The “Kraftwerk-Effekt”: Transatlantic circulation, global networks and contemporary pop music

Abstract

Focusing upon contemporary developments in electronic dance music, this paper challenges the conventional view of transatlantic cultural domination emanating from an Anglo-American “centre”. It argues that contemporary global popular culture, facilitated by advances in communications technologies and increasingly complex global flows of people, images and capital, is increasingly decentralized and has a tendency to be based upon networks of mutually interdependent local “scenes”. The emerging landscape of global popular culture requires a theoretical reassessment of transatlantic cultural relations, which includes an appreciation of the complexities of “glocal” taste formation and of the decentralized global networks of cultural production and consumption.