar and sociologist Anabel Quan-Haase examines the role of
social media in music teaching and learning in her chapter on serendipity, community,
and engagement. Affirming that both social and informational affordances are important
in understanding online music teaching and learning, Quan-Hasse records the following
practices: (1) connecting experts to learners, (2) peer-to-peer learning, (3) loosely con
nected networks of shared interest, (4) role models and switching roles, and (5) serendip
ity and exploration. Next, drawing on the Digital Folk project based at the University of
Sheffield, UK, Simon Keegan-Phipps and Lucy (p. 12) Wright assess the role of social me
dia in the learning experiences of folk musicians in England. They problematize the na
ture of learning in the folk music context, then explore two case studies of folk-oriented
social media through the transmissive mediums of abc notation and the Mudcat Café web
site. Keegan-Phipps and Wright conclude their chapter “by reflecting on the need to un
derstand the musical learning process as a culturally performative act and to recognize
online learning mechanisms as sites for the (re)negotiation of musical, cultural, local, and
Page 11 of 19

personal identities.” David G. Hebert and Sean Williams then bring an ethnomusicological
lens to bear on the power and limitations of social media. They study intersections of eth
nomusicology and music education and the ways that social media has transformed musi
cal experience and how people learn. Hebert and Williams note the ways in which social
media has promoted a shift from globalization (the modern condition where people real
ize that they are interconnected) (Appadurai, 1996) to glocalization (a combining of glob
al and local as diasporic realities persist on an individual level) (Hebert & Rykowski,
2018).
In the last chapter in this part, Susan O’Neill explores the influence of social media on
young people’s musical learning lives through the lens of new materiality and young
people’s connectedness. She critiques their “sense of identity, community, and connection
as they engage in and through music across online and offline life spaces.” O’Neill ad
vances nomadic pedagogy, which supports young people who connect and collaborate at
this time of cosmopolitan and transcultural change. Jeremy Hunsinger’s response and re
flection from the field of communications troubles notions of materiality and nomadogical
learning, defining weird materialities as “intertwingled assemblages of human and nonhu
man subjectivities that take both noumenal and phenomenal forms; that is to say, it is the
‘things’ which exist as materialities that are not entirely material because they are mixed
with humans and nonhuman actors.” Centering on the phone as an example of social me
dia, Hunsinger notes that modern phones are a universal service machine, more social
media than phone.
Matthew D. Thibeault and Koji Matsunobu explore the possibilities of vocaloids in music
education through of a Japanese singing vocal android. Hatsune Miku, whose name trans
lates as “first sound from the future,” was originally sold as computer software with
which users could generate vocaloids. Miku is now, in part, a trilingual Japanese pop star
hologram, performing for crowds as a teenager with long turquoise ponytails and six vo
cal timbres. The authors describe experiences working with Miku, Yamaha’s introduction
of vocaloids into schools, and the challenges and potentials of working with vocaloids as a
medium for music learning and creating. Kari K.Veblen and Nathan B. Kruse round out
this part by exploring online and offline children’s musical play to confirm the vitality of
these forms. They suggest that synergy between the two supports the innovative, experi
mental power associated with affinity spaces, which ultimately complements more formal
ized aspects of school systems. They consider how children’s music play on YouTube may
serve as a platform for social connections, fluid adaptation, expertise, and connoisseur
ship as well as a medium for traditional transmission.
(p. 13) Part V: Provocations and Social Media
The provocations part of this handbook interrogates the dynamic tensions and paradoxes
between social media and educational policy and practice, the marketplace and the artist,
and the insider and the outsider, as well as the changing social scenes. This final part
drills down on framing Questions 4 and 5: “How does the business of social media sup
port or exploit the ways in which musicians learn and interact? How does it support musi
Page 12 of 19

cal agency?” and “What roles might social media and social networking play in support
ing music learning and making from a social justice perspective?” Joseph Abramo exam
ines social justice in social media and music making. He argues that social media has the
potential to enact democratic practice and uses the work of Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of
listening and Peter Szendy’s concept of “arrangement,” to explore how viral videos and
their user-generated covers could lead to a new form of communication and shared ideas.
Abramo concludes by borrowing from media literacy to develop what he calls “musical so
cial media literacy” in music learning and teaching.
Next, in their chapter on disabled musicians/musicians with disabilities (DM/MwD), adam

