Political Pop, Political Fans? A Content Analysis of Music Fan Blogs

Abstract

Political messages in popular music clearly matter to the musicians who produce them, but do they matter to fans? The answer, based on quantitative content analysis, is a heavily qualified “yes.” Computer-assisted content analysis was used to compare 100 blogs written by fans of political pop musicians with an equal number of blogs published by fans of top-selling pop stars. Fans of political musicians discuss politics more often than followers of apolitical pop stars, indicating that politics matters to them. This is the firmest evidence to date of a relationship between the level of political content in music and the level of political interest among audiences. Implications of the findings for the field of popular music research are discussed.