Rasmus Fleischer: Musikens politiska ekonomi: lagstiftningen, ljudmedierna och försvaret av den levande musiken, 1925-2000 (2012) [Swedish]
Filed under book | Tags: · copyright, economics, music, music history, political economy, sweden
Historical study on copyright legislation and media technology in the 20th century.
“This book explores the intersections of politics and technology, economy and aesthetics. It concerns the changing preconditions for the commodification of music during the 20th century, caused by the use of loudspeakers and radio broadcasting, primarily in Sweden.
It was around 1930 that “live music” (levande musik) became a concept, strictly opposed to that of “mechanical music”, suggesting a kind of “aura” in the common presence of musicians and audience. About the same time, cinema musicians lost their employment and musicians’ trade unions began to fear that the “mechanization of music” would have disastrous consequences. The thesis explores how and why musicians – but also record companies – were granted legal rights to compensation for the use of recorded music, internationally standardized in the Rome Convention (1961). This led to new institutions of economic redistribution for the benefit of musicians. A recurrent problem was derived from the ambivalent status of musicians as royalty-earning artists and/or wage-earning workers.
Another problem was the practical impossibility of monitoring the actual use of loudspeaker music. The thesis shows how legislators have avoided the hardest decisions, preferring to delegate these to collecting societies. Furthermore, it highlights the influential role of Fascist Italy as an early partner of the record industry lobby. Musicians’ unions, on the other hand, allied themselves with the ILO (International Labour Organization), in opposition to the record industry.
In the 1960s, the “aura” of musical performance was questioned by avantgardists and bureaucrats. However, the trend changed in the 1970s with the rise of a leftist-radical music movement. Its idea about authenticity was absorbed by government agencies and by the Musicians’ union. The years 1977–82 marks a peak in the unionist struggle against “mechanical music”, with a brief but heated conflict between disc-jockeys and instrumentalists. The last empirical chapter examines the sudden rise of interest in “music export” within the context of the “new economy” of the 1990s.
Empirically, this thesis draws on a wide range of sources covering the period of 1925–2000: governmental investigations, publications from the Swedish Musicians’ Union, and archival material. The theoretical basis may be described as critical theory, which is combined with materialist media theory in the attempt to clarify how “music” can be sold as a commodity, while at the same time remain as an activity outside of the market. ”The political economy of music” is thus defined as a process of mediation, which may be understood as a dialectic of industrialization and aestheticization.”
Based on Ph.D. thesis from the Department of History, Lund University, 2012.
Publisher Ink bokförlag, Stockholm, 2012
ISBN 9197846945, 9789197846943
v+630 pages
via rsms
Reviews: Staffan Albinsson (Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2013, EN), Ulrik Volgsten (Respons, 2013, SW).
Author, (2)
Publisher (archive.org)
WorldCat
Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson: Svenska hackare: En berättelse från nätets skuggsida (2011) [Swedish]
Filed under book | Tags: · computing, hacker culture, hacking, internet, sweden
Vad driver unga killar att hacka sig in i datasystem och dra fram hemligstämplad information utan att de själva tjänar något på det? Vad får dem att sitta som fastklistrade vid sina datorer nätterna igenom för att ta sig in i nästa lösenordsskyddade server i nätverket? I Svenska hackare får läsaren en unik inblick i en av vår tids mest mytomspunna subkulturer.
För många är hackaren en skurk, en spion som ägnar sig åt stöld och sabotage. För andra är han, för det är oftast en han, en ensam och osäker tonåring med datorn och nätet som enda vänner. Men hackaren är också en hjältefigur och en fanbärare. Hackarens tro på teknikens möjligheter – och den självklara rätten att använda den som han vill – har satt sin prägel på allt från 90-talets spirande hemdatorkultur, via 00-talets häftiga debatt kring fildelningssajten The Pirate Bay till dagens diskussioner om övervakning och digital politisk aktivism.
Svenska hackare är en bok om människor, inte om maskiner. Här möter du bland andra 16-åriga Philip, som under flera år gäckade både FBI och den amerikanska universitetsvärldens tyngsta experter; Vuxna Förbannade Hackare, som under vintern 2008 hackade sig in i Aftonbladets servrar och drog igång en våg av attacker mot företag och myndigheter; it-konsulten som säljer stulna företagshemligheter till högstbjudande, samt hackaren som låtsas vara man för att hon annars inte skulle tas på allvar.
År 2009 polisanmäldes 1493 fall av dataintrång i Sverige, fler än någonsin förut och mer än dubbelt så många som fem år tidigare. Men för varje dataintrång som offentliggörs sker tio gånger fler i det fördolda. I en allt mer uppkopplad värld så borde det vara en varningsklocka. För den som har makten över nätet har, i allt väsentligt, makten över våra liv.
Publisher Norstedt, 2011
ISBN 9113030442, 9789113030449
315 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-6-13)
PDF (torrent)
PDF (torrent, audiobook)
PDF (torrent, audiobook)
Christopher Kullenberg: The Quantification of Society: A Study of a Swedish Research Institute and Survey-based Social Science (2012)
Filed under thesis | Tags: · actor-network theory, data, research, social science, society, sweden, welfare state
This thesis is concerned with the contemporary history of quantitative surveys in Sweden. The core epistemic practice of constructing surveys is examined empirically through a case study of the SOM Institute (Samhälle, Opinion, Medier) at University of Gothenburg. The SOM Institute has performed surveys in Sweden since 1986. However, the methodology of quantitative surveys with representative sampling techniques dates back to the 1940s. A central theme in this theses is to follow how these methods and techniques have been made to work under different historical circumstances.
Theoretically, this thesis relies on concepts that are derived from classical Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and then further developed. This conceptual tool-box is then utilized to select moments in the history of surveys that are of special importance for understanding how Swedish society has been quantified.
Special attention is drawn to how the accuracy of surveys is established through mutual reinforcement with previous data. By closely studying how the SOM Institute conducted their first postal surveys in the 1980s, the relation and importance of other, contemporary surveys is emphasized. Moreover, the creation of a state-science interface is described by going back in time to the 1950s and the creation of the first academic surveys. This was also the moment in history when random samples were established. Here, the impact of the creation of the welfare state and the role of science in this political project is discussed and related to the expansion of the social sciences.
To further understand the border between academic science and pollster research, a controversy that took place during the elections of 1985 is studied. The controversy was ignited because pollster data predicted that the conservative party (Moderaterna) would win the elections. However, this turned out to be false. What followed was a debate concerning both the accuracy of different methodologies and the political bias of different surveys. Academic scientists succeeded in creating a position that guaranteed value-free social science, which later would have an impact on the future of social scientific investigations.
The dissertation concludes that the way social phenomena are quantified today, must be understood in a historical context that includes the epistemic practice of social scientists. The creation of large-scale quantitative surveys not only presupposes certain aspects of modern society, it also transforms these societies.
Keywords: Quantification, survey, SOM Institute, social science, epistemic practice, Actor-Network Theory, welfare state, center of calculation.
Dissertation thesis
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg
ISBN 978-91-628-8458-1
Kopimi
225 pages