patrick bell and Jesse Rathgeber first identify participatory social media that facilitate
these musicians, then consider the content generated by and for DM/MwD as it enters the
larger social media landscape. They note that “social media can be an enabler for a DM/
MwD, but it can easily be a disabler if not approached critically and carefully.” James
Humberstone, Catherine Zhao, and Danny Liu draw upon their work in an Australian con
text with the University of Sydney’s internationally available Massive Open Online Course
(MOOC) titled “The Place of Music in 21st-Century Education.” The MOOC was launched
in 2016 with the intention to provoke critical thinking among music educators to imagine
social and technological possibilities for their students. Initial findings suggest that the
experience of engagement publicly via social media engendered a vulnerability in those
new to the field.
Providing a contrasting viewpoint to many in the handbook, Vincent C. Bates and Daniel J.
Shevock critique uses of social media in music education through the lens of the com
mons or shared culture and place. Arguing that themes of economic justice and ecologi
cal sustainability must be brought into the discussion of social media’s potentials, they re
view current practice in terms of good, bad, and ugly. Lauri Väkevä next discusses impli
cations of the commodification of music-related practices and identities in social media.
He asserts that the economic conditions of complex online learning ecologies have not
been fully examined. Väkevä surveys the economic and political landscape of music, draw
ing on Attali, McLuhan and Nevitt, and Toffler. He considers YouTube as a distribution
service and culture hub that poses issues for current copyright practices as it invents new
ways to monetize cultural capital. Väkevä closes with a call to music educators to culti
vate critical perspectives as they facilitate learners/prosumers navigating new musical
digital markets. In the final chapter of this handbook, David Lines “suggests that a mate
rialist perspective of digital technology and (p. 14) social media is important for raising a
greater awareness of the different commercial, cultural, and environmental dimensions
that converge in music and music education.” Lines refers to Appaduri’s notion of scapes
and Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) image of the rhizome as he advocates that music edu
cators become more discerning of economic forces in social media—as well as the poten
tial for creative and transformative practices using online mediums.
We end with an epilogue in which we address the Cambridge Analytica scandal that
erupted in 2018 amid reports of election tampering facilitated with stolen data from Face
book. Although the story serves as a cautionary tale, it also reminds us how embedded so
Page 13 of 19

cial media is in contemporary life, and that, like any other tool, it can be manipulated,
used, and/or abused, depending on its maker’s intentions. We also explore some “on the
horizon” developments that have the potential to further transform music teaching and
learning in more positive ways. Social media itself is neither inherently good nor evil, and
therefore responsible use of it requires that we be both critical producers and consumers.
Conclusion
Social media and social networking in the 21st century have quickly changed the land
scape of music learning, and they will continue to do so. As music educators, we must
recognize, challenge, question, and take advantage of the opportunities for music teach
ing and learning available to us in a digitally networked society. Otherwise, we risk irrele
vancy. The chapters in this book explore theory, research, and practice in social media, as
well as the resulting implications for both how we think about social media and the prac
tical applications for music learning and teaching. This includes informing and lowering
boundaries between formal and informal music education practices in a digitally net
worked society. Ultimately, we hope that the work contained herein will accomplish three
things: that it will (1) better reflect the ways in which music learning occurs and musical
participation is enacted within a digitally networked society; (2) support approaches to
music learning and teaching that honor a spirit of authenticity in the importance of music
to all users, irrelative to genre; and (3) critically reflect on the implications social media
usage has for music education as we move forward as a profession.
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William_Gibson
Janice L. Waldron
Janice L. Waldron is an associate professor of music education at the University of

