Presentation Schedule
Formation and Development of the Early Internet Music Scene in Japan in the 1990s (100537)
Session Chair: Kotaro Kikuchi
Friday, 7 November 2025 14:00
Session: Session 3
Room: Room B (4F)
Presentation Type:Oral Presentation
A music scene is a cultural space created by the interaction of diverse musical practices, and media plays an important role in its diffusion and reception. While online music scenes expanded rapidly in the 2000s and now exert a substantial influence on Japanese popular music, media-historical analysis remains limited. This study addresses this gap and investigates how music media for discourse, distribution, and listening were constructed within early Internet culture, situating these developments within media history and demonstrating continuity with magazine culture. I analyze frameworks drawn from fan culture and publishing studies. Methodologically, Music Programming (called “DTM”= Desktop Music in Japan) magazines and archived web pages are qualitatively analyzed from early 2025. It focuses on three DTM specialty magazines launched in the early 1990s when the term DTM gained currency: Computer Music Magazine, DTM Magazine, and PC music. These magazines serialized editor–reader and reader–reader exchanges through track contests and reader columns. It is believed that this culture of submission fostered fan communities that were later connected to online communities. It became clear that early Internet music culture developed as a discussion-based culture influenced by magazine submissions and fanzines. It gradually expanded as a communication space with the introduction of the PC communication culture. Subsequently, advances in communication technology and increased users enabled the release of audio files on personal websites, which evolved into nonprofit record labels for producing music online. Online practices extended magazine communities, reshaping Japan’s music media ecology into an enduring digital infrastructure.
Authors:
Kotaro Kikuchi, The University of Osaka, Japan
About the Presenter(s)
Mr. Kotaro Kikuchi is currently a Ph.D. student of humanities at the University of Osaka, Japan.
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