Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Hip-hop Mass media and culture'

There are potentially negative health impacts of women's internalization of representations of women of color in mainstream on body esteem and weight. This study explores the relationships between mainstream hip hop, body satisfaction and body mass index (BMI) in Mexican descent college-age women. The study predicts that women who regularly listen to mainstream hip hop will be more likely to internalize the images of women. Internalization will predict body satisfaction and body satisfaction will predict BMI. Sixty-five participants completed a self-report survey with these measures. Regularly listening to mainstream hip hop was associated with higher hip hop internalization. Higher internalization was associated with less body satisfaction which, in turn, was associated with a higher BMI. Thus, women who regularly listen to mainstream hip hop and who internalize the images of women seem more critical of their body, which negatively affects their weight.

In this dissertation, I examine the articulation of hip-hop in the mid-1980s as it emerged onto the national stage of American popular culture. Using Articulation Theory, I weave together an argument explaining how and why hip-hop went from being articulated as a set of multicultural and inclusive practices, organized around breaking, graffiti, and DJing, to being articulated to a violent, misogynistic, and homophobic hyper-masculine representation of blackness as essentially rap music culture. In doing so I also argue that there are real political, social, racial, cultural, and ideological implications to this shift in articulation; that something is at stake in defining hip-hop as both black and rap music culture. I put forward this argument by making three distinct steps over the course of this dissertation. First, I identify a change in how hip-hop was represented and thus articulated in popular media. Through an intertextual analysis of the hip-hopsploitation genre films I show that early hip-hop was being represented primarily as a set of cultural practices cohering around breaking, graffiti, and DJing rather than the now dominant articulation as rap music culture. Next I set forth one possible reason for this shift within the limiting conditions set by the available media technologies and means of commodification. The visual nature of hip-hop's early articulation coupled with the economic inaccessibility of consumer home video made breaking and graffiti difficult to commodify compared to rapping as an aural element. Using "technological determinist" theorists like McLuhan, Innis, and Kittler, I argue that understanding how hip-hop as been historically constructed requires analyzing the limiting effect that the material conditions of media technologies have on the production of hip-hop. Finally, I offer a second, racial and cultural reason for this shift in articulation, and begin identifying some of the significance of this shift. A key aspect of the articulation of hip-hop as rap music is the further connection to blackness. This connection may function to maintain white patriarchal hegemony by displacing it on the black body via rap music: a complex dynamic of disidentification and appropriation.

