The sounds of Microsoft: The cultural production of music on CD-ROMs

This article sets out to explore the social and cultural roles of personnel engaged in compiling music for Microsoh's CD-ROMs entitled Encarta 97 Encyclopedia and Encorto 97 World Atlas. These CD-ROMs are significant artefacts insofar as they include a considerable number of pre-recorded music excerpts and strive to represent the world in terms of musical sounds. The description, analysis and discussion focuses on the insights and observations of Brian Peril, Microsoft's Audio Acquisitions Manager, and the work of the production team engaged in researching, selecting and captioning music excerpts. In order to redress two recurrent tendencies in the academic analyses of new media technologies - namely technophorio and sociophobia, this article addresses social and cultural issues related to the production process. By privileging the social and cultural over the technological, this article explores and documents the dynamic and negotiated nature of cultural production, and the unpredictable and provisional mixture of cultural, commercial and creative concerns informing the use of sound and music in CDROMs.