Musicking TikTok - A Musical Ethnography from a Glocal Austrian Context

This ethnographic work about TikTok''s musicking in a glocal (Austrian) context complements and build upon ethnomusicological assumptions, theories, and methods for the study of musical practices in digital spaces. An overview of elements that make up TikTok''s interface as well as the technical-performative possibilities that it allows, this book introduces a general categorization of existing performance types and how TikTokers appropriate the platform to make their music. It illustrates how some TikTokers became aware of and began using TikTok, and it reviews some of the different strategies TikTokers apply to learn how to use the application and successfully develop their performances. Bermudez explores how performers move from being "ordinary users" to becoming TikTokers, developing and performing an identity he calls TikTok Persona. Moreover, he discusses how some TikTok practices can and have occurred across multiple, interconnected platforms, and he examines how localities are articulated and negotiated in these contexts. Bermudez argues for an understanding of musicking as a multimedia practice that different actors create and experience individually in everyday synchronous and asynchronous, physical and digital situations. The so-called TikTokers create a sense of identity and community through their performances. This study suggests that a digital performance can be, aside from a representation of reality, an integral part of it, serving as a fundamental space for constructing and performing identity.

List of contents

Introduction
1. Ethnographing TikTok
2. Performing TikTok
3. Becoming a TikToker
4. Localizing TikTok
5. TikToking Musics
6. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Juan Bermúdez is a senior scientist at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and a Post-Doc-Track Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His current work focuses on music and dance practices in multimedia contexts.

Product details

• Authors: Juan Bermudez, Juan Bermúdez
• Assisted by: Lisa Perrott (Editor), Holly Rogers (Editor), Carol Vernallis (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 23.07.2026
• EAN: 9798765112229
• ISBN: 9798765112229
• No. of pages: 224
• Series: New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music > General, dictionaries; Media Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, MUSIC / Ethnomusicology, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Regional Studies, Theory of music & musicology, COMPUTERS / Internet / Social Media, Theory of music and musicology, Cultural and media studies, Ethnic studies / Ethnicity, Global or regional music styles