Participatory online music creation as a crisis response: A qualitative case study

Abstract

Online participatory music creation provided an opportunity to build the public’s psychological resilience during the COVID-19 lockdown measures that led to widespread negative emotions on a societal level. This study explored how online participation in music creation as a crisis response contributes to the public’s mental health. The study employed a qualitative method that combines network ethnography and multimodal performance discourse analysis to conduct participatory observation and content analysis of people’s activities related to the song “Wuhan Ya” (the Wuhan Kids) and its participatory creation. The results showed that “Wuhan Ya” and its creation process demonstrated a music phenomenon centered on local identity and characterized by collective participation. The study proposed a theoretical framework to explain how this music phenomenon promotes mental health. In the context of song creation and dissemination, the public’s psychological resilience to crises is bolstered by engaging in emotional contagion, behavioral responses, and social support processes.