Robert Bobnič is a researcher in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Social Sciences, and a PhD candidate in Media Studies at the same university. The theme of his dissertation is the development and influence of generative computer technologies on the formation of musical taste. His research interests include sociotechnical analysis of algorithmic and internet cultures, popular music studies, media archaeology, and theories of technology. His latest co-authored article, ‘Yugowave and Serbwave on YouTube: Audience Analysis by Community Detection,’ was published in Družboslovne razprave/Social Science Forum.
Nikita Braguinski is a musicologist and media theorist whose research focuses on music technology. He is currently developing a relational and processual theory of technologized music. His book Mathematical Music: From Antiquity to Music AI (Routledge, 2022) provides an accessible introduction to the history and contemporary practice of mathematics-inspired music, including machine learning. His recent publications include ‘AI Demonstrations as Phantasmagorias of the Early 21st Century’ (2025), ‘The Future of Musical Knowledge in the Age of Machine Learning’ (2024, co-authored), and ‘The Upcoming Change in Human Musical Thinking: What Does a Music Professional Do in the Age of AI?’ (2024). Braguinski was a 2023-24 fellow at RWTH Aachen University, conducting a project entitled Life-Like Artificial Music. Understanding the Impact of AI on Musical Thinking. He has previously held postdoctoral positions at Harvard University and Humboldt University of Berlin, among other institutions. In 2023, he co-convened the ZiF Bielefeld research group The Future of Musical Knowledge in the Age of Machine Learning.
Gummo Clare is a critical music and media industries scholar, with particular focus upon grassroots urban music scenes, the political economy of culture in the platform era, and the cultural politics of race in the contemporary cultural industries. He also has work published and forthcoming on housing, race, and culture; and on the local journalism ecosystem in the UK. His PhD, awarded by the University of Leeds in 2024, provided a conjunctural analysis of the ‘new London jazz scene’ over the past decade. This is the first academic study of this important contemporary cultural movement, and is currently being revised for publication as a monograph. He is currently Visiting Lecturer in Digital Humanities at University College London; in Media and Communications at City St. Georges, University of London; and in Music Business at University of Westminster. He is also a podcast host for New Books Network, interviewing scholars across media, music, and critical theory.
Ondřej Daniel is a cultural historian working at the Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Department of History. His work explores the intersections of music, class, and identity in post-socialist contexts, as well as transnational cultural flows. He is the author of Rock or Turbofolk: The Imagination of Migrants from the Former Yugoslavia (France and Austria) (in Czech, 2013), which examines musical imaginaries among migrants from the former Yugoslavia, and Violence against ‘New Biedermeier’: Subcultures and Mainstream Society of Late State Socialism and Post-Socialism (in Czech, 2016), a study of subcultures and mainstream society during late socialism and its aftermath. His recent monograph, Through the Ears of the Middle Class: Music, Youth and Class in Czech Postsocialism (in Czech, 2023), analyzes youth, music, and class in Czech postsocialism. He is also co-author of A Cultural History of Czech Music and Society: Bridging Folk and Pop (in English, 2026), offering a comprehensive account of Czech musical culture.
Tiffany Fong is a Senior Lecturer and researcher working across the creative industries, including arts, design, and cultural production. She has held academic and professional positions across universities, organisations, and corporations in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Her research focuses on creative and cultural production within contemporary creative ecosystems, with recent projects using machine learning to examine innovation in emerging creative industries. Her work draws on practice-based experience in design-led innovation and industry–university collaboration, as well as earlier musical training and performance, which continues to inform her engagement with popular cultures.
Jernej Kaluža holds a PhD in Philosophy and is a researcher and assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His current work spans the areas of critical theory, communication studies, and popular music studies. Before joining the Faculty of Social Sciences, he also worked as a journalist and editor at Radio Študent (Ljubljana) for more than a decade. Among other activities, he has published several articles in the field of popular music studies and worked on the project Slovenian Folk-Pop as Politics: Perceptions, Receptions and Identities. He is currently the principal investigator of the project Slovenian Music between Market, Audience and Cultural Policy: An Empirical Analysis of the Music Ecosystem and serves as treasurer of IASPM CESE (International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe).
