The Portrayal of Techno Culture Values by Techno Artists on Instagram. The Perspective of Techno DJs and Producers

Techno music emerged as an embracing and inclusive music genre that allows people to be themselves and feel free and safe in the techno clubs. This beautiful aspect of techno music has been attracting more people and techno music has been becoming more and more popular day by day. Since its audience has been increasing, the demand for techno music has also been going up constantly. As a result of this, many new artists have been coming up and more techno clubs and festivals have been opening up to their listeners and dancers. Since techno music and culture have been relying more on Western and European music taste and culture, techno music and culture play important roles in some countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Georgia, France, and Ukraine. Nevertheless, it has become popular in almost every country recently. Besides that, these artists’ and clubs’ existence and their variety have also been shaping and evolving techno music while they have also been altering the techno culture. This demand for techno music has also taken place on social media platforms such as Instagram lately as every popular trend does. Since it's the most common visual and written content sharing platform among techno artists, Instagram posts have been reflecting their way of life that has similar habits and patterns which create current techno culture all over the world. Even though there is much academic research with regard to techno music and culture in the existing literature, there is still a lack of research about many aspects of techno music. In the literature, there is mainly research that focuses on Berlin and Berghain where techno has become so popular and some research about techno music in specific other cities or countries. Moreover, there is not much research that focuses on the relationship between social media and techno music and culture specifically. This means that the existing academic literature doesn't cover current techno in relation to digital media. Therefore, there is a need to expand the academic research by investigating current techno culture by analysing techno artists' Instagram posts. Hence, this study aims to bring new light to techno music studies by finding answers to the question that is how techno artists portray techno culture values on Instagram. To do so, the techno DJs and producers who work in the most popular techno countries that the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Georgia, France, and Ukraine take place in this research since they are supposed to embrace and reflect their values more. According to this study, it is revealed that today’s techno artists embrace social, political, economic, personal and artistic values that are studied in the existing literature before. Since this paper focuses on specific artists in specific places, further research is needed to comprehend and analyse how other techno artists implement techno culture values and depict them on social media platforms. In addition to that, the clubbing culture of these countries also deserves further attention to expand the literature.