Sociology of Karaoke

• In Event: 545 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. Cultural Genres

Abstract

I want to contribute to an empirical and theoretical understanding of karaoke culture, using participant observation and informal, semi-structured interviews to analyze karaoke performers in diverse settings. I plan to apply established theories of culture to public karaoke bars, theories which challenge what Herbert Gans (1999) calls “the critique of mass culture.” I will explore karaoke’s meaning as a form of popular culture that does not necessarily fit conventional criticisms of popular culture. I challenge the idea that karaoke is a passive, talentless, “anti-music space” for people with “inferiority complexes.” While most research on karaoke agrees that karaoke is not just a trivial form of “low” culture, researchers have not adequately addressed why this fundamentally disparaging framing of karaoke exists, and how this framing is used by karaokists to construct the authenticity of karaoke.
I will elucidate the critical censure of popular culture—asking, why is karaoke seen as low culture? How do karaokists transform criticisms of karaoke into a discourse of authenticity? How does the practice of karaoke challenge criticisms of popular culture? And how does karaoke highlight the distinction between mass and popular culture? What kinds of relationships are formed through karaoke? How far, if at all, do they extend beyond the walls of the karaoke bar? How can the discourses of fame, culture of celebrity, and ordinariness be understood in the context of karaoke? How do opportunities for celebrity in the context of the karaoke bar vary from other spaces for “micro-celebrities” (Senft 2008: 25)?

Author

• Joanna Rullo, University of California-Davis