1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821023903321

Autore

Gopinath Sumanth S

Titolo

The ringtone dialectic : economy and cultural form / / Sumanth Gopinath

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass., : MIT Press, 2013

ISBN

0-262-31509-2

0-262-31508-4

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (393 p.)

Disciplina

384.5/35

Soggetti

Ring tones - Social aspects

Cell phones - Social aspects

Cell phone services industry

Mobile games industry

Internet entertainment industry

Digital media - Social aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; I The Rise and Fall of the Ringtone Economy; 1 This Business of Ringtones; II Ramifications of the Ringtone's Identity Crisis; 2 Ringtones and the Deskilling of Mobile-Musical Labor; 3 Left Behind; 4 The Ringtone and Its Aesthetic Subgenres in Contemporary Classical Music and Media Performance/Installation Art; III The Ringtone's Dialectical Reversals; 5 The Annoying Thing; 6 The Voice of the Politician and the Geographic Dispersion of the Political Ringtone; 7 A Spectrum of Forms; IV Revivals and the (Universal) Particularization of the Ringtone

8 Personalization and Spectatorship9 What's in a Name? Race and the Ringtone's Revival in (Un-)Popular Music; Epilogue; Notes; Index

Sommario/riassunto

A decade ago, the customisable ringtone was ubiquitous. Almost any crowd of cell phone owners could produce a carillon of tinkly, beeping, synthy, musicalised ringer signals. Ringtones quickly became a multi-billion-dollar global industry and almost as quickly faded away. This book charts the rise and fall of the ringtone economy and assesses its effect on cultural production.