Understanding Music in Movements: The White Power Music Scene

Abstract

Relying on the analysis of ethnographic and documentary data, this article explains how U.S. White Power Movement (WPM) activists use music to produce collective occasions and experiences that we conceptualize as the movement's music scene. We use the concept "music scene" to refer to the full range of movement occasions in which music is the organizing principle. Members experience these not as discrete events, but as interconnected sets of situations that form a relatively coherent movement music scene. We emphasize three analytically distinct dimensions of this scene-local, translocal, and virtual-and specify how each contributes to emotionally loaded experiences that nurture collective identity. Participants claim that strong feelings of dignity, pride, pleasure, love, kinship, and fellowship are supported through involvement in the WPM music scene. These emotions play a central role in vitalizing and sustaining member commitments to movement ideals.

Conservative and Right-Wing Movements

“…One is the increasing use of alternative media, a term generally identified with leftist movements (Atton 2006). Right-wing groups create virtual communities through Web sites, blogs, social networking sites, chat rooms, and online discussion boards (Adams & Roscigno 2005, Burris et al 2000, Daniels 2009, Gerstenfeld 2003, Levin 2002, Reid & Chen 2007, Simi & Futrell 2006. These serve several purposes.…”

“…Interactive online forums allow people to be involved in radical or extremist movements with little risk to their reputations, jobs, or family relationships (Simi & Futrell 2009). They also permit contact among right-wing activists that would otherwise be difficult because of geographical distance or fear of being observed and prosecuted (Blee 2002, Futrell et al 2006, Gerstenfeld 2003, Levin 2002, Reid & Chen 2007.…”

“…Furthermore, virtual communities offer a sense of belonging, companionship, and social support networks (Gerstenfeld 2003, Simi & Futrell 2006. Because mainstream media tend to portray right-wing movements negatively, right-wing activists create virtual communities to control their images (Gerstenfeld 2003, Simi & Futrell 2009).…”

“…A second focus of new scholarship on rightwing mobilization is the subcultural scenes that surround white power skinhead and neo-Nazi movements (Futrell et al 2006, Milo 2005, Minkenberg 2003, Mudde 2005a, Pankowski & Kornak 2005, Varga 2008). These scenes revolve heavily, but not exclusively, around music and media.…”

“…In any case, the Internet certainly has allowed rightwing movements to distribute propaganda to supporters and the general public. Right-wing sites often visually mimic more mainstream sites to make them familiar to viewers, while infusing racist and/or xenophobic rhetoric into their messages (Daniels 2009, Futrell et al 2006, Gerstenfeld 2003.…”