Chi Ying Lam is a Lecturer in Community Music and Social Justice at the University of Southampton. She is a member of the UK Young Academy and an Allied Professional Member of the Academy for Neurologic Music Therapy. Her work sits at the intersection of music, community engagement, and health. Originally from Hong Kong and now based in the UK, she collaborates with schools, cultural organisations, and healthcare partners to develop inclusive, culturally responsive musical practices that strengthen social connection and challenge narrow educational expectations.
Jakub Machek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies at Metropolitan University Prague. He is the author of the monograph Počátky populární kultury v českých zemích [The Emergence of Popular Culture in the Czech Lands, 2017]. His research covers Czech popular culture from the late 19th century to the present day, with a particular focus on the role of the media in disseminating, affirming, negotiating, and resisting the dominant ideologies promoted by successive regimes in the Czechia throughout the 20th century. His latest research focuses on the role of music in Czech society – from brass bands to disco. He is also a founding member of the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture in Prague.
Dr. Liz Przybylski is a scholar of hip hop and the popular music industry. Her books include Sonic Sovereignty: Hip Hop, Indigeneity and Shifting Popular Music Mainstreams (NYU Press, winner of the 2025 Greg Tate Award and of the 2024 IASPM Canada Book Prize) and Hybrid Ethnography (SAGE, 2020, Honourable Mention for the Bruno Nettl Prize). An awardee of the National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, Liz’s recent publications address on- and off-line hybrid ethnographic research, the role of technology in pop music distribution, and popular music pedagogy. Liz’s ongoing work interrogates music as labour within international popular music industries. A Full Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside, Dr. Przybylski teaches courses on ethnographic methods, popular music, Indigenous music, and gender and sexuality. On radio, Liz hosted ‘Continental Drift’ on WNUR and content for ‘At The Edge of Canada: Indigenous Research’ on CJUM.
Massimiliano Raffa is a Research Fellow at the University of Insubria (Como, Italy). His research is grounded in popular music studies and moves between cultural history and the sociology of mediation, with a sustained interest in the material, technological, relational, and spatial conditions through which cultural forms come into being and acquire meaning. Working within an interpretive, constructivist, post-phenomenological framework, he examines musical practices as situated forms of experience shaped by media technologies, listening environments, and historically embedded symbolic structures. He has presented his research at numerous international conferences, has taught across a range of higher education contexts, is an active rock musician, and has undertaken research periods at the Universities of Utrecht and Liverpool.
Bernhard Steinbrecher is a popular music scholar and works as senior scientist at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, in the Department of Music. He holds a PhD in musicology from the University of Music Weimar, Germany, and received his habilitation in 2024 at Innsbruck University. Steinbrecher’s analytical approach towards popular music is characterized by an integrative perspective on both its aesthetics, practices, and discourses. With a particular focus on contemporary developments, he examines the relation between popular music’s sounds and social, psychological, and aesthetic questions. In recent years, he has published on topics including mainstream and punk music, German rap, popular brass music, musical nuances, and the discursive role of music theory in popular music. He was a member of the international and the German-speaking board of the International Association for The Study of Popular Music (IASPM).
Katarzyna M. Wyrzykowska is a PhD in Sociology and an assistant professor in the Social Structure Research Team at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her research interests include the sociology of music, cultural stratification, cultural hierarchies, lifestyle studies, and qualitative research methodology. She was the principal investigator of a National Science Centre–funded project (Preludium 1) on youth participation in musical culture from a lifestyle perspective, and a co–principal investigator of the project Musical distinctions: Musical tastes and social stratification in the process of Poles’ lifestyle formation (National Science Centre, OPUS 13). She has published in journals such as Popular Music, Polish Sociological Review, and Qualitative Sociology Review. Her current research explores the relationships between cultural practices, social class, and everyday lifestyle choices, with a particular focus on music as a site of distinction and meaning-making.
