Dangerous Mediations: Pop Music in a Philippine Prison Video (New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media)

"In 2007, an unlikely troupe of 1500 Filipino prisoners became Internet celebrities after their YouTube video of Michael Jackson's ground-breaking hit 'Thriller' went viral. Taking this spectacular dance as a point of departure, Dangerous Mediations explores the disquieting development of prisoners performing punishment to a global, online audience. Combining analysis of this YouTube video with first-hand experiences from fieldwork in the Philippine prison, Áine Mangaoang investigates a wide range of interlocking contexts surrounding this user-generated text to reveal how places of punishment can be transformed into spaces of spectacular entertainment, leisure, and penal tourism. In the post-YouTube era, Dangerous Mediations sounds the call for close readings of music videos produced outside of the corporate culture industries. By connecting historical discussions on postcolonialism, surveillance and prison philosophy with contemporary scholarship on popular music, participatory culture and new media, Dangerous Mediations is the first book to ask critical questions about the politics of pop music and audiovisual mediation in early 21st-century detention centres."--Bloomsbury Publishing. "In 2007, 1500 prisoners in Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre (CPDRC) became bona fide Internet celebrities following their YouTube interpretation of Michael Jackson's groundbreaking music video "Thriller." Emboldened by the public's overwhelmingly positive response to this unusual music video, CPDRC officials instigated a mandatory daily dance and pop music performance schedule, uploading new videos onto YouTube that received millions of views. Officials then introduced a monthly, live, public performance held within the prison yard, creating a unique tourism industry surrounding the prison walls, and in 2010 a national "prison dance rehabilitation" policy was introduced by the Filipino government.0Connecting scholarship on popular music with emerging literature on YouTube's audiovisuality, musicologist Aine Mangaoang combines first-hand experience of visiting the prison and textual analysis with a critical and holistic approach. As such, this is the first book to examine the disquieting trend of prisoners serving as musical performers and digital entertainers to a global audience."--Résumé de l'éditeur Cover Contents Figures Tables Acknowledgements Introduction Interlude One ‘The Evil of the Thriller’ 1 Seeing sound: Locating music and YouTube’s symbiosis Interlude Two ‘You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller’ 2 Performing postcolonialism: Filipino history through four-part harmony Interlude Three Fade to black 3 Penal tourists 2.0: The birth of CPDRC’s pop programme Interlude Four ‘Music is the language of the soul’ 4 Beats behind bars: Docile bodies and the digital panopticon Interlude Five Michael Jackson, the undead and the posthumous duet 5 Thrilling: Remediating Thriller Interlude Six ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’ 6 ‘Together in electric dreams’: Hybridity, nostalgia and imagination in CPDRC Interlude Seven Thank you for the music 7 YouTube’s penal spectators Coda Appendix: CPDRC dancing inmates YouTube video uploads by Byron F. Garcia Glossary Notes References Index