Club cultures: music, media and subcultural capital

TLDR

Thornton examines youth in British and U.S. dance clubs and raves, highlighting authenticity, hipness, and hierarchical subcultures shaped by micro‑media, niche press, and mass tabloids, and traces the evolution of recording media from the 1950s to the 1990s. Thornton coins the term subcultural capital to explain how cool youth distinguish themselves from the mainstream. She applies Bourdieu’s theory to analyze these distinctions.

Abstract

Focusing on youth that revolve around dance clubs and raves in Great Britain and the U.S., Sarah Thornton highlights the values of authenticity and hipness and explores the complex hierarchies that emerge within the domain of popular culture. She portrays club as taste cultures brought together by micro-media like flyers and listings, transformed into self-conscious subcultures by such niche media as the music and style press, and sometimes recast as movements with the aid of such mass media as tabloid newspaper front pages. She also traces changes in the recording medium from a marginal entertainment in the 50s to the clubs and raves of the 90s. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Thornton coins the term subcultural capital to make sense of distinctions made by cool youth, noting particularly their disparagement of the mainstream against which they measure their alternative cultural worth. Well supported with case studies, readable, and innovative, Club Cultures will become a key text in cultural and media studies and in the sociology of culture.