Synlighet som karriereressurs for musikere

Abstract

This chapter investigates how musicians use, manage and value different types of visibility when building their careers. In order to analyze musicians’ experiences and opinions regarding visibility work, we apply three concepts of capital – symbolic capital, social capital and visibility capital. More specifically, we discuss how different forms of capital are valued by musicians in their endeavors to attain visibility. The analysis is based on empirical material from a study of professional musicians in Norway consisting of 57 qualitative interviews. The analysis is presented in four parts: visibility through social relations, visibility by presence in social media, visibility by presence in traditional media, and visibility by virtue of musicians’ geographical location. We find that both social capital – the visibility musicians get from networks and relations – and symbolic capital – the visibility musicians get from being recognized in the field – are seen as unconditionally valuable. However, visibility capital – the visibility musicians get from being present in social and traditional media – has a much more ambiguous status. One the one hand side, it is a way of connecting with and building audiences, which is seen as valuable. On the other hand, presence in social and traditional media requires a lot of work and is associated with certain subjective rules on how to appear and what to communicate.