THE PERCEPTION OF OPINION LEADERSHIP FOR POLITICAL AND CIVIC PARTICIPATION
AMONG DANCE MUSIC ARTISTS
Emilija Kučytė
Political communication
Student identification number: 10841830 Thesis supervisor: Dr. M.E. Wojcieszak Word count: 1443
Abstract
This research combines the fields of entertainment, politics and media. The patterns of political participation are especially changing among youth. In this context popular artists, acting as opinion leaders, have the forum to shape the public opinion and instigate political behavior. Thus by conducting qualitative interviews with dance music artists, this thesis provides an insight on their motives to act as opinion leaders, who stimulate civic participation among their fans. It has showed that the motives to instigate political engagement depend on the interplay between the views towards the freedom of speech, hierarchy and representation in democracy; the level of interpretation of an artist as a public versus private person and the level of perceived influence of artists. The motivation was moderated by the medium and the level of issue controversy.
Keywords:
Political participation, media, music, entertainment, civic engagement, opinion leadership
Introduction
“I am a D.J., I am what I say[..] I've got believers
I've got believers in me”
- David Bowie. In this song the late David Bowie talks about the influence of a DJ, a face of now billion dollar growing industry and the genre most popular among the millennial generation. Among other forms of entertainment, music has always had an important role in influencing the political landscape, mobilizing nations or being a form of protest, while becoming “the voice of the generation” (Van Zoonen, 2005). Whilst the civic and political participation patterns in the western democracies are changing, especially among youth, this thesis looks on what political and societal role may the music of the modern day play into it.
It is claimed that various civic participation forms have become more preferred than conventional political participation (Bennett, 2008; Russell J. Dalton, 2008). In fact, data points to a decreasing rate of conventional political participation among western societies: a steady drop of the worldwide voting turnout by 10 points since the 80s, institutional trust and party membership reaching an unprecedented lows (Hooghe & Marien, 2013; L. Street, NW, Washington, & Inquiries, 2014). These trends are especially permeated among youth (Bennett, 2008; Lopez & Donovan, 2002). Instead young people willfully engage in various forms of civic participation, based on ‘involvement’, ‘voice’ and ‘output’ within communities, both offline and online (Bang, 2003; Bennett, 2008; Russell J. Dalton, 2008; Wheeler, 2012). However, as long as government, other social groups and institutions remain in the central of the democratic process, it is important to bridge the disengaging youth (Bennett, 2008).
Observers note, one of the ways to stimulate electoral and civic participation is by connecting politics to the everyday culture (Bennett, 2008; Van Zoonen, 2005). Noticeably the domains of politics, entertainment and media have begun to overlap, thus celebrity politics has become of particular interest, due to it’s potential to influence electorates and shape political discourse (Bang, 2003; Marsh, ‘t Hart, & Tindall, 2010; J. Street, 2004a; Wheeler, 2012). In fact, prior research on the effects of celebrity involvement and endorsement of civic and political activism proved celebrities being capable of influencing attitudes and stimulating political engagement among the younger citizenry (Austin, Vord, Pinkleton, & Epstein, 2008; Jackson, 2008; Jackson & Darrow, 2005). Moreover, along with the rise of social media, artists and musicians have gained an even more direct platform to engage with their fans and disseminate messages to a broad spectrum of people.
While an impressive body of studies (mostly before the social media era) has investigated the opinion leadership, it’s effects of disseminating the messages to the broader constituencies and validity among nations (Katz, 1957; Nisbet & Kotcher, 2009; Valente & Pumpuang, 2007; Weimann, 1991), but there is a gap of literature adressing the incentives and motives of the opinion leaders themselves (Weimann, 1991). Furthermore, while the literature of celebrity politics has looked at the effects on attitudes, behaviours and normative implications (Marsh et al., 2010; J. Street, 2004b; Van Zoonen, 2005; Wheeler, 2012) the perspective of celebrities, artists or musicians themselves in their perception on their role in stimulating political and civic participation has been overlooked.
Therefore I begin drawing upon existing literature on celebrity politics and opinion leadership to approach the general research question: To what extent are dance musicians opinion leaders who consciously stimulate civic engagement among youth? With the current study I extend the line of qualitative research by relying on semi structured interviews to examine the perceptions, incentives and determinants of artists in stimulating political and
civic engagement. Furthermore, I look at what possible part the contemporary music could play as a possible avenue for civic engagement and – in so doing – this thesis offers a greater understanding of the interplay between politics and entertainment in the in the context of Digital Age and changing patterns of political participation.
Theoretical Framework
The relocation of political and civic behaviour (Bennett, 2008) has to be researched in the context of broader societal changes. Due to the rise of Internet and social media, the way people exchange, consume and seek for information has changed, which subsequently gave more influence to the electorates and peer networks (Bennet, 2007). According to Bang (2003) along the changing forms of participation the late modernity era brought ‘the replacement of hierarchy by networks as the dominant mode of governance; a move from politics policy to policy politics; the increased importance of the discursive arena for network governance and the associated rise of the role of the media and celebrity politics’ (Bang, 2003; Marsh et al., 2010, p. 326).