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
This thesis studies the resistance processes carried out in Brazil by thousands of young people linked to hip-hop. These youngsters actively participate in the production of knowledge and in the re-semantization of the Brazilian deprived suburbs in the context of the contemporary world. Their voice emerges against homogenized symbolic constructions produced by dominant thinking, i.e., that strand of thought grounded on values and desires in strict accordance with the hegemonic economic system. We understand that the sharing of knowledge is the basis for resistance. Therefore, comunication is placed at the core of resistence: knowledge shared and multiplied. The concept of comunication, however, has been increasingly limited to mediatic objects. As a consequence, diverse communicative practices are being neglected in communication epistemological theory. This is why it is extremely important to widen the understanding of communicational objects in order to include manifestations otherwise invisible in mainstream media. The analytical corpus of this investigation is composed by the lyrics of hip-hop songs, analysed from the point of view of comunication and sociology. One of the main theoretical landmarks in this work are the concepts from Boaventura Santos (2006a): ecology of knowledge, sociology of absence and sociology of emergence. Fundamental texts regarding power, resistence, empowerment and emancipation in the text were: Foucault (1979; 1988; 2000), Santos (2005a; 2006a; 2006b; 2007a) and feminist thought, especially Magdalena León (2000) and Patrícia Collins (1991). In the comunication field, we have made extensive use of the work by José Luiz Aidar Prado (2006a; 2006b) and Muniz Sodré (2002), as well as Hannah Arendt s writings (2007) in political philosophy. The discussions on globalization were carried out from the perspective of Milton Santos (2001) and again Boaventura Santos (2002), as well as Zizek`s (2006) criticism of multiculturalism, in order to establish a relationship between globalization, local cultures and resistence. Specific points on our investigation demanded specialized approaches such as urban planning; social movements; racial relations; urban violence; police violence; criminal control and human rights; critical criminology; identity; gender; and oral culture. We conclude the text pointing out that hip-hop is an active actor in the construction of an insurgent communication. Such insurgent comunication is able to symbolically reorder aspects misrepresented by hegemonic media concerning black and poor people living in the suburbs. Therefore, hip-hop as counter-hegemonic pratices constitutes a critical action able to deconstruct naturalizing visions on cultures
Esta tese discute os processos de resistência realizados em ações de milhares de jovens do hip-hop que, no mundo contemporâneo, participam ativamente na produção de conhecimento e ressignificação das periferias brasileiras. Trata-se de uma voz que se impõe face às construções simbólicas homogeneizantes produzidas pelo pensamento dominante, em torno de valores e da criação de desejos em concordância estrita com aqueles do sistema econômico hegemônico. Entende-se que a base da construção da resistência é a partilha de conhecimento, de modo que a comunicação passa a ocupar o cerne da resistência: conhecimento dividido e multiplicado. O conceito de comunicação, no entanto, tem sido cada vez mais limitado aos objetos midiáticos, de forma que diversas práticas comunicativas têm sido negligenciadas nas teorias da comunicação. Daí a importância de ampliar o entendimento do que são os objetos comunicacionais com vistas a incluir manifestações não visíveis na mídia. O corpus analítico, dentro do movimento hip-hop, são as letras das músicas, analisadas sob a ótica da comunicação, em diálogo com a sociologia. Um dos principais marcos teóricos desta pesquisa são os conceitos de ecologia de saberes e sociologias das ausências e das emergências de Boaventura Santos (2006a). Nas questões concernentes a poder, resistência, empoderamento e emancipação foram fundamentais os trabalhos de Foucault (1979; 1988; 2000), Santos (2005a; 2006a; 2006b; 2007a) e das teóricas feministas, em especial Magdalena León (2000) e Patrícia Collins (1991). No campo da comunicação, o diálogo foi estabelecido com José Luiz Aidar Prado (2006a; 2006b), Muniz Sodré (2002), e, na filosofia política, com Hannah Arendt (2007), no que diz respeito aos temas de discurso e ação. O debate sobre globalização foi feito sob a perspectiva de Milton Santos (2001) e novamente de Boaventura Santos (2002), com referências a Zizek (2006) e sua crítica ao multiculturalismo, estabelecendo um diálogo sobre a relação entre globalização, culturas locais e resistência. Momentos pontuais da tese solicitaram teóricos de áreas específicas como planejamento urbano; movimentos sociais; relações raciais; violência urbana; violência policial; instituições penais e direitos humanos; criminologia crítica; construção da identidade; gênero; e oralidade. Terminamos a investigação indicando como o hip-hop constrói uma comunicação insurgente, recolocando simbolicamente os principais aspectos deturpados pela mídia hegemônica no que tange à população negra, pobre e moradora dos bairros periféricos. O hip-hop enquanto prática contra-hegemônica se constituiu, por conseguinte, em uma ação crítica capaz de desconstruir visões naturalizadoras das culturas

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how music has become a significant means of communication in the process of globalization, and how it integrates the &lsquo
global&rsquo
and the &lsquo
local&rsquo
while enabling the aggrieved populations to speak through and to express their antagonistic stances. In addition to the discussions of globalization, this study analyzes the medium of music along the areas of media and identity politics. In this respect, it deliberates on the global and local features of hip-hop. Although born in the ghettos of Bronx, New York, this global youth culture has been adopted by other minority youths in order to voice their anger and frustration towards the exclusionist practices of the state, as well as racism and discrimination they face in their host countries. Accordingly, the second and third generation Turkish youths in Germany and South Asian youths in Britain have revealed their rage through the subversive lyrics they employed. Therefore, these lyrics can also be regarded as narratives that indicate these immigrant youths as representatives of resistance and defiance. Despite the fact that the musical works of these minority youths may be considered a product of the &lsquo
culture industry&rsquo
, this does not eliminate their resistive and subversive characteristics.

The United States has many problems currently, the most persistent of which is the issue of race, and the problem of Mass Incarceration. This thesis addresses what Mass Incarceration is, as well as developing a theoretical understanding of how to overcome Mass Incarceration through the music of Kendrick Lamar and The Black Lives Matter Movement. This thesis presents the questions: What is the era of Mass Incarceration? How does Kendrick Lamar's music inform the problems of Mass Incarceration? How does The Back Lives Matter Movement use this information to create a solidarity movement against the oppression of African Americans? What does this mean going forward? Creating a synthesis of Mass Incarceration, the music of Kendrick Lamar, and The Black Lives Matter Movement, that overlaps and propels an intersection of culture and activism that inform one another. This all leads to the main takeaway of the thesis, that attempts to provide an interpretive understanding that pop culture, social media, and activism have created a different civil sphere, a Black public sphere that informs and educates through different avenues. All in all this thesis shows that music, social movements, and policy are all interconnected, and the music of Kendrick Lamar and the activism of The Black Lives Matter Movement provide a catalyst for change in the era of Mass Incarceration.
Master of Arts

