The Sound of Music | Introduction to Civic Media

When I was coming up with an idea for a case study, I did not have an idea as to what I wanted to analyze. I began to play some of my favorite songs and started to perform research on some issues I believed interested me. Then it hit me; why not research the very thing that I am using to inspire me, music. Whenever I am looking for an idea or need something just to get my mind flowing, I always turn to music. If music was this powerful, why not use it as a platform to inspire change? Of course, I am not the first person to think about this; in fact, various groups look at music as the main tool for change. The purpose of this case study would be to analyze these groups and examine just how much of an impact they have all over the world.

While performing this study, I do not intend to analyze famous musicians’ charity organizations or social change groups. Even though these are part of activism through music, I want to focus specifically more on the music side. I want to analyze the songs created by various artists, the messages of the songs and how much of an influence these songs had on society. For instance, the anti-war songs made by musicians of the 1960s helped motivate a generation to fight against war around the world. Even today, bands like Pussy Riot create songs that look to bring about change by having people listen to them.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19303187

Even though popular artists may make up the bulk of activism through music, I especially want to look at the influence of music at a civilian level. For my case study, the impact civilians have by using music can be broken down into two levels. The first way is the exact same way that I mentioned for popular artists. Thanks to websites like YouTube, the average person can become an overnight sensation by creating a song that has a strong message. The second way is to analyze the ways music gets people to galvanize while supporting a common cause. For example, an event called HONK! uses music at the civilian level to inspire change. Located here right in Massachusetts, this event gets street bands and other musicians to perform in a fashion similar to parades. In the process, HONK! protests violence and oppression. Their message has even expanded to other places within the US. PRONK!, a similar event held near Brown University in Providence, was created on the same premise as HONK!. More can be found about HONK! at http://honkfest.org/.

http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/gotoit/2012/10/honk_festival_o.html

The last part of my case study looks to see just how reliable music is for inspiring social change or any other message for that matter. I want to see just how much music influences people. Through the use of past data and surveys, I want to see whether or not a powerful song can inspire someone to take action, and if so, whether certain topics would be more likely to garner civilian support.

There are some great examples of music in civic media. The most obvious are chants in activism which come from or beget slogans we see as hashtags now: BlackLivesMatter for instance. But on the humorous side we see YouTube projects like Songify the News (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL736C3116AD309B58), which is a brand that has been adopted by the NYTimes and others as a way to sort through complex debate material and focus in on the absurdity of political rhetoric in a style similar to the Daily Show or Colbert Report. I would argue that most activist-based music is not from popular artists at all, although they have a profound impact when they decide to go political. Underground artists are often freer to be more controversial in the politics they espouse. The one unusual example is Hip Hop, which has both popular and underground political impact. You should should definitely read Tommie Shelby’s Impure Dissent essay on this, which I can share with you. I think you need to bring your topic down to a much tighter focus for it to be accomplishable. I will want you to engage with the questions of the crisis in civics and/or the crisis in journalism (a lot of people being informed on issues where music can make a real impact). I think you will struggle to find existing surveys and other studies that get at the topic from the angle you are expecting. It’s okay to reflect on the theory where there is a lack of empirical evidence to guide your case study. But where do you want to go with it? Is there a way that we can use political music to make change that leverages the networked public sphere in some way? Is there an educational invention that you can imagine that addresses the “participation gap” that Henry Jenkins talked about, such that popular media is a gateway to engagement with larger issues as long as their is some scaffolding in the skills necessary to participate in that kind of participatory media conversation online?

1 thought on “The Sound of Music”

erhardt on March 18, 2015 at 5:19 pm said:

There are some great examples of music in civic media. The most obvious are chants in activism which come from or beget slogans we see as hashtags now: BlackLivesMatter for instance. But on the humorous side we see YouTube projects like Songify the News (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL736C3116AD309B58), which is a brand that has been adopted by the NYTimes and others as a way to sort through complex debate material and focus in on the absurdity of political rhetoric in a style similar to the Daily Show or Colbert Report. I would argue that most activist-based music is not from popular artists at all, although they have a profound impact when they decide to go political. Underground artists are often freer to be more controversial in the politics they espouse. The one unusual example is Hip Hop, which has both popular and underground political impact. You should should definitely read Tommie Shelby’s Impure Dissent essay on this, which I can share with you. I think you need to bring your topic down to a much tighter focus for it to be accomplishable. I will want you to engage with the questions of the crisis in civics and/or the crisis in journalism (a lot of people being informed on issues where music can make a real impact). I think you will struggle to find existing surveys and other studies that get at the topic from the angle you are expecting. It’s okay to reflect on the theory where there is a lack of empirical evidence to guide your case study. But where do you want to go with it? Is there a way that we can use political music to make change that leverages the networked public sphere in some way? Is there an educational invention that you can imagine that addresses the “participation gap” that Henry Jenkins talked about, such that popular media is a gateway to engagement with larger issues as long as their is some scaffolding in the skills necessary to participate in that kind of participatory media conversation online?

Comments are closed.