The purpose of this research was to gather information about the production, marketing and distribution of Zambian contemporary music by Zambian musicians. Very little information has been documented about the development of the Zambian music industry, particularly from the perspective of those within the industry. As a result this study attempted to add to this knowledge. To achieve this Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of ‘fields’ and ‘habitus’ were used to gain an understanding of what affects the creation of art forms such as music as well as the structures and underlying processes within the music industry. The concept of ‘fields’ usefully framed an explanation of the struggles and connections within the various fields in the industry and a view of the Zambian music industry in relation to the international industry. To gather the data necessary for this research a qualitative approach was utilised involving semistructured in-depth questionnaires from twenty-three interviewees. These interviewees were selected from various sectors of the music industry in an attempt to gain a holistic perspective of the industry in the 21st century. There were four subgroups: the artists (singers, rappers and instrumentalists), managers, radio DJs, and a miscellaneous group made up of the remaining participants, a Sounds Arcade manager, a music journalist, the National Arts Council Chairperson, a Zambia Music Copyright Protection Society (ZAMCOPS) administrator, and the then President of the Zambia Association of Musicians (ZAM). With the limited exposure to formal musical, instrumental and production training, musicians, instrumentalists, managers and studio production personnel interviewed had had to learn their craft on-the-job. This limited knowledge appears to add to the hindrance of the development of careers and the industry, particularly in terms of how to register and distribute music correctly to earn royalties and protect their intellectual property against piracy. From an institutional level piracy is being addressed more forcefully with the introduction of holograms and the tightening of policies and structures to do with the music industry.

Mit der Arbeit wird angestrebt, die komplexen Prozesse der Herstellung von an Tonträger gebundenen Klangkonfigurationen innerhalb des Tonstudios, die im Zuge feldspezifischer Prozesse als Popmusik funktionieren können, unter bestimmten Rahmenbedingungen durch Beobachtungen, Beschreibungen und Analysen bzw. Interpretationen zu erfassen. Die Funktion bzw. Funktionsweise dieser Institution des Feldes der populären Musikproduktion soll unter Verweis auf wahrgenommene Mechanismen und Strukturen jenes Feldes nachvollziehbar gemacht werden. Zur Auswertung der in Feldstudien erhobenen Daten werden Theorien von Pierre Bourdieu und Michel Foucault genutzt, da die Komplexität der untersuchten Prozesse mit Hilfe nur eines Ansatzes nicht hinreichend hätte interpretiert werden können. Im Gegensatz zur Intention Bourdieus wird jedoch auf einen allgemeinen, übergreifenden Gültigkeitsanspruch der Erkenntnisse auf gesellschaftliche Prozesse oder vermeintlich verwandte Felder verzichtet; die Arbeit orientiert sich vielmehr an der Herangehensweise einer auf den Untersuchungsgegenstand bezogenen Theorie der Grounded Theory. Die verwendeten Daten sind der Arbeit in transkribierter Form als Anhang beigefügt. / This dissertation attempts to adequately represent and explain the complex field-specific processes which take place in the recording studios of popular music production during the creation of configurations of sound. Using participant observation in Berlin-based recording studios for data collection, this data was analyzed by utilizing and modifying the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. In contrast to Bourdieu’s claims that fields have an identical structure, the field of popular music production is quite unique in its workings and cannot be explained in such a manner. Based on these findings, a partially different model and terminology is being developed. Most of the used data is available as (German) transcription in the appendix.

Music radio is the most listened to form of radio, and one of the least researched by academic ethnographers. This research project addresses industry structure and agency in an investigation into the relationship between music radio and the record industry in the UK, how that relationship works to produce music radio and to shape the production of popular music. The underlying context for this research is Peterson's production of culture perspective. The research is in three parts: a model of music radio production and consumption, an ethnographic investigation focusing on music radio programmers and record industry pluggers, and an ethnographic investigation into the use of specialist music radio programming by alternative pop and rock artists in Glasgow, Scotland. The research has four main conclusions: music radio continues to be central to the record industry's promotional strategy for new commercial recordings; music radio is increasing able to mediate the production practices of the popular music industry; that mediation is focused through the social relationship between music radio programmers and record industry pluggers; cultural practices of musicians are developed and mediated by consumption of specialist music radio, as they become part of specialist music radio.