This research targets the post-1990s generation who reside in those locations where China Wind music is listened to. These locations share similarities in terms of the consumption of popular culture (Chua, 2012), but they can be heterogeneous in relation to their local political dynamics. A generation has been defined as a cohort of people born in the same period and influenced by same significant political or economic events (Mannheim, 1952). Sociologists and psychologist argue that the defining factors of a given generation are based on the collective memories of these events (Costanza et al., 2012) while marketing research – particularly on Chinese consumers – often employs a generational approach when identifying consumer groups (Huang and Lu, 2017; Shan, Jiang and Wei, 2016). As this thesis will discuss later, China Wind music became part of the interviewees’ collective as well as personal memories. However, ethnographic methods help to reveal the details and meanings of these experiences and the memories they leave behind, as well as their diversity and sense
of collectiveness. In addition, the common discourse regarding the notion of generations as
used in the media and in everyday language, especially in Mainland China, also reinforces the notion that cultures are generational, with groups categorised as post-1980s (八零後) or post-
1990s (九零後) (De Kloet and Fung, 2017; Wei, 2001). For instance, the post-1990s generation is often labelled as ‘independent’, ‘internet-savvy’ or ‘spoiled’ (Yuan, 2008). However, the generational approach is not entirely unproblematic. As this research is multi- sited, in different locations music audiences may have different views on how to divide age groups and assign behaviours associated with a given generation differently. A multi-sited research can draw attention to the specificities of the post-1990s generation’s social and cultural contexts in each respective locality. For instance, Taiwan has a very specific categorisation when it comes to generations. The year 1912 is numbered as minguo (民國) year 1 as it was the year the Republic of China was founded (2017 is Minguo year 106). The minguo system is widely used in the Taiwanese education sector and civil service. A type of generational label was created due to this system, whereby grade 7 (七年級) includes those people born between minguo 70 and 79 (1981-1990), and grade 8 (八年級) represents people born between minguo 80 and 89 (1991-2000). The grades 7 and 8 generations have been labelled as ‘naturally independent’, exhibiting general support for a distinctly Taiwanese identity. A report written by the Hong Kong Idea Centre (2013) also refers to the post-1990s generation in Hong Kong as ‘the fifth generation Hong Kongers’ who tend to be more cautious regarding further economic and political integration with mainland China. The above generational differentiations in Taiwan and Hong Kong underline that the idea of generations has to be contextualised at a local level. However, the post-1990s generation who live in the locations studied here, although heterogeneous in many ways, do consume some of the same pop music content while the circulation of popular cultures has also increased. Generations still serve to identify groups who experience some shared defining events, albeit from different perspectives, for instance, being born after the Tiananmen Square protest and being very young when the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred.
In the six-month fieldwork trip, I went to three research sites: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. After the end of the six months, I continued to research in the UK using different approaches, namely filmmaking and participant observation in music performances. Table 1 shows the key facts of my fieldwork, including the number of research participants, the types of consent I obtained, and the gatekeeper institutions I worked with.
Table 1. Fieldwork Key Details and Schedule 5
All the audience participants in this study were university students, whom I reached out to with the help of gatekeepers. The gatekeepers in my field research are mostly local
institutions that provided me with access to their student communities. For the audience participants, no previous musical experience or training other than music listening was required, and all of them were aged 18-25. Informed consent was obtained before the interviews. The names of the participants have been changed to preserve their anonymity, except when some agreed or requested that their identities be revealed. Additionally, producers and music industry workers were interviewed to obtain their professional viewpoints and experiences working in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, as most of them travel to perform and produce music.
In this study, the researcher acted as an observer to understand participants’ experiences using what is defined as the ‘ethnographic gaze’, the specific way ethnographers have trained their observations on others (Madden, 2010, p. 96). The aim was to obtain a broader picture of how China Wind music is perceived by popular music audiences and how these
perceptions are influenced by factors such as diverse backgrounds, genre preferences, and listening habits. Admittedly, the boundary between participant observation and interviews can become blurred on occasion. Apart from attending music performances and going to classes with the students, group interviews sized between 2-4 (myself excluded) were often conducted, as many of participants chose to be interviewed with their friends. During the
5 The number in the brackets refers to the interviewees in the film who gave their informed consent to our
discussions, it was common for interviewees to ask each other follow-up questions and carry on raising issues they were interested in. In these cases, I conducted a participant observation of their interactions. As Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) argue, ‘participant observation is not a particular research technique but a mode of being-in-the-world characteristic of researchers’ (p. 249). For this study, participants were observed while interacting with other interviewees.
