scholarly journals Cultural stereotyping of emotional responses to music genre

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Susino ◽  
Emery Schubert

This study investigated whether emotional responses to a music genre could be predicted by stereotypes of the culture with which the music genre is associated. A two-part study was conducted. Participants listened to music samples from eight distinct genres: Fado, Koto, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Samba, Bolero, and Western Classical. They also described their spontaneous associations with the music and their spontaneous associations with the music’s related cultures: Portuguese, Japanese, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Brazilian, Cuban, and Western culture, respectively. Results indicated that a small number of specific emotions reported for a music genre were the same as stereotypical emotional associations of the corresponding culture. These include peace and calm for Koto music and Japanese culture, and anger and aggression for Heavy Metal music and culture. We explain these results through the stereotype theory of emotion in music (STEM), where an emotion filter is activated that simplifies the assessment process for a music genre that is not very familiar to the listener. Listeners familiar with a genre reported fewer stereotyped emotions than less familiar listeners. The study suggests that stereotyping competes with the psychoacoustic cues in the expression of emotion.

2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 719-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy R. Brown ◽  
Christine Griffin

In this paper we engage with new cultural theories of class that have identified media representations of ‘excessive’ white heterosexual working-class femininity as a ‘constitutive limit’ of incorporation into dominant (middle-class) modes of neoliberal subjectivity and Bourdieu's thesis that classification is a form of symbolic violence that constitutes both the classifier and the classified. However, what we explore are the implications of such arguments for those modes of white heterosexual working-class masculinity that continue to reproduce themselves in forms of overtly masculinist popular culture. We do so through a critical examination of the symbolic representation of the genre of heavy metal music within contemporary music journalism. Employing a version of critical discourse analysis, we offer an analysis of representative reviews, derived from a qualitative sample of the UK music magazine, New Musical Express (1999–2008). This weekly title, historically associated with the ideals of the ‘counter culture’, now offers leadership of musical tastes in an increasingly segmented, niche-oriented marketplace. Deploying a refined model of the inscription process outlined by Skeggs, our analysis demonstrates how contemporary music criticism symbolically attaches negative attributes and forms of personhood to the working-class male bodies identified with heavy metal culture and its audience, allowing dominant middle-class modes of cultural authority to be inscribed within matters of musical taste and distinction.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Ryan Shafron ◽  
Mitchell P. Karno

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