Esta dissertação investiga o processo de formação da identidade, através do trabalho artístico/musical da banda de hip-hop norte-americano: Black Eyed Peas, formada na década de 80, nos Estados Unidos da América. Essa investigação diz respeito às questões de identidades discutidas pela temática do hip-hop, bem como a releitura que esta banda apresenta de elementos tidos como essenciais no gênero em questão. Ainda, visa uma maior compreensão da problemática envolvida na obra artística popular e racial e sua relação com a teoria de massa, para à partir daí, analisar seu potencial de resistência, de criatividade e de protesto.
This research ivestigates the process of meaning meaking/ signifyin(g) in the musical work of a North-american hip-hop band: Black Eyed Peas, founded in the decade of 1980, in the United States of America. This investigation is based on the identity questions discussed by the hip-hop themes, as well as the reelaboration/revisionism that this specific band shows about elements considered essences in the gender studied. Yet, this research intends a better understanding of the matters involved in the popular and racial artistic creation and its relation with the mass theories, in order to analyse its potencial of political resistance, criativity and protest.

xviii, 510 p. : ill. (some col.) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 License (United States).
This study analyzes the culture, history, and technology of the hip hop DJ in order to tease out the relationships between industrial and cultural practices. The following research questions structured the investigation: 1) What historical developments in intellectual property rights and music playback and delivery formats contribute to a political economy of the hip hop DJ; 2) what has been the role of intellectual property exchange and standardization in the DJ product industry relevant to hip hop DJs; 3) how are the meanings involved in the consumption of and production with analog and digital technologies related; and 4) does hip hop DJ culture represent convergence and collective intelligence? Employing various qualitative methods, the research includes interviews with influential hip hop DJs, executives at record labels, distributors, retailers, and DJ technology manufacturers. The study also reviews the histories of music playback technologies and standardization in relation to intellectual property laws. With political economic, cultural Marxism and new media theories as its framework, this study analyzes hip hop DJs as the intersection of corporate culture and youth culture. The research broadly addresses the hip hop DJ's role in building the industries that cater to hip hop DJing. Specifically, the study analyzes the politics of how hip hop DJs' intellectual properties and subcultural capital have been harnessed by companies in various industries as a way to authenticate, improve, and sell product. The study also examines consumption as production, collective intelligence, and how digital technologies are negotiated within this culture. The research suggests that hip hop DJ culture and the DJ technology and recording industries are not necessarily discrete entities that exert force upon one another. Rather, they are involved in a cultural economy governed by technocultural synergism, which is a complex interplay between agency and determinism guided by both corporate and cultural priorities. The study also offers a networked theory of innovation and creation over the individual genius emphasized in U.S. intellectual property laws to suggest that hip hop DJ culture is an open source culture.
Committee in charge: Dr. Janet Wasko, Chairperson; Dr. Julianne Newton, Member; Dr. Biswarup Sen, Member; Dr. Daniel Wojcik, Outside Member

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Opposing the culture of différance created through American cultural media, this thesis argues, Arab hip-hop artists revive the politically conscious sub-genre of hip-hop with the purpose of normalising their Arab existence. Appropriating hip-hop for a cultural protest, Arab artists create for themselves a sub-genre of conscious hip-hop – Arab-conscious hip-hop and function as Gramsci’s organic intellectuals, involved in better representation of Arabs in the mainstream. Critiquing power dynamics, Arab hip-hop artists are counter-hegemonic in challenging popular identity constructions of Arabs and revealing to audiences biases in media production and opportunities for progress towards social justice. Their identity (re)constructions maintain difference while avoiding Otherness. The intersection of Arab-consciousness through hip-hop and politics of identity necessitates a needed cultural protest, which in the case of Arabs has been severely limited. This thesis progresses by reviewing literature on politics of identity, Arabs in American cultural media, Gramsci’s organic intellectuals and conscious hip-hop. Employing criticism, this thesis presents an argument for Arab hip-hop group, The Arab Summit, as organic intellectuals involved in mainstream representation of the Arab community.