There are apparent advantages of conducting group interviews. As Morgan (2001, cited in Hollander, 2004, p.632) has stated, ‘The same people might say different things in individual interviews than they would in a group discussion’. Friend groups (focus groups) were chosen for this study over individual-based settings because group interviews promote the free exchange of ideas. According to Kong (1998, cited in Crang and Cook, 2007, p. 91), there are some places in the world that people are less used to, or encouraged to debate or contribute ideas, thus focus group research can be valuable as it provides an environment where
everyday conversations can take place. In this setting, the interviewees might potentially feel more comfortable expressing themselves.
Semi-structured and free-flowing interviews were conducted with these groups. Although the researcher prepared two sets of questions, one for the audience and another for industry workers, throughout the interviews interviewees were encouraged to respond in a leisurely way so that, as O’Reilly (2005) describes, each session was more like a conversation than an interview. The key questions for audience groups were as follows:
(1) Since when have you started to listen to music and what are your musical preferences? Have they changed with time? Have any internal or external factors contributed to these changes?
(2) What do you remember about China Wind songs? Do you like them, in the past and now? Why?
(3) Does China Wind music remind you of any memories or stories? If so, what are they? Do you associate the feelings you have about China Wind music with your own social/personal identity? If so, in what way?
(4) What song best represents you?
The choice of interview language and location help to foster a sense of unrestraint among participants. The primary language for most interviewees in China and Taiwan was Mandarin
Chinese, so in these two locations interviews were conducted in Chinese to ensure effective delivery without encountering a language barrier. However, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) is a university that uses English as its language of instruction, and as there are students there who do not speak much Mandarin Chinese, one student was mainly interviewed in English. In Hong Kong, most interviewees’ primary language is Cantonese. As I did not have the linguistic capacity to interview in Cantonese, most interviews were conducted in a mix of English and Mandarin Chinese. One participant was interviewed only in English. As for the interview locations, I tended to select areas where the interviewees could easily access, such as coffee shops near the university or social spaces within academic departments. These spaces were social and less restrictive, which allowed the interviewees to have freer conversations with me and with one another.
An overt approach was taken whereby the identity of the researcher was disclosed and
explained to all participants. Interviewees were assured of their anonymity in advance, unless they were willing to be identified. However, those who agreed to be filmed understood that they would be identified. The researcher obtained full informed consent (see Appendix 1) from each interviewee prior to conducting their respective interviews. A potential problem with this research method is that interviewees can become interested in a specific topic and ask me to share personal opinions and knowledge that could influence their thoughts indirectly, thereby hampering the objective to discover what participants think, and instead persuading or shaping their responses. A strategy employed to cope with this potential problem, included an early question that the researcher asked, namely ‘What do you remember about China Wind pop music?’ If someone had little relevant experience and memories to share, I refrained from explaining details or facts while including their lack of experience in the results.
As Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) suggest, knowing who has the power to open up access means they are considered by others to have the authority to grant access, which is an
important sociological insight. The gatekeepers in my field research are mostly local institutions that provided me with access to their student communities, except in Beijing, where a student at Peking University introduced me to his friend groups. In all these research sites, formal or informal relationships with the gatekeepers were formed prior to entering the field. For example, at National Chengchi University (Taiwan) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong), personal connections with the faculty were built first. Through contact with individual academic staff, I was allowed to join them in class, which allowed me
to get to know some of their students. At Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, I was invited as a visiting research student and was introduced formally to different faculties, through which I was able to access various classes in order to meet students. In both Liverpool and London, I met with students as well as non-academic viewers through the documentary screenings. Due to the gatekeepers concerned, the interviewees I recruited are mostly communications studies students. The academic training they receive tends to help them to problematise and analyse media representation, which is exemplified in many of the case study interviews. It is crucial to bear in mind that what the student interviewees have in common is more than just the opportunity to experience higher education. In addition, many of them are also trained in a specific discipline.
Table 2 details the institutions or individuals who acted as gatekeepers while the anonymity of individuals is maintained.
Table 2. Gatekeepers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and the UK
Although gatekeepers provide the important initial connection with the studied, through which many connections are made, it is also noteworthy that in some cases the gatekeepers can be concerned with the representation of the communities, consequently potentially eroding the independence of the ethnographer (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007; Fetterman, 2010). However, in this research, this issue was not evident. Perhaps due to the inclination of academic institutions to support research and given the contacts have been established for an appropriate amount of time, I was not asked about the research output in any way, neither did I feel guided or pressured. In fact, the gatekeepers sometimes shepherded the students to speak to me and introduced me to the student communities less as a researcher who wanted to
learn, but more as a staff member or a senior student who had experiences to share. This power relation and the potential issues it implied will be addressed in the next section. The importance of ongoing reflexivity will also be emphasised, alongside some other issues encountered in the field.