The omnivore turn in cultural production: Case study of China’s Rainbow Chamber Singers

Abstract

Previous studies on China’s cultural production have concentrated on the tension between state and individual creativity, overlooking the more dynamic and popular expression in China’s complicated cultural market, especially in this information age. This article is inspired by the omnivore–univore argument in cultural consumption and argues there is a similar omnivore turn among China’s independent cultural producers. Drawing on a case study of the Rainbow Chamber Singers (RCS), this article provides a new dimension and perspective to examine omnivore production in China’s ‘unconventional’ chamber choir. Data from the RCS’s music, lyrics, performances, the conductor Jin Chengzhi’s interviews (first-hand and second-hand), and the author’s own participant observation of the RCS’s concerts will be combined and elaborated. This article contends that the RCS adapts to creative thinking from creative industries and blurs conceptual boundaries between state/individual, art/commerce, and highbrow/lowbrow. The process also contributes to forming a participatory culture in the arena of classical chamber music.

Keywords

cultural production omnivorousness popular expression participatory culture Rainbow Chamber Singers

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ali

(2011) The power of social media in developing nations: New tools for closing the global digital divide and beyond. Harvard Human Rights Journal 24: 185–241.

Baudrillard

(1995) The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena. Trans. Benedict

New York: Verso.

Bauman

(1988) Freedom. New York: Open University Press.

Belk

(1986) Symbolic consumption of art. In: Shaw

Hendon

Waits

(eds) Artists and Cultural Consumers. Akron, OH: Association for Cultural Economics, pp. 168–178.

Bhabha

(1994) The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.

Bourdieu

(1996) The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Bowman

(1998) Philosophical Perspectives on Music. London: Oxford University Press.

Bridgwood

Fenn

Dust

Hilton

Skelton

Skinner

(2003) Focus on Cultural Diversity: The Arts in England Attendance, Participation and Attitudes. Research Report 34. London: UK Film Council, ReSource, and Arts Council England.

Brown

Patterson

(eds) (2001) Imagining Marketing: Art, Aesthetics and the Avant-Garde. New York: Routledge.

10.

Brown

Hirschman

Maclaran

(2001) Presenting the past: On marketing’s reproduction orientation. In: Brown

Patterson

(eds) Imagining Marketing: Art, Aesthetics and the Avant-Garde. New York: Routledge, pp. 145–191.

11.

Bryson

(1996) Anything but heavy metal: Symbolic exclusion and musical dislikes. American Sociological Review 61(5): 884–899.

12.

Bryson

(1997) What about the univores? Musical dislikes and group-based identity construction among Americans with low levels of education. Poetics 25: 141–156.

13.

(2005) Guanyu ‘Nvzi shier yuefang’ de yongtan (About praise for the ‘12 Girls Band’). Yishu pinglun (Arts Criticism) 7: 12–14.

14.

Cao

(2018, March 10) Popular choir group back with a new hit. Available at: www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201803/10/WS5aa2e783a3106e7dcc140c24.html (accessed 15 November 2018).

15.

Carroll

(2001) Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

16.

Chan

Goldthorpe

(2007) Social stratification and cultural consumption: Music in England. European Sociological Review 23(1): 1–19.

17.

Ciszek

(2013) Advocacy and amplification: Nonprofit outreach and empowerment through participatory media. Public Relations Journal 7(2): 187–213.

18.

Coombs

(1998) The internet as potential equalizer: New leverage for confronting social irresponsibility? Public Relations Review 24(3): 289–303.

19.

Connor

(2016) ‘I haven’t removed my makeup in 18 days’: China’s ‘overtime dogs’ go viral. 29 July. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/i-havent-removed-my-makeup-in-18-days-chinas-overtime-dogs-go-vi/ (accessed 15 November 2018).

20.

Cova

(1997) Community and consumption. European Journal of Marketing 31(3–4): 297–317.

21.

