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Music Social Networking:An Analysis Based On Interactive Ritual Chains By Example Of Netease Cloud Music App

Posted on:2017-01-18Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:D D LiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2295330503983253Subject:Communication
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As the social-networking is becoming more and more important in our daily life, people begin to realize that even their virtual life is socialized. At the present situation that cyber-socializing has become a trend, this paper focuses on the less-tackled field—music social-networking. After analyzing the present ecology of the Internet, we hold that it was the vertical subdivision of the Internet and the advent of the Context Age that had given rise to a variety of different social forms. The concept of "music social-networking" is not fresh. It sprung out as early as 2004, when Myspace has combined music with social-networks and created the famous Myspace music. Its success prompted imitations by others: Last FM brought music social-networking to its peak while Ping failed due to its improper commercialization and Turnable FM got the music social networking gamificated. Back in the domestic online-music market, under the heavy pressure of the earlier-starters like QQ Music, Cool Music, Xiami Music etc., the Netease Cloud Music, founded in 2013, managed to have one hundred million users in less than two years by virtue of its advantages such as mobility, nativity and socialization, and brought the concept of music social-networking into people’s horizon once again. After inspecting the Netease Cloud Music App, it is argued in this paper, that a complete Interaction Ritual Chain is formed even inside the closed App, just because of the essence of music. Randall Collins, in his book Interaction Ritual Chains, focused on how "context" could make the interaction between individual and society as an interaction ritual chain by combining Durkheim’s ritual thoughts and Goveman’s microscopic interaction theory. This paper took "Interaction Ritual Chains" as the theoretical framework, the essential elements constituting an interaction ritual in the Netease Cloud Music were analyzed: the common key focuses of songs/playlist formed, the music reviews, comments and tailored demographics with highly personalized messages to form the group excitement which is necessary in interaction ritual chains(IRs), and then the feature “fellas near you” based on LBS technology and music friend circle retained the rhythm of group excitements. It is the social feature one can find everywhere inside the App that turned the short-term emotions into long-term emotions; and the later is an important factor to form group solidarity. Long-term emotion is the emotional energy(EE), the core concept considered by Collins in his IRs.The interaction and the ritual of Netease Cloud Music were discussed in this paper. By looking back to Owen Goveman’s microscopic interaction theory of sociology, we hold that it was the emotion that music generated blurred the line between the on stage and the backstage behavior, and formed the highly strengthened affection joint.Thus, the more the individual involved in the interaction, the more EE one can perceive, and a stable group solidarity will be formed.The studies on rituals inevitably has a connection with religions. Rituals originated from religious sacrificial ceremonies. Later on, Durkheim applied purely religious studies to sociology. He argued that ritual reflects group morality. Starting from its religious origins of rituals, the music elements in religious ceremonies were extracted in this paper and argued that music has its native deep sense of ritual since its birth. In Netease Cloud Music, the rich emotions in the melodies and lyrics of music certainly has something in common with those in music used in worships by primitives, and so the process of musical interaction is also the process of perception of rituals. The UI design of the Netease Cloud Music App also has the symbolic characteristics that constitutes the ritual ceremonies, and the experts’ professional leading and guidance of music can also be seen as the characteristics of imitated rituals. The high emotional energy and high social identity symbols in music social-networking in Cloud Music App together make a complete interaction ritual chain.Finally, the communicative characteristics of Cloud Music App were analyzed in this paper. The experiencing of great products leads to quality UGC content, and thus form the self-organized communications, among which, emoting and empathizing are key factors. Music social-networking created a unique social system using emotions as the bridge. Online music industry will be formed in the near future started by original music men and star users, and music will become the pioneer of the total SNS for its more intimate social-networking.
Keywords/Search Tags:Music Social-networking, Interactive Ritual Chains, Netease Cloud Music, Emotional Energy, Group Solidarity
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