ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the impact of digitization on the makers of world music within the Paris cluster. It considers how actors within the Paris cluster of world music production and consumption respond to the arrival of digital formats and Internet distribution and the ways in which digitization affects the circulation of world music. The chapter discusses the collaborative and networked nature of production in the music industry. After unpacking the structure of the Paris world music art world, as a complex and multi-levelled scene and concludes by presenting the broader implications of our findings with respect to the relationship between types of art worlds and digitization. Based on in-depth interviews with key actors in the field, people explore how some actors within that cluster perceive digitization as helping to provide access to larger markets, while others fear the erosion of the layered experience world music gives, as a portal to other cultures and traditions.
