Media Depictions of Harm in Heavy Metal and Rap Music Author(S): Amy Binder Source: American Sociological Review, Vol
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Constructing Racial Rhetoric: Media Depictions of Harm in Heavy Metal and Rap Music Author(s): Amy Binder Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 58, No. 6 (Dec., 1993), pp. 753-767 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095949 Accessed: 29-11-2017 20:03 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review This content downloaded from 130.86.100.70 on Wed, 29 Nov 2017 20:03:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CONSTRUCTING RACIAL RHETORIC: MEDIA DEPICTIONS OF HARM IN HEAVY METAL AND RAP MUSIC AMY BINDER Northwestern University The literatures on social movements, the media, and the sociology of culture have ad- dressed how ideologicalframes are imposed on social events and cultural texts. I extend this work on "social framing" by describing the construction and selection processes that explain why media writers appropriate some frames but not others, and why some frames "resonate" with broad cultural beliefs. I analyze the rhetoric in media accounts from 1985 to 1990 of the dangers posed to children and society by heavy metal music and rap music. I also examine the images used to amplify each genre of music. Although both genres have lyrical and performance elements focusing on sex and defiance of au- thority strong enough to evoke a moral outcry, they evoke quite different reactions. I argue that the racial composition of the music's audiences and producers shape the way the two genres are perceived. In September 1985, a group of politically tivities. The mass media covered the hearing well-connected "Washington Wives" calling in great detail, provoking debate in the national themselves the Parents' Music Resource Cen- press over the alleged harmfulness of rock mu- ter (PMRC) was invited to testify before the sic lyrics and whether the proposed labeling of U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Sci- music lyrics constituted censorship. ence, and Transportation. Led by Tipper Gore Almost five years later, another event again (wife of then Senator Al Gore of Tennessee) focused the nation's attention on music lyr- and Susan Baker (wife of then Treasury Secre- ics-the lyrics in rap music. In June 1990, a tary James Baker), the group's objective was U.S. District Court judge in Fort Lauderdale, to reveal to committee members the current Florida found the 2 Live Crew album As Nasty state of rock music lyrics-particularly the lyr- as They Wanna Be to be obscene in the three ics of heavy metal music. The PMRC and its counties under his jurisdiction. This was the expert witnesses testified that such music filled first recording ever declared obscene by a fed- youthful ears with pornography and violence, eral court (New York Times 17 June, 1990). and glorified behaviors ranging from suicide During the following week, authorities from and drug use to occultism and anti-patriotic ac- one of those counties' Sheriff's Department - Broward County-arrested a local record * Direct all correspondence to Amy Binder, De- storeowner who had continued to sell the al- partment of Sociology, Northwestern University, bum and took into custody two members of the 1810 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208. I am 2 Live Crew band when they performed mate- grateful to the Department of Sociology at North- rial from the album at an adults-only show in western for its Summer Fellowship Program which the area. The arrests and impending trials again supported me during data collection. Earlier ver- sions of this paper were presented at the annual galvanized heated public debate over whether meeting of the American Sociological Association, the lyrics in contemporary music harmed lis- August 1992, Pittsburgh, and at the annual meeting teners and warranted restriction. of the Social Science History Association, October These two widely publicized debates about 1992, Chicago. I thank Alan Dahl, Wendy Espe- contemporary music, both of which concerned land, Jim Ettema, Paul Hirsch, Douglas Holt, Aldon "harmful" lyrics and occurred within five years Morris, and Art Stinchcombe for their helpful sug- of each other, provide comparative cases for gestions, and three anonymous ASR reviewers, examining how the mass media serve as an whose comments greatly improved the paper. I re- serve very special thanks for Nicola Beisel, who ideological vehicle. In both cases, writers in the helped design this project and has read and com- mainstream press expressed concern about the mented on several drafts of this paper. harm that could result from exposure to lyrics American Sociological Review, 1993, Vol. 58 (December:753-767) 753 This content downloaded from 130.86.100.70 on Wed, 29 Nov 2017 20:03:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 754 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW containing sexual and violent themes, and ceived as a more authentic and serious art form called for action against such content. Despite than was heavy metal music, and as a more these similarities, however, the substance of frightening and salient threat to society as a media arguments changed significantly as the whole than the "white" music genre. controversy shifted from heavy metal music to rap music. Foremost among these differences THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS was the change in emphasis regarding whom the music was harming: the individual listener Interest in the mass media as a primary site for or society as a whole. the construction and dissemination of dominant I suggest that two factors drove the changes ideologies was first formally developed in the in the media discourse surrounding the dangers writings of theorists associated with the Frank- of heavy metal music versus rap music. One furt School (Adorno 1957; Horkheimer and factor is the difference in the content of the Adorno 1972). Writers working from this per- lyrics themselves. In general, the controversial spective argued that the mass media-as key rap lyrics were more graphic than their heavy members of the culture industry-were the metal counterparts, and discussions in the me- principal channels for ideological discourse in dia reflected this variation. contemporary society (Thompson 1990). As Second, the broad cultural context in which originally set forth, this thesis subscribed to a the "white" music and "black" music were be- hegemonic conception of the media as purvey- ing received also significantly affected changes ors of a single dominant ideology. This theory in the discourse. Rather than asserting a simple has been widely contested on empirical reflection model (i.e., the media only mirror grounds (Cantor 1980; Schudson 1989a). In the "what's out there"), I argue that the pronounced past several decades, sociologists and other re- shift in the discourse about lyrics cannot be ex- searchers interested in the mass media have plained by differences in the cultural objects developed a subtler and more nuanced expla- alone. Instead, the shift reflects opinion writ- nation of ideological communication. ers' perceptions of the populations represented Building on this thesis, recent studies have by these two musical genres. Writers who were demonstrated that the news media actively con- concerned about heavy metal lyrics and rap lyr- struct the events they report by responding to ics did not address the content of the music economic and organizational considerations in alone; embedded in their discussions were re- producing the news (Tuchman 1972, 1973; actions to differences in the demographic char- Gans 1979) and, more important for the pur- acteristics of the genres' producers and audi- pose of this study, by providing the available ences-music made by and for working and means through which audiences make sense of middle-class white youth versus music they events or objects. This perspective suggests perceived as predominantly by and for urban that the news media's impact is not so much black teenagers.1 In a cultural landscape the result of outright statements about what au- marked by divergent perceptions of black diences are to believe, but rather comes from youths versus white youths, different concerns the selection and application of the cultural emerged in the mainstream media about the lenses (Geertz 1973) through which events are impact of each group's form of cultural expres- portrayed. To examine how the media influ- sion. I show that rap music-with its evoca- ence audience perceptions, the codes the me- tion of angry black rappers and equally angry dia use to frame public discussions of events black audiences-was simultaneously per- or objects must be examined. 1 In my data, the vast majority of media writers- Framing and Media Discourse Theory particularly those who thought that rap music was dangerous-assume that rap music is produced and Frames and frameworks are "schemata of in- consumed exclusively by black youths. The popu- terpretation that enable individuals to locate, lar assumption about all-black rap audiences was perceive, identify, and label" events they have refuted in a cover story in the New Republic (11 Nov. 1991), in which the author David Samuels experienced directly or indirectly (Snow, demonstrated that, in absolute numbers, more Rochford,white Worden, and Benford 1986, p. 464; suburban youths consume rap music than poor see also Goffman 1974, p. 21). Frames help re- black youths. ceivers make sense of social occurrences be- This content downloaded from 130.86.100.70 on Wed, 29 Nov 2017 20:03:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms RACIAL RHETORIC AND CULTURAL FRAMES 755 cause they organize events into recognizable using very different frames.