Mass media is a universal phenomenon of which music has inevitably become a part. Via radio, television, cinema, the Internet, and other means of transmission, music has become a global phenomenon in that musical pieces and styles either "travel" from one country to another or appear everywhere at once.

More than ever before, music has become a commodity, due to the ways that computers and the Internet have changed its modes of distribution. Differences between "high-brow" and "light" music have almost entirely disappeared, since mediation processes affect both popular music and classical music.

All of this is to say that rapid changes of technology, the mediation of music, and the side-effects of these two processes have become a major challenge to music research.