Born in Nation : Protest Music : Impacts on Racial Attitudes, Knowledge, and Emotions

Abstract

Songs with protest messages frequently gain popularity; however, little is known about the extent to which listeners process the true meaning of such songs. Occasionally, a specific protest song or music video has spurred significant conversation and debate, but this does not seem to be the case for most songs. We conducted a study to determine if messages conveyed in protest songs could be accurately inferred by participants and sought to evaluate the impact that protest music had on emotions and socio-political attitudes. A between-groups experiment was conducted in which participants were randomly assigned to watch one of two music videos (race vs. war) and then completed measures of demographics, emotions, moral foundations, and attitudes toward U.S. race relations and foreign and domestic policy issues. We predicted that participants would understand the meaning of the music and that the video they watched would increase concern for racial vs. foreign/domestic policy issues. We also explored the impact of participants’ identities on the relationship between protest music and socio-political attitudes. Findings from our study will contribute to our understanding of music’s impact on society and may provide insight into the use of music as a form of activism for social change.