CMNS 801
Jan Maronte
Rebecca Plucer
February 26, 2008
Exercise 2: Methodological Critique of Ryan Moore’s “Friends Don’t Let Friends Listen
to Corporate Rock: Punk as a Field of Cultural Production”. Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography, 36 (4), August 2007.
Ryan Moore’s article describes his longitudinal ethnographic research of punk
music culture in San Diego, California in the late 1990s. He concentrates on “the
processes of creative work and cultural production” as defining the “do-it-yourself ethic”
of this subculture rather than previous scholarship’s focus on expressions of “style” and
“ritual” as signifiers of punk (Moore, 2007 p.467). Moore claims that participation and
production, rather than consumption, are the key sites of analysis through (Moore, 2007,
p.438). Using empirical research methods of observation and interviews he describes in
narrative format how the “do-it-yourself” (DYI) philosophy shapes production and
networking tendencies, essentially establishing punk as both an identity of selfexpression and as a community. By focusing on three avenues of punk cultural
production; music, zines and independent record labels, Moore provides descriptive
analysis and identifies cultural traits such as anti-commercialism, self-expression,
politically charged, class-conscious, and supportive (Moore, 2007). He asserts that it is
the actions not the expressions that make this a relevant field of study. Overall, Moore’s
research is descriptive and largely narrative findings with theoritcal grounding but limited
methodological accountability.
For theoretical perspective, Moore situates his research in the history of cultural
studies approaches to subcultures and independent media. The McChesney cultural
industry approach expresses the “commercially autonomous” approach of independent
music while the Habermasian “public sphere” offers a context for people organize and
express themselves (Moore, 2007, p.439). Theoretically, Moore defines Bourdieu’s
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(1993) theory of the “field of cultural production” to situate punk’s players/producers
desirable “symbolic capital as the prestige and recognition from an inner circle of artists,
writers, or critics.” (Moore, 2007, p. 441). However, it is Howard Becker’s 1963
participant-observation study of jazz musicians that Moore uses as a comparison to
connect his own observations of an experimental music subculture wrestling with
commercialization (Moore, 2007, p.441).
Moore provides a brief historical context of punk music but makes broad leaps
across theory and history to arrive at some of his research. He has written a number of
articles about his analysis of punk as a subculture, but while this article is useful it fails to
offer ethnographic evidence. Moore describes his research technique as “ethnographic”
through conducting fieldwork and interviews over several years. He describes his
research methods as entering “the scene” by attending music shows, doing interviews,
and collecting “fanzines”. His choice of location appears convenient and fails to provide
supporting evidence of the emblematic nature of his locale (Moore, 2007, p.443). He
describes being in graduate school, attending shows alone and taking notes for field
research. Moore never explains what these observations are, as most of his insight is
expressed through interviews conducted later. His involvement appears more
observatory than participatory. Moore also avoids being identified as a researcher by
writing field notes in venue washrooms (Moore, 2007, p.443). He gives estimations of
how many shows he attended, how many people are fans or musicians. His only
demographic statistics come from a directory of 200 bands in the immediate area (Moore,
2007, p.443). Moore describes searching for interviewees through his fieldwork by
networking and asking for key informants within the scene (Moore, 2007, p.444).
Through 28 interviews, mostly with musicians, he focused on personal histories and their
involvement as cultural producers. He does not describe how he chose these individuals
to sample, in order to establish a demographic breakdown of interviewees that were
generally white, male, from working-class families (Moore, 2007, p. 445). Moore also
describes an “Independent Music Seminar” in 1995, which provided him with
information on how to produce, distribute and promote music on a low budget (Moore,
2007, p.444).
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Moore is clearly involved and knowledgeable in the field. He has written other
articles describing cultural aspects of punk culture this study appears incomplete as an
“ethnographic” study as he claims (Moore, 2004). There have been a variety of
ethnographic research on punk culture which are much more effective in expressing their
research validity as ethnographic studies (Baron 1993; Widdicombe and Wooffitt 1990;
Fox 1987). He also asserts that these DYI factors developed into the “Riot Grrl”
movement combining feminist and punk politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Moore provides
a brief history of punk music but makes broad leaps across theory and history to arrive at
some of his conclusions. Moore analysis appears far-reaching for a study that claims 28
interviews. As an essay and historical analysis involving field research, his article
demonstrates an alternative approach to subculture analysis. His assumptions, which were
stated at the beginning of his article, were proven through selective information
gathering. The biggest danger is confusing ethnographic research with cultural study.
Moore would benefit from sticking to the latter.
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Bibliography
Baron, S. (1989)
The Canadian West Coast Punk Subculture: A Field Study. Canadian Journal of
Sociology, 14(3), 289-316.
Moore, R. (2004)
Postmodernism and Punk Subculture: Cultures of Authenticity and
Deconstruction. Communication Review, 7, 305-327.
Moore, R. (2007)
Friends Don’t Let Friends Listen to Corporate Rock: Punk as a Field of Cultural
Production. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36 (4), 438-474.
Widdicombe, S. & Wooffitt, R. (1990)
'Being' Versus 'Doing' Punk: On Achieving Authenticity as a Member.
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 9; 257-277.
Fox, K. J. (1987)
Real Punks and Pretenders: The Social Organization of a Counter Culture. Journal
of Contemporary Ethnography, 16; 344-370.
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