The show must go on(line): Livestreamed concerts and the hyper-ritualisation of genre conventions

Abstract

This paper examines audience engagement at livestreamed concerts, a form of mediatised cultural consumption that saw an immense growth in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerts, as events that draw large groups of people with similar intentions, are the perfect location for the establishment of large-scale interaction rituals – moments of group behaviour characterised by a highly intense collective emotion. Furthermore, as social occasions, concerts are organised around a set of routine interactions that construct and define the collective experience. We argue that in moving online, the definition of the (concert) situation is highly impaired due to a context collapse. In comparing two distinct audiences (classical and Dutch popular music), the first aim of this research is to explore how these differing audiences adapt their cultural behaviour to the virtual sphere. Secondly, by adopting a microsociological perspective, we aim to broaden the theoretical understanding of virtual large-scale interaction rituals, an area becoming increasingly important due to the growth in online communication. This paper uses discourse analysis of the synchronised comments, left on livestreamed concerts on Facebook Live (n = 2,075), to examine the interaction between audience members. We find that both classical and Dutch popular music audiences use a form of hyper-ritualised interaction. In an attempt to combat the plurality of meanings online, they explicitly refer back to the central conventions of the face-to-face concert. This emphasises not only the significance of genre conventions, but also presents a form of virtual interaction distinct form interpersonal interaction.