Music, Digitalization, and Democratic Elections: The Changing Soundtrack of Electoral Politics in the UK.

This article considers the position of music in UK General Elections. It begins by looking at mainstream Party Election Broadcasts, and then discusses the fragmentation of this electoral and musical landscape through the technological and communicative affordances of digital media. Considering campaigners as "produsers", it examines how musical campaign content illustrates the shifting outputs of those operating within, and outside of, party political structures. These changes relate to broader questions of the extent, or limits, of digitalization's potential for democratizing political communication. Considering the musical aesthetics of election campaigns is a step toward examining the decision-making processes that underpins them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]