Crane

(1987) The Transformation of the Avant-garde: The New York Art World 1940–1985. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

22.

Cui

(2008) Review of: From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China. Journal of Asian Studies 67(4): 1430–1433.

23.

Daymon

Holloway

(2011) Qualitative Research Methods in Public Relations and Marketing Communications, 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge.

24.

Debord

(1983 [1967]) Society of the Spectacle. Detroit, MI: Black and Red.

25.

Delanty

(2000) Modernity and Postmodernity: Knowledge, Power and the Self. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

26.

Deuze

(2007) Convergence culture in the creative industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10(2): 243–263.

27.

Featherstone

(1991) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage.

28.

Florida

(2002) The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.

29.

Francis

(1990) Attitudes among Britain’s Black Community towards Attendance at Arts, Cultural and Entertainment Events: A Qualitative Research Study. London: Networking Public Relations.

30.

Fridman

Ollivier

(2002) ‘Caviar for the General’ or the erosion of cultural hierarchies. Society and Leisure 25: 37–54.

31.

Fung

(2008) Western style, Chinese pop: Jay Chou’s rap and hip-hop in China. Asian Music 39(1): 69–80.

32.

Gans

(1985) American popular culture and high culture in a changing class structure. In: Balfe

Wyszomirski

(eds) Art, Ideology, and Politics. New York: Praeger, pp. 40–57.

33.

Goodwin

(1996) Community as a dimension of service relationships. Journal of Consumer Psychology 5(4): 387–415.

34.

Griffiths

(2017) Why this choir is a huge hit with China’s stressed out millennials. 9 February. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/09/asia/china-rainbow-chamber-singers/index.html (accessed November 15, 2018).

35.

Griswold

(2008) Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

36.

Guerzoni

Nuccio

(2014) Music consumption at the dawn of the music industry: The rise of a cultural fad. Journal of Cultural Economics 38: 145–171.

37.

Hartley

(ed) (2005) Creative Industries. Malden: Blackwell.

38.

(2012) Music education in Shanghai from 1895 to 1945: The cultural politics of singing. Music Education Research 14(2): 187–207.

39.

Hofstede

(2016) National culture . . . Available at: https://geert-hofstede.com/national-culture.html (accessed 16 May 2016).

40.

Jaques

(2006) Activist rules and the convergence with issue management. Journal of Communication Management 10(4): 407–420.

41.

Jenkins

(2004) The cultural logic of media convergence. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7(1): 33–43.

42.

Jenkins

(2009) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

43.

Jin

(2017a) Jin Chengzhi: Caihong Caibushi Zhihui Chang Shenqu de Hechangtuan (Jin Chengzhi: the Rainbow Chamber Singers are not choir that can only sing quirky songs). TV Interview by Chen Luyu. Available at: https://www.iqiyi.com/w_19rtsvm07t.html (accessed 15 November 2018).

44.

Jin

(2017b) Jin Chengzhi: Yuemi Yuelaiyue Duo, Zeren Yuelaiyue Zhong (Jin Chengzhi: More fans and greater social responsibility). TV interview by the official channel CCTV 13 in China. Available at: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/9xr1dg5zmhtolho/b00222gf51k.html (accessed 15 November 2018).

45.

Jin

(2018) Keyi Bei Yongxin Langfei de Shijian (Time that can be wasted with heart), public speech. Available at: https://yixi.tv/speech/650 (accessed 15 November 2018).

46.

Jin

(2019) Interview with Jin Chengzhi via. WeChat voice call by author, 5 June.

47.

Kraidy

(2002) Hybridity in cultural globalization. Communication Theory 12(3): 316–339.

48.

Kramer

(2002) The nature and origins of musical postmodernism. In: Lochhead

Aunder

(eds) Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought. New York: Routledge, pp. 13–26.

49.

Kearon

(2012) From arbiter to omnivore: The bourgeois transcendent self and the other in disorganised modernity. Human Studies 35: 383–399.

50.

