ABSTRACT
This chapter examines levels or modalities of what can be understood as music's social content and its relation to its social context. It proposes that the relation is processual, that is, dynamic and dialectical. In all cases, irrespective of what composers or performers themselves consciously set out to do, this material, technical and structural process can be understood as falling under the concept of mediation. The social mediation of music is seen as complex and multi-layered. Crucial within these layers of mediation are the effects of what Theodor W. Adorno famously called 'the culture industry', meaning the music business in its most globalized sense. Very different kinds of music are equally well illuminated by such an approach, as no music escapes being mediated by the socio-cultural totality, by which is meant in particular the institutions and networks through which music exists, and little escapes the effects of globalization and its distribution networks.
