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This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression.

This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression.

This study analyzed the process of subject formation in South African underground hip hoppers. The main focus of the study was to explore how resistance is constructed and achieved through embodied discursive practices and discourse in underground Hip Hop music. The study analyzed how the terms, 'Representing', 'Keeping it real' and 'Hustling', were used by hip hoppers in their construction of a hip hop subject. These terms were used by the hip hoppers as the standard against which all hip hoppers are compared if they are to be considered authentic hip hoppers. It was found that resistance was framed in the form of a heroic narrative that made use of these vernacular terms. The word 'Hustling' was used to denote the difficulties that face the hero in a heroic narrative. This heroic narrative was a strategy in which the hip hoppers repositioned themselves as heroes fighting in a hard world, one full of inopportunity against people like themselves. Overcoming this space was important to the hip hoppers but retaining connections to it was also seen as equally important. Because of the history of opposition surrounding the emergence of hip hop, claiming and retaining marginalization remain important to hip hoppers in accounts of themselves. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.