'I don't know why you say this, other than that you want to believe it. Do you live in a world where ordinary people sing while they work and sing around the fire (or around the piano) when they get home? I don't. That's the society in which the folk process flourished, just as a society with horse-drawn transport is the society in which blacksmiths made a living.'

Phil, I do believe it, because I see it happening, as I've explained previously, the difference is the way the process works in our technology driven society, new folk songs are being created, but shared in different ways, so the process does continue.

And Jim, I was not going to come back to you again, but must on this one, '"can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion"
You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time.' so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs, and that they do not have to go through the process of oral transmission to qualify as such? Havn't you been telling us all along that a song has to go through 'the process' to be a 'folk' song? Yet now you very clearly say this is not the case!

However, I'm confused, as you then seem to contradict yourself in the very next statement '"the folk process has largely stopped."
Yes it has, that's why folk songs are no longer being made - the machinery went bust.

Can't have it both ways!