Between Music and Politics: Western YouTube Reception of Pussy Riot’s Musical Activism

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 11. Arts, Identity, and Social Justice

Abstract

This paper seeks to develop theory of political music by reviewing existing research that deals with different ways in which music and politics overlap and further develop this through a case study of an example of political music we find is understudied. We therefore develop a typology of five categories to show in what ways music can be political from a production perspective and how audiences view them as political from a reception perspective. We further add to this a case study of Pussy Riot, a Russian punk protest collective, to address how and in what ways audiences perceive this understudied case as political. This allows us to empirically assess our addition to this typology and furthermore we do this through the innovative method of topic modeling, so that we can somewhat qualitatively, yet on a large scale, study audience reception. We find that approaching audiences of Pussy Riot’s through the concept of authenticity provided meaningful insights. The protests, on the one hand, lend themselves for discussions on a more geopolitical level to discuss ways in which Pussy Riot is seen to be oppressed. Whereas, on the other hand, the protests are discussed for their appropriate use of the artistic genre through which the protests are conveyed.

Authors

• Frank Weij, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Pauwke Berkers, Erasmus University Rotterdam