Research Questions

• Have the messages in popular music changed from a year before President Obama to a year after?

• Have the messages become more political? • How have the messages addressing the

President changed from President Bush to President Obama?

Literature Review

• Music as an Organizing Community– Scott-Heron (1979), Denisoff (1970), Baum (2002)

• The Politics of Music– Rose (1991), Fox and Williams (1974)

• The ‘Documentary’– Stewart (2005)

• Music as a Form of Expression– Brader (2005), Maher (2005), Sullivan (2003)

Theory of Social Construction

• Donileen Loseke (2003)

• Social Problems• Claims-making and Claims-makers– Best (2005), Sullivan (2003)

Methodology

• Content Analysis• Definition of a Political Message• Data Collection– Population = 516 Songs; Sample = 32 songs– Five Genres: Modern Rock, Pop, Rap/Hip-Hop,

R&B, Country– Billboard.com– Coding Sheet

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths–Amount of Previous Literature–Convenience of Locating and Listening to

Songs• Weaknesses–Coding– Limitation of Billboard.com charts–Time frame

Findings

Discussion

• Music artists express themselves and their views through their music as a way to communicate with the rest of the world.

• Country artists use their whole song to voice these messages where as most rap/hip-hop artist use a line or a word to reference the issue.

Questions?

Thank you for listening!