Windsor, with research interests in informal music learning practices, online music
communities, social media and music learning, vernacular musics, and participatory
cultures. Janice has been a music educator for nearly four decades, including a 25-
year career as a band director in Houston, Texas, and Oakville, Ontario, Canada, as
well as 25 years as an Irish traditional musician, playing tin whistle, Irish flute, and
Uillieann pipes. Her bi-musical background in formal music education and informal
music learning informs her research: she is published in Music Education Research;
the International Journal of Music Education; Action, Criticism, and Theory in Music
Education; the Journal of Music, Education, and Technology; and the Philosophy of
Music Education Review. Dr. Waldron has also authored several Oxford Handbook
chapters in its Music Education series and also serves on the editorial boards of Ac
tion, Theory, and Criticism in Music Education; the International Journal of Music Ed
ucation; the Journal of Music, Education, and Technology, and TOPICS for Music Edu
cation Praxis. She was named the 2012 “Outstanding Researcher: Emerging Scholar”
at the University of Windsor. Since 2011, Waldron’s research has been funded by the
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for her work on music
learning in on- and offline convergent music communities of practice.
Stephanie Horsley
Page 18 of 19

Stephanie Horsley is the acting associate director, eLearning at the Centre for Teach
ing and Learning at Western University, Canada, where she is also an adjunct assis
tant professor of music education in the Don Wright Faculty of Music. Her research
interests include music education policy, democratizing access to sites of music edu
cation, and “fringe” musical learning spaces. Her latest publications include chapters
in The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice and Music Education and Policy and the Po
litical Life of the Music Educator. Her work has been presented at various interna
tional conferences.
Kari K. Veblen
Kari K. Veblen serves as professor of music education at Western University in Cana

da, where she teaches cultural perspectives, music for children, and graduate re
search methods. Thus far her career spans four decades of work as an elementary
public school music teacher, community musician, faculty member at University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point, curriculum consultant to orchestras and schools, visiting
scholar at University of Toronto, and research associate at University of Limerick. Ve
blen has served in numerous professional capacities, including the International So
ciety for Music Education board, and as co-founder and now board member of the In
ternational Journal of Community Music. Her research interests include community
music networks, lifespan music learning, traditional transmission, vernacular genres,
interdisciplinary curriculum, musical play, and social media and music learning. Au
thor and co-author of five books and 90 peer-reviewed works, Veblen’s work on mu
sic learning in on- and offline convergent music communities of practice is funded by
the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Page 19 of 19

Why Should We Care About Social Media

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Introduction: Why Should We Care About Social Media?

Introduction: Why Should We Care About Social Media?

Print Publication Date: Nov 2020 Subject: Music, Music Education

Abstract and Keywords

What Is Social Media?

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

1. construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Intersecting Social Media and Music Education

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

(p. 6) Why This Book?

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

sic learning and making from a social justice perspective?

The handbook divides into five thematically organized sections:

(1) Community Identity and Social Media

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

(p. 8) Part I: Community Identity and Social Media

Janice L. Waldron’s chapter on networked musical communities chronicles theoretical ap­

Part II: Convergent Music Making and Social Media

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Part III: Musical Identity and Social Media

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Part IV: Continuity and Change in Teaching and Learning Through

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

(p. 13) Part V: Provocations and Social Media

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Next, in their chapter on disabled musicians/musicians with disabilities (DM/MwD), adam

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

boyd, d. (2015). Social media: A phenomenon to be analyzed. Social Media + Society,

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

DeNora, T. 2000. Music in everyday life. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

vation in a digital age. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars.

Kruse, N. (2012). Locating the “Road to Lisdoonvarna” via autoethnography: Pathways,

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Miller, D. (2011). Tales from Facebook. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Tobias, E. (2015). Participatory culture in practice: Perspectives and possibilities in a

Waldron, J. (2011). Locating narratives in postmodern space: Informal music learning in

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Waldron, J. (2013a). User-generated content, YouTube, and participatory culture on the

William Gibson (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Janice L. Waldron is an associate professor of music education at the University of

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

Kari K. Veblen serves as professor of music education at Western University in Cana­

Subscriber: University of Western Ontario; date: 04 January 2021

You might also like

Janice L. Waldron’s chapter on networked musical communities chronicles theoretical ap

Kari K. Veblen serves as professor of music education at Western University in Cana