Kobayashi

Jackson

Sam

(2019) Globalization, creative alliance and self-Orientalism: Negotiating Japanese identity within Asics global advertising production. International Journal of Cultural Studies 22(1):157–174.

51.

Kraidy

Murphy

(2003) Media ethnography: Local, global, or translocal? In: Kraidy

Murphy

(eds) Global Media Studies: An Ethnographic Perspective. New York: Routledge, pp. 299–307.

52.

Lee

S-S

Choi

Lee

(2015) Omnivorous consumer or omnivorous producer? Patterns of cultural participation in Korea. Development and Society 44(1): 117–142.

53.

Lin

(2019) Be creative for the state: creative workers in Chinese state-owned cultural enterprises. International Journal of Cultural Studies 22(1): 53–69.

54.

Lipovetsky

(1983) L’ère du vide: Essais sur l’individualisme contemporain. Paris: Gallimard.

55.

Lipovetsky

(1994 [1987]) The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

56.

Lizardo

Skiles

(2010) Cultural consumption in the fine and popular arts realms. Sociology Compass 2(2): 485–502.

57.

Lopez Sintas

Alvarez

(2002) Omnivores show up again: The segmentation of cultural consumers in Spanish social space. European Sociological Review 18: 353–368.

58.

Lull

(2000) Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach, 2nd edn. New York: Columbia University Press.

59.

Luo

(2018) Cultural policy and revolutionary music during China’s Cultural Revolution: The case of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. International Journal of Cultural Policy 24(4): 431–450.

60.

Luo

Tebbutt

(2019) From Cultural Revolution to cultural consumption: Forming a contemporary identity through Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Continuum 33(3): 351–368.

61.

Matsue

(2013) Stars to the state and beyond: Globalization, identity, and Asian popular music. Journal of Asian Studies 72(1): 5–20.

62.

McCracken

(1988) Culture and Consumption. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

63.

McGuigan

(2006) Modernity and Postmodern Culture. Berkshire: Open University Press

64.

McRobbie

(1996) All the world’s a stage, screen or magazine: When culture is the logic of late capitalism. Media, Culture & Society 18: 335–342.

65.

Meamber

(1999) Art as life – life as art: The embeddedness of art in life and life in art in postmodernity. In: Goodman

(ed.) Modern Organizations and Emerging Conundrums. New York: Lexington Books, pp. 184–99.

66.

Mittler

(2012) A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.

67.

O’Connor

(2006) A new modernity? The arrival of ‘creative industries’ in China. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9(3): 271–283.

68.

Ollivier

(2008) Modes of openness to cultural diversity: Humanist, populist, practical, and indifferent. Poetics 36: 120–147.

69.

O’Sullivan

(2009) All together now: A symphony orchestra audience as a consuming community. Consumption Markets and Culture 12(3): 209–223.

70.

Papastergiadis

(2000) The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization, and Hybridity. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press and Blackwell.

71.

Perris

(1983) Music as propaganda: Art at the command of doctrine in the People’s Republic of China. Ethnomusicology 27(1): 1–28.

72.

Peterson

Kern

(1996) Changing highbrow taste: From snob to omnivore. American Sociological Review 61: 900–907.

73.

Peterson

Simkus

(1992) How musical taste groups mark occupational status groups. In: Lamont

Fournier

(eds) Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 152–186.

74.

Petras

Veltmeyer

(2001) Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century. London: Zed Books.

75.

Pickowicz

Zhang

(eds) (2006) From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

76.

Schudson

(2003) The Sociology of News. New York: W.W. Norton.

77.

Schwarcz

(1986) The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Berkeley: University of California Press.

78.

Shenzheng Daily (2017) Chorus by Rainbow Chamber Singers, 22 August. Available at: http://www.szdaily.com/content/2017-08/22/content_17072897.htm (accessed 15 November 2018).

79.

Stevenson

(2003) Cultural Citizenship. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

80.