The literature of celebrity politics points to two opposing perspectives rowards celebrity involvement in politics (Bang, 2003; Marsh et al., 2010; J. Street, 2004a; Wheeler, 2012). Critics claim, that while aiming for an informed debate in a respresentative democracy, celebrities marginalise the relevant expertise with abusing their platform lack of knowledge over policies (Pharr & Putnam, 2000; J. Street, 2004b). On the other hand, using the platform, it gives the celebrity an ability to reach and mobilize otherwise disengaged and apathetic constituencies, possibly even amplify marginalized voices (Marsh et al., 2010). Furthermore, at some cases celebrity politics are claimed to be actively aimed at stimulating public involvement and demanding greater transparency from policy makers. In addition, artists commonly behave as neutral agents without a self-benefiting political agenda, who do not seek the elected office (J. Street, 2004a).
In fact, when popular music claims a political role, it is commonly associated with ‘social movement politics, constructing and confirming the sense of togetherness around a particular shared concern’ (Van Zoonen, 2005, p.49) (e.g. rap as civil rights movement of the 90s) (Martinez, 1997). Electronic dance music chosen for this study has had the biggest growth in global popularity within the last decades, especially among millennial generation (“Who is the Electronic Music Listener?,” 2014). The attendance at the top twenty global dance music festivals in 2013 was counted to have reached between 1.4 to 3.4 million (Kiendl, 2013); the industry evaluated for $6.9 billion (“Global EDM Market Hits $6.9 Billion,” n.d.); and top musicians being followed by millions of fans on social networks (e.g. David Guetta - over 55 mln.).
However, as well as the youth engagement, the political potential of dance music culture has been contradicting. Riley et al. (2010) claims that dance music as practice of youth cultural leisure and consumption is a form alternative political participation, without a particular social change agenda and it focuses on its purposefully escapist, hedonistic and apolitical objectives (Riley, Griffin, & Morey, 2010). Whereas the occurrence of dance musicians getting actively and publically involved in social issues, charity events or even political discussions online in the recent years is evident (“ADE Green,” 2015, “Can dance music and politics really mix?,” 2005, “Techno For Humanity fundraiser,” 2015). Either way, such events and the political and social involvement of artists and their political expression could have influence on their fans.
Popular musicians as opinion leaders
The theory of the Two-Step-Flow by Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) defines opinion leaders as mediators within the communication flow, who transmit messages from the media to a broader public (Katz & Lazersfeld, 1955). The original theory, looked at opinion leadership of people in horizontal social networks, such as peers and family members.
However, it is assumed that the relationship of musicians and their fans is non-horizontal, since artists, as celebrities have a different status in the social hierarchy, the fans know them, but they do not know the fans. However, I apply the insights and theoretical assumptions on the characteristics of opinion leaders to analyse the willingness of artists stimulate political engagement.
The expansion of social media gave musicians a direct platform to influence their fans by acting as opinion leaders (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar, 2015). The definition by Weimann (1994), who claimed opinion leader is defined by the number of his ties to various social networks or groups, or by the density of their social relations (Nisbet, 2006; Weimann, 1994), becomes even more relevant in the context of social media. Acoording to U.S. data, a sizable minority of young people do not engage into any news daily, thus many may not be aware of certain social or political issues (L. Street, NW, Washington, & Inquiries, 2012). Furthermore, it is claimed that the majority (75%) of online news content consumers are reached through email or social network sites (SNS) (Purcell, Rainie, Mitchell, Rosenstiel, & Olmstead, 2010) and close to half of SNS users receive news content daily from people they follow on Facebook (Hermida, Fletcher, Korell, & Logan, 2012). Furthermore, compared to a non-celebrity opinion leader, musicians are highly socially embedded not only though social media, but though various platforms, including traditional media, music performances and music itself. Considering their strategic location and their social embeddedness, musicians have the means to act as opinion leaders.
Thus even though musicians, as celebrities may have the medium to as opinion leaders, there are other factors that define the motives to behave as opinion leaders.
The theories of opinion leadership claim that opinion leader is defined by his strategic social location as well as his personal characteristics: their strong propensity to influence others and political interest. The information-giving behaviours of opinion leaders in
horizontal networks depend on the personality strength (Flynn, Goldsmith, & Eastman, 1996, Weimann, 1994): high levels of self-efficacy, and self-confidence have been noted as personality features of an opinion leader (Nisbet & Kotcher, 2009). In order to narrow the scope of the research I will assume that celebrities score high on self-confidence and focus on the other trait, which is political knowledge and interest.
Political interest highly correlates with information sharing behaviour and defines opinion leaders. Though, the influentials were found to be active in several areas with considerable overlap (Weimann, 1991), opinion leaders are generally ‘attuned to new ideas and forward thinking’ (Kavanaugh et al., 2006). Also, it is contended that the more media information the individual uses, the more he/she talks about political/social matters with others (Campus et al., 2010; Kim et al., 1999). Therefore, I would assume that media consumption patterns and general political interest would suggest the willingness of artists to bring awareness on their certain societal concerns. However, even though, artists may acknowledge their social embeddedness, political interest and abilities to persuade, it is not known whether they think they can influence political engagement or are eager to do so.