碩士
佛光大學
傳播學系
99
Abstract The feature of hip-hop culture around the world into a wave of popular music powerful elements, so that the inclusive elements of pop, flourishing. Hip-hop style has become a symbol of fashion today and quietly affecting social level, people would add another new symbol of communication, even for today's youth in the dress and the body moves past the public's awareness of performances and has a very Large impact. This trend reflects the order generation in the cultural aspects of mental structure. This study aimed to explore how the media construct, the interpretation of hip-hop culture, hip-hop culture of the participants in Taiwan to receive messages, how to imitate, copy, collage, discarded and then the hip-hop interpretation of media messages, the formation of Taiwan's hip-hop Cultural body mark (inscription), forms a cultural participants dressed in the clothing, the body reflects the body of practice and physical identity (identity). The approach of participatory observation, in order to provide researchers additional sub-culture capital. After the search field by participating actors within and in-depth interviews, supplemented by U.S. hip-hop music videos, hip-hop music video Taiwan textual analysis, the researchers observed the context of dialogue and interpretation Hip-hop culture, outlines the performances of Taiwan trajectory and body performances. Keyword: hip hop, rap, b boy, pop music, localization, inscription, body, clothing

In a society consumed by ever-increasing media and technology, it is more important now than ever that public schools provide their students with the skills and tools necessary to analyze, interpret, deconstruct, and construct popular media images and messages. Consequently, it is the role of educators to engage with popular media in the classroom, not simply for the sake of student motivation, but for the purpose of supporting students in meaningful literacy practices. This study analyzes classroom dialogue and students’ written responses throughout a semester-long English elective course entitled, “Hip Hop Literature and Culture,” in a public high school in New York. This course was designed as a means to engage students in critical media literacy (CML) practices. Through this qualitative case study, the researcher sought to better understand how students are understanding and responding to the popular media that surrounds them, and how academic engagement with such media within a class context impacts their understandings of self, youth culture, popular culture and the social structures that ultimately impact their lives.

This dissertation contributes to the body of literature on consumer behavior and marketing communication by exploring how brand mentions in music influence memory, attitudes, and purchase intentions. Even though the definitions of product placement have expanded to include a variety of media, there is no scholarly literature that explores this phenomena. More importantly, there are conceptual differences between product placement and brand mentions that differentiate this form of promotion. Thus, two studies were conducted to test the influence of brand mentions on hip-hop consumers ages 18-36. Study One (n=204) used a hip-hop song created specifically for this research with four brands in the lyrics with varying degrees of prominence in the song and congruence with hip-hop culture. Three fictitious press releases were also used to manipulate perceived initiator. A 3x2x2x2 repeated measures with between subjects design was employed to analyze the effects of the executional factors (prominence and congruence), perceived initiator and primary beneficiary, along with involvement on the dependent variables. In Study Two, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena in Study One. The overall findings suggests that brand mentions may be an effective tool to increase brand awareness. In Study One, highly prominent, incongruent brands were remembered more in comparison to high prominent congruent brands, but this effect was reversed in the low prominent conditions. In addition, 87% of the subjects were able to recall at least one brand mentioned in the song. Highly involved participants had more favorable attitudes towards the brands than low involved participants. However, the difference was most evident in the rating of congruent brands. The hypothesized interaction between perceived initiator and involvement was not supported. Additionally, the findings did not support the predicted effects of perceived primary beneficiary. However, findings in Study Two reveal possible explanations. Study Two also revealed four emergent themes that influence the effectiveness of brand mentions in hip-hop music: third person effect, authenticity, consumer skepticism, and ethics. The current research is the first attempt to tackle this phenomena empirically. Thus, there were some limitations as well as many future research directions.
text

This qualitative study uses narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, 1990, 2001) and self-study to investigate ways to further understand and facilitate the integration of holistic philosophies of education with media literacy pedagogies. As founder and director of the Youth Media Literacy Project and a self-titled Imagitator (one who agitates imagination), I have spent over 10 years teaching media literacy in various high schools, universities, and community centres across North America. This study will focus on my own personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1982) as a culture jammer, educator and cancer survivor to illustrate my original vision of a ‘holistic media literacy pedagogy’. This research reflects on the emergence and impact of holistic media literacy in my personal and professional life and also draws from relevant interdisciplinary literature to challenge and synthesize current insights and theories of media literacy, holistic education and culture jamming.