Stevenson

(2011) Education and Cultural Citizenship. London: Sage.

81.

Stevenson

(2016) Jazz as cultural modernity: Consumerism, nationalism and cosmopolitan freedom. International Journal of Cultural Studies 19(2): 209–223.

82.

Stubley

(1996) Modulating identities: The play of ensemble performance (being in the body, being in the sound). Paper presented at the Music Educators National Conference, Kansas City, MO, USA.

83.

Sun

(2007) Dancing with chains: Significant moments on China Central Television. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10(2): 187–204.

84.

Takacs

(2014) Interrogating Popular Culture: Key Questions. New York: Routledge.

85.

Tombleson

Wolf

(2017) Rethinking the circuit of culture: How participatory culture has transformed cross-cultural communication. Public Relations Review 43: 14–25.

86.

Venkatesh

Meamber

(2006) Arts and aesthetics: Marketing and cultural production. Marketing Theory 6(1): 11–39.

87.

Wang

Yeh

(2005) Globalization and hybridization in cultural products: The cases of Mulan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. International Journal of Cultural Policy 8(2): 175–193.

88.

Wang

(2001) The state question in Chinese popular cultural studies. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 2(1): 35–52.

89.

Wang

(1966) Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872–1949. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

90.

Warde

(2007) Does taste still serve power? The fate of distinction in Britain. Sociologica: Italian Online Sociological Review 3: 1–26.

91.

Warde

Tomlinson

McMeekin

(2000) Expanding tastes? Cultural omnivorousness and cultural change in the UK. University of Manchester CRIC Discussion Paper 37.

92.

Warde

Wright

Gayo-Cal

(2008) The omnivorous orientation in the UK. Poetics 36: 148–165.

93.

Warde

Gayo-Cal

(2009) The anatomy of cultural omnivorousness: The case of the United Kingdom. Poetics 37: 119–145.

94.

Wong

(2006) Zhang Binlin’s critique of Western modernity: A Chinese view of cultural pluralism. In: Zarrow

(ed.) Creating Chinese Modernity: Knowledge and Everyday Life, 1900–1944. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 23–49.

95.

Wright

(2011) Making tastes for everything: Omnivorousness and cultural abundance. Journal for Cultural Research 15(4): 355–371.

96.

Xie

Zhang

(2016) ‘Zhangshichao ni daodi ba wojia yaoshi fangzai nalile’ Weishenme Zheyang Huo (Why is Lost Key a hit?). China Youth Daily, 22 January. Available at: http://zqb.cyol.com/html/2016-01/22/nw.D110000zgqnb_20160122_3-10.htm (accessed 14 February 2019).

97.

(2016) 2016 Kainian Shenqu Zhangshichao bei Caichang A’yi wen ‘Yaoshi fang na’er la’ (Magic song to begin the year 2016, Zhangshichao is questioned by old ladies in the market ‘Where did you leave the key?’). Xinwen Chenbao and People.cn, 16 January. Available at: http://media.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0116/c40606-28059611.html (accessed 14 February 2019).

98.

Yang

H-L

Saffle

(2010) The 12 Girls Band: Traditions, gender, globalization, and (inter) national identity. Asian Music 41(2): 88–112.

99.

Yang

(2007) East meets West in the concert hall: Asians and classical music in the century of imperialism, postcolonialism, and multiculturalism. Asian Music 38(1): 1–30.

100.

Yoon

(2018) Global imagination of K-Pop: Pop music fans’ lived experiences of cultural hybridity. Popular Music and Society 41(4): 373–389.

101.

Young

(1995) Colonial Desire: Hybridity, Culture, and Race. New York: Routledge.

102.

Zeng

(2017) Why are Chinese millennials crazy about Rainbow Chamber Singers? 17 March. Available at: https://medium.com/@actallchinatech/why-are-chinese-millennials-crazy-about-rainbow-chamber-singers-9ea5cb6bcf4e (accessed 15 November 2018).