Political effects of celebrity endorsement
According to Valente and Pumpuang opinion leaders are capable of changing judgments, attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and behaviours. Thus music artists can stimulate civic and political participation through (a) raising awareness, e.g. their higher visibility allows them to disseminate messages among their network; (b) persuading others, by consciously convincing others to engage in a certain political or civic behaviour; (c) establishing or reinforcing norms, by sending a message to others in the community that the behaviour is or will be popular or, the opposite show that a behaviour is or will not be popular/ tolerated; (d) pulling (leverage) resources, e.g. when a behaviour is adopted by the
leader, the rest tend to “feel left out”, thus are more willing to adopt certain behaviour or attitude (Valente & Pumpuang, 2007).
Previous empirical research on celebrity politics has looked at how celebrity endorsement can change attitudes, opinions and voting behavior of young voters. For instance, celebrities are capable of motivating the disengaged youth to stronger involvement and participation in civic affairs (Austin et al., 2008). It was also shown, that youth is significantly more inclined to adopt a political position endorsed by a celebrity (Jackson, 2008) and agree with already popular opinions promoted by their idol, and even accept unpopular statements as more palatable (Jackson & Darrow, 2005).
When it comes to affecting voting behaviour, celebrities seem to have a mixed impact. While two studies have claimed that family members and significant others have the strongest impact on youth and first-time voters, the impact of celebrity endorsement and advertising on voting was the lowest (O’Regan, 2014; Wood & Herbst, 2007). Yet, another study on voting behavior found that respondents with weak political affiliations are rather susceptible to celebrity endorsement, deciding on their vote for a political party or candidate, in oppose to no effect on voters with strong party preference (Ekant Veer, Ilda Becirovic, & Brett A.S. Martin, 2010). However, this body of research focuses on the effect on the fans, leaving out the perspective of the celebrities.
In addition, previous study claims there is a certain issue preference among celebrities and music artists. Celebrities do not tend to promote unpopular statements, on the contrary they tend to either choose least controversial issues or promote more universal and mainstream approaches toward controversial issues (Meyer, 1995). Also there is a tendency to lean to liberal attitudes, focus on issues where their input would be rather tangible, such as charities or fund-raising. In line with these findings, the political involvement of musicians in
particular is claimed to substitute politics around a cause rather than a particular political ideology or electoral campaign (Garofalo, 1992).
Overall, there are reasons, musicians might feel either more restricted or obligated to pursue their political expressions towards their fans. In comparison to a non-celebrity opinion leader, the influence of an artist is based on affective identification that fan engagement is primarily based on (Van Zoonen, 2005). It is further argued, that musicians are perceived to be role models among their fans and through their mediated personas, they are able to attain the admiration, sympathy and authority of the fans (Wheeler, 2012). Thus perceiving their strong ability to change judgments, attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and behaviours (Valente & Pumpuang, 2007), artists may refrain from their role within political or social domain, for many reasons, that need to be attained.
This thesis asks whether dance music artists are civically and politically engaged (RQ1)? Reasonably, the intention to influence others depends on the perceived opinion leadership and willingness to be an opinion leader in the political domain, thus it is important to know whether dance music artists perceive themselves as opinion leaders in this particular domain within their fan community (RQ2). The main research question of this thesis looks at their general intention to act as opinion leaders, asking about the extent to which dance music artists have tried to act as opinion leaders in the political or civic domain (RQ3). Lastly, the possible reasons of restraining artists from behaving as opinion leaders are addressed: what are the reasons restraining artists from stimulating civic engagement among their fans? (RQ4).
Method
Sample. Due to the intensive working schedules and status, in addition to the additional barrier by the intermediators, in particular, communication managers, popular musicians are mostly a target difficult to access. Therefore, due to the limited time and
human resources, a purposeful sample (Flick, 2009, p. 130) was employed for this study. No limitations of age, sex, race or country were considered. However, to ensure sample credibility, popular artists were defined based on two criteria: professional experience and popularity. The experience within the industry of minimum 5 years of music production as the main occupation, since based on personal observation that could be considered a sufficient period of time to judge on the dedication to the profession. and social media connectivity. The criteria of popularity is a subjective one and hard to define. However, for that I applied the measure of social media followship (a minimum of 10K followers, in comparison to the average of 155 Facebook friends of a regular user (Duggan et al., 2015); and data of the globally recognised dance music industry database, Resident Advisor, which annually enlists dance musicians based on a popular vote (“RA: Top 1000 DJs,” 2016). The database was used to select the respondents. In total, 56 individual artists and 3 music labels, managing approximately 24 more artists each, were contacted via email, 35 contacts responded, 11 interviewees agreed to participate via Skype (N=9) or in person (N=2).
It is important to note, that although, all of the interviewees had a communication manager (N=11), in charge of connections with industry press, all of the respondents were managing their social media by themselves. Work experience within music industry was ranging between 6 to 19 years, the range of the amount of Facebook followers spanned between 11,7K to 123K (M=53,96 K).
The semi-standardized interview method. Personal interviews were chosen for this study for several reasons. First, they are best suited for the exploration of attitudes, values, beliefs and motives of respondents regarding complex, sensitive issues, such as in this case civic participation and activism (Smith, 1992) and enable the interviewer to follow-up for more information and clarification of answers. Second, the qualitative interview method helped to ensure that the respondent was not assisted with answers (by their communication
managers) (Flick, 2009). It is clear, that in this type of interview, the validity and reliability depend, not on the repetition of the same words, but mainly on assigning similar meaning, which facilitates standardization and comparability of a semi-structured interview (Louise Barriball & While, 1994). Also to increase the internal validy, member checks were performed, briefly rounding up the interview after each session.
