Abstract

This thesis explores how musical recordings circulate within various sites of metacultural analysis, such as print music publications, music blogs, community-based campus radio music programmes and music podcasts. Drawing on theories about cultural production, the circulation of cultural objects, and metaculture, the author traces how an independent record label discursively positions musical recordings for movement towards and within these meaning-making spheres. Print music publications and music blogs facilitate recognition and consecration of recordings in different capacities, particularly in relation to music publicity. Community-based campus radio and music podcasts situate recordings within new cultural objects--radio texts--that engage with listeners in different ways. In this manner, all sites are stakeholders in shaping the meaning of a musical recording and propel its actual and metacultural circulation along various trajectories.