ABSTRACT
As implied by its Japanese etymology, karaoke opens up a void in its combined pictorial and musical orchestration. There is a gaping hole in a karaoke video right where the vocalist’s visual presence and aural voice are expected to be. This empty space is to be filled with the karaoke performer’s own voice, body and soul. The interactive media phenomenon of karaoke thereby points out how playful and communicative uses-creations and interpretations-of meaningful symbolic forms are engaged in identity reconstructions. This music/video genre and practice form offer excellent opportunities to study how music, lyrics and videos are used in reception not only to shape experiences and meaning, but also to produce new musical statements. The way karaoke has been appropriated and reworked in the West sheds further light on certain differences in subject construction that might derive from contrasting ethnic identity patterns and forms of socialization.1