Procedure. The respondents were recruited via email. The first email introduced with the research project, it’s purpose and the researcher. Following the replies, the time and means of the interviews were arranged to the convenience of the interviewee, which consolidated collaboration and secured good responses, essential for the study validity (Flick, 2009). The regular procedure of the interview started with an informal conversation to establish trust and was followed by a recap of the research project, it’s purposes, institution, the procedure of the interview.
During the interview, a set interview guide (see Appendix 1) was used. The guide was drawn up by eleven open and theory-driven questions, to answer the main research question (RQ3) and draw explanations from the subsequent ones (RQ1, RQ2, RQ4) (further explained in the Appendix 2). The open questions focus on individual experiences (e.g. How interested, would you say, you are in politics?) and may be answered on the basis of the at hand knowledge as well as opinions, based on theoretical suppositions or hypotheses (e.g. ‘Why do you think some dance musicians do not attempt to stimulate civic engagement among their fans? Can it be perception that dance music is made for entertainment only?). In reaction to how interviewee answered the question, the interviewer asked retrospective questions in order to gain an insight, or to clarify the answer. Some of the interview questions employed the use of probes, which was a useful tool to provoke and explore deeper consideration of a matter (e.g. “should music stay out of politics”), as well as clarify inconsistencies of concepts (e.g. “Do you engage in civic life? For example donate or volunteer to a social cause.”).
Analysis
The guidelines for the analysis were derived from qualitative methodological literature (Charmaz, 2006; Flick, 2009). The program Atlas.Ti was used through the coding process. The first step was open (initial) coding of the interview transcriptions (Charmaz 2006). The formulations of the interviewees were assigned with directly and indirectly implied meanings, e.g. a quotation “to get more likes, to get exposure” was given a code “expression for PR”. At first codes were assigned without predefined categories. The following step was focused coding, where codes were categorized by research questions into following categories: engagement and (non)participation types (RQ1), perceptions on acting as opinion leader in civic/ political domain (RQ2), artists actual experiences of acting as opinion leaders on various media (RQ3), reasons of refraining from stimulating civic engagement (RQ4) and smaller subcategories, such as RQ3.A. “artists are not role models”, RQ3.B. “artists are role models” (Code Book in the Appendix 3). The third step was identifying links and relationships between codes and concepts.
Findings
In this section I describe the findings of each research question in a numeral order and round up with main points of disagreement identified between normative perception on the role of artists in stimulating civic engagement.
Civic and political engagement of music artists (RQ1)
The engagement types among dance music artists concerned both civic and governmental political involvement. The priority among artists is interest in social issues, such racial, gender, economical, societal equality, gun violence, terrorism, refugee crisis, environmental issues, welfare state. Ones that named their political affiliation identified themselves as left wing (#7), socialist (#3), or supporting liberal politicians (#6), others did not identify any political leaning. Interest in governmental politics among interviewees went
in line with disappointment with conventional politics and a focus on objective news exposure, or being “skeptical” (#2, #3, #10) towards general media: “I don’t take one media talking about it I need to go further and to make my own opinion crossing between sources, because I am a skeptical guy first of all” (#7). However, musicians who expressed their interest or commented on governmental politics were as well strong supporters of the idea that it is the artists’ responsibility to express their political views and engage, thus stimulate their fans towards political participation.
The interest in social issues and charity, in oppose to forms of involvement into hard-political issues, governmental politics, was rather frequent, as was assumed by previous research (Garofalo, 1992; Meyer, 1995). Artists tend to donate to their local charity organisations, by either monetary contribution or by artistic endeavor. i.e. one of the artists (#9, Tom Findlay, from ‘Groove Armada’) described he would rather “do his role” by directly using his music: ‘I do I volunteer for a charity that is based at Totenham, I am quite a believer I guess in local politics. That is the way I try to effect people in kind of my own geographical orbit.’. Even though, some noted to have been donating to charity without an intention to publicize it (#2, #5, #6), other interviewees were active in using their platforms to raise awareness, or even assisting in organizing events for the issues of their concern.
The perceptions of artists acting as opinion leaders in the political domain (RQ2)
Thus the question whether they should behave as opinion leaders on the political domain was highly debated - a distinction of two general opinion blocks could be made of ones in favor and against.
Positive perception of dance music artists acting as opinion leaders. Among the musicians who actively express their opinion on societal issues, two types of motives were noticed: (1) responsibility as a person (2) responsibility as a public person. Some artists, instead of seeing it as a public responsibility, define it as a personal need (#6) “to get it off
my chest” or is (#9) “just who you are as a personality”, (#10) “there is more to me than just music”, which would lead back to the assumptions of the opinion leadership theory regarding opinion leaders being a particular type of assertive personalities, with high self-efficacy. Furthermore, one of the respondents (#3) defined such ‘responsibility’ as a ‘privilege’ granted to artists, he says: ‘I think I see it as my responsibility as a person first, as an artist second, I think what happens, as an artist you have bigger responsibilities than a person, so as artist second, actually it makes you double check your beliefs. And not make anything stupid. Which is very interesting. It gives you a social pressure, which as a human being as that single minded person you might not have had and you might do stupid things.’
