Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, Music History

This dissertation examines the social contexts for music livestreams, in order to lay the groundwork for future studies of both livestreaming as a whole and individual case studies. No frameworks currently exist for analyzing music livestreams. Although the technologies of livestreaming have been evolving over the past few decades, there have been no organized or successful attempts to standardize the ways we understand and study this fast-growing medium for music performance. Chapter 1 provides basic definitions of livestreaming, and then emphasizes the framework of liveness, arguing that although livestreaming technologies developed relatively recently, the practice of transmitting and receiving live music has been developing since the late-nineteenth century. I examine livestreaming as a continuation of broadcast media wrapped up with conceptions of liveness that have been constantly transforming over the long twentieth century. Chapter 2 connects livestreaming with the social media platforms that have emerged in the past two decades. I also position livestreaming within discussions and anxieties surrounding attention and distraction in the context of digital media. In Chapter 3 the discussion of attention extends into the realm of joint attention, and the ways livestreaming engages our attentive capacities in groups to facilitate specific modalities of participation—observational, reactive, and generative. Finally, the conclusion pulls these frameworks together to demonstrate their use in an analysis of music livestreaming during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the patterns of behavior and audience engagement, conceptions of liveness during the pandemic, and the effects of these factors on the social aspects of live music.

Committee: Daniel Goldmark (Advisor); Francesca Brittan (Committee Member); Georgia Cowart (Committee Member); Vera Tobin (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Mass Media; Multimedia Communications; Music; Performing Arts; Psychology; Recreation; Sociology