Politically Purposed Music Genres

Lena, Jennifer C.; Peterson, Richard A.

doi:10.1177/0002764211398080

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Translations were made by this author who is proficient in both English and pidgin English. While Lucky and Alpha used Reggae as their preferred platforms, Fela originated and played Afrobeat, a blend of highlife music that was popular in West Africa, jazz, and Black-American soul music (Labinjo 1982;Lena and Peterson 2011).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy

Onyebadi

2018

Humanities

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Political communication inquiry principally investigates institutions such as governments and congress, and processes such as elections and political advertising. This study takes a largely unexplored route: An assessment of political messages embedded in music, with a focus on the artistic works of three male African music icons—Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (Nigeria), Lucky Dube (South Africa), and Alpha Blondy (Côte d’Ivoire). Methodologically, a purposive sample of the lyrics of songs by the musicians was textually analyzed to identify the themes and nuances in their political messaging. Framing was the theoretical underpinning. This study determined that all three musicians were vocal against corruption, citizen marginalization, and a cessation of wars and bloodshed in the continent.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy

Onyebadi

2018

Humanities

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“…5 As Godart (2018a) notes, styles may or may not overlap with genre classifications (see also Lena & Peterson, 2008) or category classifications (see also Kovács & Hannan, 2015), and these boundaries/overlaps may not be static (e.g. Lena & Peterson, 2011). Here I use binary measures of style in order to present an account of the core and defining aesthetic choices that define a movie in an effort to provide an unambiguous definition of stylistic similarity between two movies.…”

Section: S a N D S A I S Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Stylistic Similarity to Popular Competitors Affect Consumer Evaluations of Quality? Evidence from Online Movie Evaluations

Sands¹

2020

Advances in Strategic Management

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This work addresses how consumer perceptions of quality may be influenced by the composition of competition. I develop a theoretical framework that explains how consumer evaluations of quality can be negatively impacted by a product's stylistic similarity to popular competitors. These issues are examined empirically using more than 75,000 online consumer evaluations, from the evaluation aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, of 123 feature films released in the United States during 2007. Results suggest that during a movie's opening week, movies that are stylistically similar to the top-performing box office movie are evaluated less favorably. Additional analyses indicate that this negative effect may persist in later periods due to social conformity pressures, and that there is reduced demand for those movies that are stylistically similar to the top box office performer. This article contributes to the broader literature in strategic management by depicting how stylistic features of competitors can affect consumer behaviour and perceptions of quality in markets. This work also suggests managerial implications for entry-timing decisions and positioning choices.

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“…Tobacco (Sutton and Robinson 2004) Western music (Furmanovsky 2008) Microprocessors (Bothner 2003) Chinese music (Lena and Peterson 2011) Pop music (Rossman et al 2008) Soccer (Amara and Henry 2004) Decentralized…”

Section: Centralized Economic Centralized Political-culturalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, the Chinese government has historically supported music beneficial to the ruling Communist Party (Lena and Peterson 2011). Finally, Amara and Henry (2004) examined the Algerian government's advocating for the diffusion of soccer.…”

Section: Decentralized Economic Decentralized Political-culturalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Fist in the Face of God”

Mayer

Timberlake

2014

Sociological Perspectives

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The purpose of this paper is to explain the timing and location of the diffusion of heavy metal music. We use data from an Internet archive to measure the population-adjusted rate of metal band foundings in 150 countries for the 1991-2008 period. We hypothesize that growth in "digital capacity" (Internet and personal computer use) catalyzed the diffusion of metal music. We include time-varying controls for gross national income, political regime, global economic integration, and degree of metal penetration of countries sharing a land or maritime border with each country. We find that digital capacity is positively associated with heavy metal band foundings, but, net of all controls, the effect is much stronger for countries with no history of metal music prior to 1990. Hence, our results indicate that increasing global digital capacity may be a stronger catalyst for between-country than for within-country diffusion of cultural products. Downloaded from Sociological Perspectives 57 (1) processes of global diffusion that are not driven by large institutions or powerful actors, and less still about the diffusion of products that are primarily cultural and not economic in nature. We argue that these lacunae are both understandable and consequential for a full understanding of global diffusion processes. They are understandable in light of the paucity of data on the global spread of (typically hard to measure) cultural phenomena, particularly when large corporate actors advocating for their diffusion are few or relatively impotent. Yet, we argue, rigorous empirical investigations of the mechanisms by which culture spreads within and between countries promise to contribute to a thorough sociological understanding of globalization processes.Our goal in the present study is to provide one such investigation. The central theoretical concern of this article is not the why of decentralized cultural diffusion but the how. Our case is heavy metal music, which we argue below is an appealing example of the decentralized diffusion of culture. In the remainder of this introductory section, we justify the selection of our case. In subsequent sections, we develop a fourfold typology of diffusion systems by cross-classifying the actors sponsoring the diffusion of an innovation 1 with whether that innovation is meant primarily to provide economic returns or simply influence a political or cultural field. In addition to organizing the diverse diffusion literature, we believe this exercise brings into sharp relief the importance of a diffusion mechanism such as the Internet, at least for a relatively marginalized cultural product like metal music. Finally, we describe our data and methods, present findings, and discuss their implications for future research on decentralized cultural diffusion systems.

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Politically Purposed Music Genres

Cited by 11 publications

References 15 publications

Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy

Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy

Does Stylistic Similarity to Popular Competitors Affect Consumer Evaluations of Quality? Evidence from Online Movie Evaluations

“The Fist in the Face of God”

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