Artists identify several positive effects and reasons for musicians’ civic expression: a. To engage their fans into political discussion. Artists, who identify this reason, see
themselves as either more interested in politics, or generally more forward thinking than the general population. They see their goal either as to make the fans ‘open up’, provide and highlight new perspectives. One of the respondents (#10) drew the lack of his generation interest in politics as an incentive for him to stimulate engagement among his fans, even if certain political opinions may be backfiring: ‘I did consider upsetting people, because opinions might have that result. But everybody is entitled to their own opinion and I dint think people should hide their opinions either.’
a. To bring an unbiased, independent perspective. Not having a political agenda and being ‘neutral’ is recognized as a beneficial position artists have towards drawing attention to certain issues.
b. To bring awareness to the issues. The artists, who acknowledge that artists have a unique position of being capable to spread the message among a wide circle (social embeddedness) or that are perceived as role models, see it as a responsibility to bring attention to certain issues: ‘I think music is a form of expression, so it is a really good
way to bring awareness, I think music should be connected also with politics in a way, but I am against of any kind of extremes.’ (#1).
Their inclination to stimulate political engagement, or express opinion was not defined by the density of artists’ social embeddedness either actual (number of followers) or perceived influence (acknowledging their influence and connection with the fans). Both the factors of using the platform and having the audience as well as being the role model were identified as incentives to be politically and civically expressive, as an artist, thus engage fans. The underlying argument of the proponents of stimulating engagement into politics was that artist is a public person. One of the respondents connects having a platform with social responsibility: ‘Obviously the bigger your audience as an artist, then the more social responsibility you have and if you choose to neglect to even go into social responsibility, then that is your choice but what a waste. Because I think being political and being an artist should be hand in hand.’
Negative perception of dance music artists as opinion leaders. Several types of motives were noticed among the non-supporters:
1) Artists’ are uninformed, thus unqualified to talk about political issues. Artists, who identified their non-support for celebrity politics, gave the reasoning that they do not intend to comment on civic or political issues, because due to lack of time, or focus on music, musicians do not attain informed opinions and the attention is taken away from the relevant sources. This opinion emphasised politics as a complex issue and society’s strive for an ‘informed political debate’. Some of the respondents were (#2) categorical towards artists expressing opinion on political matters, however noted that he would be eager to share opinion of a certain politician or thinker he aligns with (e.g. Noam Chomsky). Several identify this as ‘abusing the given platform’. One of the more prevalent artists (#8, over 15 years in the scene), expressed that particularly having such strong followship, he would
refrain from using his platform to affect opinions of followers, which might be yet uninformed.
2) Artists should not / don’t want to alienate fans, unless opinions are on moral issues. Artists were adhering to their diverse fan base with diverse backgrounds and opinions, thus if expressing opinions on political or controversial social matters, that may alienate fans (which in oppose, the supporters claimed not to care about), which as an artist should not be doing. However, artists that are eager to speak out express this concern as well. One of the artists (#6), eager to express political ideology or stance on moral issues, recognises fan alienation as a problem, does not prioritize it over freedom of expression: ‘I am very open with everything, as I do not try to insult but I do speak exactly what I think. As an artist it is not something good to do, because you are making enemies and you are separating people.’.
3) The purpose of musicians is to entertain. Majority of interviewees highlight the reason the platform, the voice is given to them by fans because of their ability to entertain, play music, but not for a political opinion representation. Which comes as a reason not to express oneself politically or socially, unless it would be a ‘harmless’ opinion on moral issues. Musicians recognise and identify that dance music, in particular, is a form of escape, a message in itself of equality and togetherness, the musician is just a facilitator.
There is a general underlying argument, that people follow artists due to their music (art), not their opinion (person), that is why art and politics should be separated: ‘I mention something political, which is controversial you can be sure that the people who disagree with your opinion will suddenly stop listening to your music in the same light as they were before. Which shouldn’t happen we should base an artist only upon their art.’ (#2). Even though just a few of the respondents argue that being an artist means being political, there is a general consent that artists can express opinion on moral issues.
Actions and the determinants of artists in stimulating civic engagement (RQ3)
As mentioned, most of the differences among perceptions of the respondents towards acting as opinion leaders within the political/ civic domain lay in nuances within the issues, media type and communication tone. In this section the actions and the determinants, identified by the artists, of stimulating civic engagement are described, beginning with categorization by medium:
1. Actively campaigning around cause. Artists are willing to participate by playing in charitable events, should be a cause or organization they believe in.
2. Opinion in traditional media. Artist may provide opinion via interviews or by writing editorials themselves (a case described in next section). Traditional (music) media had the benefits of being able to ‘go deeper’, explain the attitudes over certain topics. However, several respondents have mentioned that traditional media (magazines, journals) does not ask for opinion on social or political matters. One of the respondents interpreted this as a result of media commercialization “perhaps they want to be seen as just fun and opium for the people. It is not really providing education anymore.” (#3) On the other hand, some artists indicate that their communication managers review their statements on magazines and reduce controversies, that could harm artists image, which represents concern on artists image and could be ascribed to commercialization.