Thirty-three young Black men of the Post-Hip Hop Generation (ages 18-25) in Austin, TX, participated in a qualitative study centering on questions investigating Black manhood, media use, and the consumption of popular cultural products. Further, the researcher examined representations of Black men throughout music videos, films, and MySpace profiles. The purpose of this study was to enhance our knowledge about how Black manhood is being defined, conceptualized, and expressed by young Black men, and how significant media and cultural consumption plays a role in their lives. This study probes six questions: RQ1: How do young Black males interpret the images and messages about Black men from mainstream media? RQ2: What types of cultural products are being consumed by young Black men? Why do they consume them? RQ3: How do young Black males define Black manhood? RQ4: Do these cultural products influence the ways that young Black men define/express Black manhood? If so, how? Focus group sessions were conducted throughout the study, which were video recorded and transcribed. Transcriptions were then imported into a qualitative software program known as Atlas.ti, where statements related to the purpose of the study were coded and analyzed. These coded statements were then compared to observations made by the researcher from the examined media representations.
text

La culture est universellement industrialisée avec ces réseaux de mondialisation et son économie productiviste. Le rap comme mode d'expression ne fait pas exception à cette généralité par ses pratiques et ses productions. Nous nous sommes intéressés au mouvement hip-hop américain de ses balbutiements dans les années 1970 jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Il a traversé trois phases principales que nous décrivons comme rapster, gangsta et bling qui ont chacune leurs propres mutations et dérives. Notre réflexion se veut interprétative et exploratoire d'un phénomène dans ses articulations par rapports aux médias et au monde des communications et plus largement dans ses rapports sociaux et ses relations de pouvoir qui la traversent et qu'elle informe. C'est une étude de la culture rap en tant que production d'identités d'appartenance et de son récent basculement dans la sphère marchande. Le rap est devenu un divertissement de masse grand public mais son identité première demeure liée au social et au politique. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Musique, Culture, Race, Identité sociale, Identité politique, Industrie de la culture, Capitalisme, Action politique, Résistance, Changement.

Dans la dernière décennie, la profonde mutation de l’industrie musicale québécoise impose aux artistes le renouvellement de l’offre à travers de nouveaux lieux virtuels désormais fréquentés par les consommateurs. Longtemps tenus à l’écart de la culture de masse, les artisans du rap québécois développent cependant depuis déjà plusieurs années des stratégies maximisant ces nouvelles possibilités offertes par le Web. La présente recherche met donc en lumière le rôle structurant joué par le numérique dans le développement du rap québécois alors que ses artistes n’ont eu d’autres choix que d’optimiser les outils de promotion et de diffusion alternatifs. En posant d’abord un regard sociohistorique sur l’articulation autonome du mouvement hip-hop dans la province, nous identifierons les raisons de sa marginalisation et le rôle qu’y ont joué les dispositifs virtuels. Nous nous pencherons ensuite sur la forte croissance des pratiques de consommation numériques des publics québécois depuis 2000, encore plus marquée chez les publics ayant démontré un goût pour le rap. Puis, nous étudierons les dynamiques communicationnelles qui se développent entre les rappeurs et leurs publics au sein des communautés Web. Ainsi, nous retracerons la construction d’activités alternatives au sein du réseau qui permet au rap de s’implanter au Québec. Nous serons alors en mesure de mieux comprendre les comportements novateurs qui permettent au genre de faire face aux défis actuels de l’industrie musicale de la province.
In the past decade, profound transformations of Quebec’s music industry forced artists to channel their service offer through new virtual spaces henceforth frequented by their audiences. For a long time, Quebec’s rap artists were excluded from mainstream culture and had no other choice but to work apart from the industry’s principal broadcasting channels. This resulted in the articulation of an autonomous network developed since the early 2000s in the virtual environment. This research therefore highlights the structuring role played by digital technology in the development of Quebec’s rap scene, while its artists have had no choice but to optimize alternative promotional and distribution tools. Going back on Quebec’s history of the hip-hop movement through its social dynamics, we will identify the reasons for its marginalization and the role that virtual apparatus have played in it. We will then study the strong growth of digital consumption practices by Quebec audiences since 2000, which has been even more marked among audiences who have demonstrated a taste for rap. In the end, we will look at the communicational dynamics developed between rappers and audiences within Web communities. Thus, we will trace the elaboration of alternative activities within the network that allowed rap to take root in Quebec. We will then be able to better understand the innovative digital behaviours that helped the genre to meet the current challenges of the province’s music industry.

This thesis presents a case study of Canada’s first Black owned radio station, FLOW 93.5 FM, to demonstrate how official multiculturalism, in its formulation and implementation, negates Canada’s history of slavery and racial inequality. As a response to diversity, multiculturalism shifts the focus away from racial inequality to cultural difference. Consequently, Black self-determination is unauthorized. By investigating FLOW’s radio license applications, programming and advertisements, this thesis reveals just how the vision of a Black focus radio station dissolved in order to fit the practical and ideological framework of multiculturalism so that Blackness could be easily commodified. This thesis concludes that FLOW is not a Black radio station but instead is a multicultural radio station – one that specifically markets a de-politicized Blackness. As a result, multiculturalism poses serious consequences for imagining and engaging with Blackness as a politics that may address the needs of Black communities in Canada.