Vice, Violence, & Crime in Popular Music: A Sociological Analysis of Prevalence & Meaning

• In Event: Roundtable: Media and Technology

Abstract

This study examines the setting and context of references to substance use, sexual violence, and conventional crime in popular music, and verifies the extent to which such references have changed throughout a 40-year period. Popular music is operationally defined as consisting of the Billboard Top 100 songs. Content analyses are conducted from a sampling frame of 2,400 eligible songs, divided between two time periods: 2010-2015 and 1970-1975. A major objective is the empirical testing of two competing hypotheses; the first of which posits that lyrical content causes perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors to change among those who receive its messaging. The alternative explanation is that lyrics merely reflect values, habits, attitudes and behaviors that already exist. In addition to qualitative content analyses, statistical modeling is employed to differentiate between these two alternative explanations.

Authors

• Kenneth Sebastian Leon, American University

• Michelle Desien, George Washington University

• Maya Barak, University of Michigan - Dearborn