3. Embedding a message within music. Reasons of not using music for stimulating engagement were either aesthetic, functional: seeing it as ineffective means to ‘address the problem’, ‘change collective behaviour’, philosophical: music should remain a form of entertainment, escape. On the other hand, artists also perceive music as the message itself and the general dance music culture as a movement symbolic of community, connectivity, as one of the respondents (#11) describes it: ‘dance music, crowd provides a
potential of transcendence of utopia, that is outside of the machinery of the state or the regime of capitalism, or the market.’.
4. Message dissemination through social networks.
4.1. on governmental politics: endorsement of a politician or a party;
4.2. expression on societal issues: dissemination of an online petition; opinion on societal issue;
Disseminating messages though social media networks (4) was both feared or avoided as well as praised for being a convenient tool to engage and raise awareness. Social media is seen as a favorable tool to use Facebook or Twitter to endorse a favorite party, politician, economist or thinker on governmental issues (4.1.), have or are supportive of sharing opinions on moral, social issues (4.2.), share a petition, perceived as a tool for political influence: ‘I think my vote on Facebook and Twitter would actually sway more people with hopefully some logic than my vote would’ (#3).
However, artists often identified social media as dangerous and possibly backlashing, when engaging into civic concerns. A recent incident of a music artist losing his career due to a homophobic social media post was reoccurring in majority of the interviews. According to the respondents, it had a tremendous implication on the way artists perceive political societal expression on social media. Artists interpreted ability of social media to turn a post, engaged into a ‘wrong’ topic, image damaging or even career-destructive, some used expression like ‘bandwagon’, ‘which hunt’, ‘blood lust’. However, for others, this incident was a symbol of ‘abuse of given platform’. Even one of the most established artist (#1), industry for over 20 years) raises a point about social media: ‘his career was over just in 24 hours and although what he said was ugly, the power of internet is kind of frightening. So I am kind of scared to share my opinion on the internet at the moment.’
Another backlashing effect example, of artists expressing opinion while using traditional media may, however, take away from the focus of social media. Artist described a particular previous experience of voicing environmental concerns by writing an article at The Times (Cato, 2009) which gained lots of negative responses by ‘climate change deniers’ attacking the artist: ‘Calling him out, being a DJ, about how bad his carbon footprint was, just really sort of aggressive.’ That had an effect that silenced the artist for further active campaigning. Active campaigning or expression of artists may be generally greeted as negative, followed in scrutiny, or greeted negatively depending on the level of existing controversy around the issue (the case of homophobia in Eastern Europe or Climate change denial).
Next to the media types, artists identified issue type (topic) and communication tone as determinants on the propensity to behave as an opinion leader in the political domain. Some topics were identified as “grey area” issues or “controversial”, which would be rather avoided. Political issues of a larger scale such as war or refugee crisis were an example of ones assigned to the “grey area” category, while charitable events or moral issues are perceived as unarguably positive. As one of the interviewees noted regarding peace talks on Syria, the importance for him to address issues with certainty, to know the exact goals, if certain charitable causes he would be asked to endorse: ‘I need to know that the cause is indisputably a positive one. And not to think well this is the kind of obvious left wing right kind of thing to do’ (#9).
The communication tone and style in which the messages are delivered are defined as important factors of political expression, just as abilities to control them. Applying humor, avoiding a “preachy” tone, and being respectful are several of the strategies artists use to express their opinion and engage fans. As one of the interviewees described when endorsing or opposing certain politicians, he does expect his fans to disagree, however he emphasizes
that the tone he applies, smoothens the conversation: ‘I am trying to do that in a way that it is not forced upon them, so they make their own decisions, what they see right or wrong.’ (#6). It is pointed, that communication managers at times come to assistance and review the messages of artists, in order to avoid controversies and fan alienation, this way also making the process of direct interpersonal communication with the fans mediated.
Reasons of refraining from stimulating civic engagement (RQ4)
To begin with, artists mostly do not perceive stimulating engagement as social obligation, and note a right to refrain from it. However, using an open question or probed, artists have provided more insights on other possible reasons, aside a conscious decision, why artists refrain from stimulating political or civic engagement:
Commercial incentives. Artists densely stomped upon the idea of of artist as a brand, which ‘tries to keep as many people happy as possible’ (#10, 26,6 K followers). Music, as often other forms of entertainment and even journalism itself is often regarded as commercialized: ‘it became much more consumer driven and I don’t feel that I ever have political conversations with other dance producers’. Thus the commercial incentives, lead to communication managers being in charge of the artists’ brand proposition, instead of the artist himself. That is why possible ‘controversies’ are silenced from the communication. Lack of time. A lot of musicians point at the competitiveness of the market and focus goes to work and creativity, despite on whether artists perceive stimulating civic/political participation as their responsibility.
Lack of interest. Some of the artists say that their role is to entertain, create music and they do not have an urge to express opinions on political or civic matters, as long as that does not harm them: ‘I am not a politician and I am not an activist, you know, I just do music’
Dance music is escapism. Some artists contend that musicians within this genre avoid politics because generally that the genre of dance music is not associated with political expression,
but it is providing ‘the service of escapism’. Even if most artists agree with such notion in regards to using music as medium, they do not agree other mediums fall under the same rule.
