The man whose web expanded: Network dynamics in Manchester's post/punk music scene 1976–1980

The Manchester (UK) music scene has been extremely important in the development of independent and alternative music within Europe. As such it has been the topic of two major films. It is commonly held that the Manchester scene ‘took off’ in the late 1970s. This paper observes that its ‘take off’ was facilitated by the formation of a network between a critical mass of key social actors. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate this process of network formation and to seek to contribute to its explanation by identifying the key mechanisms (of network formation) involved.The paper uses formal social network analysis to map the network in question and to demonstrate its growth. It uses a more straightforward historical–sociological approach, which is qualitative and archival in nature, to identify the salient mechanisms. The paper adds an interesting and important case study to the existing literature on music scenes and also suggests a novel way for both advancing research on music scenes and further extending the use of social network analysis (and network analytic concepts) in relation to the arts. Finally, it makes an important empirical contribution to the newly emerging area of ‘network dynamics’.