Popular music practice in protestant rituals: İzmir Contemporary Worship Scene

This thesis investigates the popular music practices in Protestant churches in the context of relationship between communities and individuals. This research is mainly based on two questions. First is that does using mainstream popular music genre/styles in church services build bridges between Protestant believers who share the same religious identity both across the globe and local places. Secondly, how to make popular music in sacred places and to use it for religious rituals influences believers in terms of sacred popular music and creates unity between Protestants specific to music scenes. The research involved qualitative research methods such as participant observation, in-depth interviews, literature review and ethnographic writing. Ethnographic research is conducted among Protestant Churches where are located in Izmir territory and have connections related to Izmir Contemporary Worship Scene and common religious events since October 2014 for nine months. On the basis of data analysis of field work, There are several factors that constitute of Izmir Contemporary Worship Scene in both sharing the same understanding of music and in the context of having same religious identity and belief. Although the concept of scene is used to refer to music activities, production and consumption of music process as applied to groups of people and organizations, constituents out of music play role in creating and recreating the scene by practical and discursive consciousness such as consensus on musical meaning which is supported by non-musical factors, belief of community and organizations. Thus, there are non-musical constituents that promote to create scene in specific to get in contact with values and belief of communities and embodiment of structure and agency in a general picture besides musical approach. Scene has a meaning with these constituents as well. Turkish Contemporary Worship Music has connections with scenes in which are placed in different region, place and continents by globalization process and it takes form in this direction. Thus, churches which are practicing Turkish Contemporary Worship Music in Izmir are considered as a trans-local scene due to have connections with scenes which are placed in different places and are shaped by this connections. 1- Scene 2- Contemporary Worship Music 3- Contemporary Christian Music 4- Worship Music 5- Protestant Church