Conclusion
The aim of this paper was to provide insight in the perceptions of artists on stimulating civic engagement among their fans. The interviews show that there are various approaches to the issue. The perception that stimulating civic engagement is an artists’ responsibility was moderated by the perception of the artist as a celebrity (a role model), or a public person vs. private. Artists saw stimulating engagement was part of artists’ responsibility if they perceived themselves or other music artists to be influential, to be role models. In addition, the disagreement between whether artists should or should not behave as opinion leaders in the political domain, lays within the two paradigms of celebrity politics, which on one hand emphasises freedom of expression, on the other, is built on the idea of the informed-debate. Artists, who support and behave as opinion leaders, emphasize their freedom of expression as a personal and even social responsibility – to guide, to lead and be a role model. Others, opposing the idea argue that artists do not have the representative right, their opinion on societal matters, disseminated to their fans is an ‘abuse of platform’ given due to their talent, not personality, which in line with the opposition of celebrity politics, claims to marginalize relevant expertise (J. Street, 2004b). The findings show that artists adhere to the levels of issue controversy, message tone as an essential determinant on message dissemination. In line with the assumptions by Meyer (1995), it can be generalized that most of the artists agree on supporting expression on moral, ‘inarguably positive’ issues, charity and avoid ‘heavy’ politics. The avoidance of controversies, however, counteracts the idea of artists being capable of demanding greater transparency of policy makers or furthermore, instigating revolutionary social movements.
The willingness to stimulate political engagement and the preferred forms of participation among artists was found to be regulated by the medium. Artists unanimously found dance music the most unsuitable medium for political messages, for aesthetic reasons or perceived uneffectiveness. Mainstream media was pointed as a suitable one, however, it was critisized to provide a limited interest to societal and political topics. Eventually, as predicted social media was mostly used for political and civic messages, as predicted (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar, 2015). However, the sensitivity to the power of social media may be indicating that due to social media, the relationship between musicians and fans is in fact not entirely non-horizontal, as predicted.
These findings on the perceptions of artists of stimulating participation are helpful in establishing the insights of previous research on celebrity role of inducing civic and political participation. Earlier in this paper, we noted that a cohort analysis (Mares and Woodard 2006) provided some support for maturational explanations: older adults watched slightly more television than younger people, even after controlling for cohort, period, gender and educational level. Some older people watched more than younger adults because they did not have a paid job, and to a lesser extent because of poorer health or a lower income.
The current qualitative study adds to these insights by describing how older people experience such an increase in viewing in various ways. Furthermore, Mares and Woodard found these maturational differences, but noted that they were more complex than simplistic descriptions sug- gest. They also reported that widowhood and other variables concerning social contacts did not have an effect on differences between age groups in amount of television viewing. Their findings are logical in view of the variety of television-viewing behaviour found in the current interview study: in response to retirement, physical changes and the loss of their partner, some interviewees increased their viewing, whereas others diminished it.
As far as further research is concerned, one of the questions to address would be measuring the level of controversy of topics. This study showed that artists find some of the topics “grey area” however, this study did not establish a particular unified frame for defining which information could be perceived as contravertial, harmful for the image or harmful for the alienation of society. Also, it could be extended to the perception of fans and the factors that define one or another celebrity as an opinion leader in the political domain, as it was noted by previous research on measuring opinion leadership (Flynn et al., 1996).
A limitation of the study is that a semi-structured open interview method made some of the concepts, such as political self-efficacy hard to measure, while political interest – hard to compare. A suggestion for further research would be either to provide more questions and a simplified scale of answer choices, particularly measuring political interest, either avoid the question. Also to increase internal validity more measures could be applied, such as using several coders or doing extensive member checks.
In summary, this interview study shows how an analysis in terms of political participation in the civic and political domain and its determinans can shed light on the incentives and perceptions of popular figures in their role of stimulating political engagement among their fans. The perceptions depend on the interplay between the views towards the freedom of speech, hierarchy and representation in democracy; the level of interpretation of an artist as a public versus private person and the level of perceived influence of artists. Artists generally prefer engaging into charitable events and causes, and less politically controvertial issues. Social media is perceived as the main medium for opinion leadership in the political domain, however bringing traits of horizontal and interpersonal interaction.
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Appendix 1: Interview guide Master Thesis Interview Questions
I am interested in the influence and responsibilities that artists in the music industry perceive to have on their followers when it comes to political and social matters. It is carried under the University of Amsterdam and you are guaranteed a full discretion to your answers, meaning the responses will be kept anonymous. Therefore, please be completely honest, since there is no wrong or right answer to this.
Defines political interest:
1) How interested, would you say, you are in politics? Is it a topic that matters to you? 2) How engaged are you in civic life? social issues? (e.g. discuss, vote, donate, volunteer)
Defines political efficacy:
3) Do you ever think about certain political or social changes in the society? Do you ever feel you could play a part in bringing about this change?
Defines perceived opinion leadership (among personal networks)(Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1948, 50):
4) Do you often try to convince anyone of your own ideas on social or political matters in personal life?
5) How often are you asked you for your advice, opinion on a question regarding social/political matter by friends or family, coworkers?
Defines perceived opinion leadership on fans:
6) How influential, do you think, you are to your fans? Defines personal intention to stimulate civic engagement:
7) What do you think of the idea of expressing views in music? Have you ever done it? What was your intention behind it?
8) What do you think when artists express their opinion regarding a certain political or societal matter on a public medium? Have you done it? If you have done it, what was your intention behind it?
