Date of Graduation
5-2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Sociology (MA)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Sociology and Criminal Justice
Advisor/Mentor
Lori Holyfield
Committee Member
Steven Worden
Second Committee Member
Juan J. Bustamante
Keywords
Social sciences, Communication and the arts, Anti-war, Culture, Music, Narrative, Social movements
Abstract
This thesis examines the presence of widely circulating cultural narratives in the lyrics of approximately eighty anti-war songs from the Vietnam and post-9/11 eras. Unlike prior movements and music research, this thesis privileges culture over movements and views movements as cultural antennae both picking up on trends and cultural narratives, and broadcasting their own altered cultural meanings back into the “cultural airways.” It sees music as a cultural medium which acquires cultural meanings from its surroundings, alters those meanings, synthesizes new ones, and perpetuates old ones. Drawing on comparative and narrative analysis approaches informed by grounded theory techniques, this thesis finds evidence for a major shift over time from a focus on death and destruction and a countercultural vision to a focus on government mistrust and global anti-imperialism.
Citation
Redman, J. N. (2016). Movements, Music, and Meaning: A Comparative Analysis of Cultural Narratives In Vietnam Era and Post-9/11 Anti-War Music. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1582