To appear, New Media & Society. The original and definitive publication is available from http://nms.sagepub.com/content/14/2/332 Citation: Jessa Lingel, Mor Naaman. You Should Have Been There, Man: Live Music, DIY Content and Online Communities. New Media & Society, 14(2), March 2012, SAGE. 1 YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE, MAN: LIVE MUSIC, DIY CONTENT AND ONLINE COMMUNITIES Jessa Lingel and Mor Naaman School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University jlingel@eden.rutgers.edu, mor@rutgers.edu Abstract In terms of technological change and participatory media, the phenomenon of taking and sharing videos of live music events offers an insightful case study for discussing the individual production of online content and interpersonal interactions on social media sites. We use interviews with YouTube users who post videos of live music events to investigate motivations for the capture of personal video recordings, the protocols for sharing of videos, and the roles videos play in online fan activities. Analysis of interviews identifies key motivations for capture and sharing, and exposes tensions between short- and long-term goals of these activities. Further, the results expose differences in attitudes, motivations and practices between mainstream and ‘indie’ concert goers. These findings have implications for understanding participation on social media sites, as well as broader issues of online communities, fan cultures and individual production of media. Keywords YouTube, social media, live music, online communities, fan culture. INTRODUCTION If the enduring image of concert-going in the 1960s was enthusiastic attendees waving their lighters in approval of an acoustic guitar set, in the 2000s, the prevalent view of live music could very well be a sea of music lovers with their mobile phones raised to capture video for rapid uploading to a variety of social media sites. The infusion of personal technology at events like concerts points to a number of tensions related to the use of technology in social settings, with purposes that span the personal/private and the social/public. This research seeks to understand motivations for and practices of taking and sharing videos of live music events. We explore this topic in the context of technological practices in everyday life, personal information, media production, and online community. At the crux of these forces and concerns are issues of how people participate in online communities, and the contingent economies of media, time and interpersonal interactions. Our particular focus is the phenomenon of taking videos of live music events and posting them on YouTube as an exemplar of live event capture and social media use. Deriving from boyd and Ellison’s (2007) definition of social networking sites, social media can be defined by two important characteristics: first, the posting of lasting content in public settings, and second, the visible and durable identity and recognized contribution by authors (Naaman, 2009). On YouTube, users upload videos to a personal channel, controlling the organization, description and access for their content. The channel represents a user’s personal media library, and allows other YouTube users to find and interact with content. YouTube thus enables multiple purposes for contributors, including personal archiving (Cha et al. 2007), identity formation and signaling (Donath, 2008), as well as social interaction (Lange, 2007) and information sharing (Huberman et al. 2009). We view the particular instance of live music videos