Protest music, populism, politics and authenticity

Abstract

Political discourses are found not only in speeches and newspapers, but also in cultural artefacts such as architecture, art and music. Turkey’s June 2013 protests saw an explosion of music videos distributed on the internet. This paper uses these videos as a case study to examine the limits and potential of popular music’s articulation of popular and populist politics. Though both terms encompass what is “widely favoured”, populism includes discourses which construct “the people” pitted against “an elite”. Past research has shown how popular music can articulate subversive politics, though these do not detail what that subversion means and how it is articulated. This paper uses specific examples to demonstrate how musical sounds, lyrics and images articulate populist and popular politics. From a corpus of over 100 videos, a typical example is analysed employing social semiotics. It is found that popular music has the potential to contribute to the public sphere, though its limits are also exposed.

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá, get the brits out, lad: masculinity and nationalism in Irish-language rap videos

“…Previous research on music videos has addressed political ideology, for example Way's (Way 2019(Way , 2016 analyses of party political communication in Turkish parliamentary and presidential campaign videos, or the construction of "the people" pitted against an "elite" in videos produced during the Gezi park protests in 2013. Lindsay and Lyons' ( 2018) study of the construction of a "playboy" persona in music videos through performers' conspicuous consumption of alcohol and the objectification of women provides a useful blueprint for the study of masculinity in music videos, yet Anderson and McCormack highlight that "the centrality of the Internet is still under-theorized in much masculinities research" (2018, 557).…”

“…3 Social media platforms can create spaces for bottom-up production outside of the structures of party politics, large record companies or state broadcasters. In allowing users to upload their own videos, YouTube provides a space for users to either contest or reproduce superordinate ideologies connected to national belonging on their own terms (see Way 2016), particularly when a group has been banned from radio play for their explicit content, as in Kneecap's case.…”

Twenty years of research on political discourse: A systematic review and directions for future research

“…A third set of studies focuses on the production by citizens of musical and visual artifacts with political meaning. For example, Hanauer (2011) analyzes graffiti on the separation wall in the contested space of Abu Dis; other authors have looked into cartoons, posters, music videos or book covers produced by civil society actors (Angermüller, 2012; Arman, 2018; Lou, 2017; Way, 2016). Finally, a last set of studies focuses on more classical materials, such as the analysis of speeches by members of Protestant institutions in Northern Ireland (2007) or official documents of the military junta and religious leaders in Argentina (Bonnin, 2009).…”

“…These artifacts are conceived as ‘political’ because they convey a political meaning. For example, Way (2016) has analyzed music video produced during Turkey’s June 2013 protests. Going in the same direction, Hanauer (2011) has studied graffiti in the context of the Palestinian–Israelian conflict and emphasized that ‘for Palestinians graffiti writing was “an intervention in a relationship of power” and a “critical component of a complex and diffuse attempt to overthrow hierarchy”’ (p.301).…”

Dropkick Murphys vs. Scott Walker: Unpacking Populist Ideological Discourse in Digital Space

“…The mediated discussion around Dropkick Murphys' 2015 tweet provides such a micro-level snapshot into how populism is ideologically constructed in an instance when the realms of politics and popular music overlap. While protest music regularly appears in scholarly literature as the prototypical form of political musician resistance (e.g., Way, 2016), less scholarly attention is paid to musicians' discursive, non-musical political opposition despite it becoming more frequent in the connected age of social media (e.g., Liakat, 2020). While music taste and participation within music genres are important for identity formation and socialization (Frith, 1996), other factors mediate and inform our relationship to popular music.…”