9) Have you ever tried to consciously encourage your fans/followers to engage in political or social issues?
Defines general perception on artists as opinion leaders (in order to compare perceived personal responsibility vs. general responsibility of artists)
10) Do you think that artists have a social or moral obligation to influence people on certain behavior? Why?
(If you disagree) do you think musicians should refrain from political or civic expressions? Defines reasons of refraining from stimulating civic engagement among fans:
11) Why do you think some dance musicians do not attempt to stimulate civic engagement among their fans?
Perception that dance music is made for entertainment only? being afraid to lose fans? commercial reasons? Other?
Appendix 2: Interviews
Interviewee #1,
130 K Facebook followers, 7,2 K Twitter followersI am so focused on music and only music on so many years, I am 37 years old now, I got into this in the early nineties and I wish I would have more broad interests but….
But that is why I am doing this research, thus that is exactly what is interesting. Yes, yes, exactly.
Tell me, how interested, would you say, you are in politics?
I am not interested that much in politics, but being in electronic dance music scene, particularly house music scene, made me aware of some things, because the moment when this music had been born, it happened, this music started in a time when there were still big racial issues in (United) states, also people with different sexuality were treated differently, so this music started in place where people with different minorities and sexualities were coming together. And studying the history of this music and being part of it I started to be aware of these problems, not particularly political problems, but social problems. And this music and this scene started to think about the world in a broader way.
Can you expand on that? Did you get more into global problems, did you start to read news?
More and more I am interested in all of it. But to be honest, I have no time. My life is studio and the airport. And my most valuable thing is the time. But being an international person I meet a lot of people. Just because of that I am aware of what is happening abroad is very personal for me. E.g. the events in Paris, it happened not such a long time ago. For me it was something that happened at home, because Paris is just two hours away from me.
So although I don’t have time, because of what I do, I am aware and Dj’s, artists who travel around the world, we are everywhere so we get the information actually first hand.
Do you discuss the issues thus?
Absolutely! When you arrive at a new destination, you meet the promoters, have the small talk, go for a dinner, after we finish talking about music, we continue about something else, and normally that’s the problems around the world.
Do you ever talk about social or political issues with your fans in an interview or Facebook?
No unfortunately not. I don’t do it. I wouldn’t say I am very active in that direction. Do you engage into some civic activities? Volunteering voting?
I’ve never done it. I vote, I think it is very important, after the elections we tend to complain in my country, but I feel I have the right to complain because I gave my vote, so if you have an opinion you have to show it so I do. But unfortunately I have never participated in such activities, like doing some sort of volunteering, not yet but maybe at some point in my life. Would you agree you have a strong followship?
I do, have a very strong fan base yes.
How about the connection with you fans?
It is a very strong connection and there are lots of types of people following me. The way we think about the politics in Bulgaria, it is a bit different that in the West. Even when we discuss politics with my closest friends, we don’t speak so open about it. So maybe I have a bit of a more reserved and conservative thinking about expressing freely my opinion. Also there are so many different people following me just because of my music, so at the moment I try not to engage about other topics. And also what I realized about with the last 1 or 2 years: you have to be careful with your opinion on the internet. I saw it destroy careers by saying the wrong things.
Maybe you recently followed what happened with Ten Walls – a quite successful artist, who shared his opinion about gay people. I totally disagree with what he said, but even some of my gay friends were saying it was so strange that his career was over just in 24 hours and although what he said was ugly, the power of internet is kind of frightening. So I am kind of scared to share my opinion on the internet at the moment.
In regards to this if you would see some injustice would you speak up or you would speak up or you would refrain because it might fire back at you?
Yeah, I would speak out. If I see something I totally disagree I would definitely speak up. E.g. then ,e.g. in this case if you disagree with the opinion’s opinion, about this example would you speak up?
No it is a grey area, I totally disagree with his opinion, but devoted fans shutter his records. But the latest events on Paris attacks, I expressed it and like every other person I said, I am totally against about what happened, there is no grey area it is pure bad, so I expressed my condolences.
As an artist do you think you have an obligation to express your standpoints?
Of course sometimes you don’t even think about your following and you need to express your position.
I do because we have such an influence we are supposed to be role models, but in reality there are so many things we have to handle, we are not machines we are supposed to influence people in a good way but we are human, and I struggle to find the time to sleep so my physical survival is my priority, so I struggle to find the time to be a role model.
I have a position, but I don’t have enough information and I wouldn’t want to have an opinion of something that I am not aware of.
Do you think that music should stay away from politics in general?
That is a good question. I think as everything in life, everything concerning arts is about balance. If you don’t have any of the Baltic streams is good. I think music is a form of expression, so it is a really good way to bring awareness, I think music should be connected also with politics in a way, but I am against of any kind of extremes.
Have you ever put a message in your music?
No. Why? It is because of the way I understand electronic music. One of the reasons I am into this genre is because it is giving information to me differently. When you listen to music on the radio, there are lyrics, there is someone telling you what to feel what to do, and in my experience in my life all these messages by the artists, it never worked on me. So the information that I got from electronic music without lyrics, worked better. But there are no clear messages, like be nice be tolerant, it is just a different type of information, messages. I never put a message the way the kind that you would be talking about. There is energy in my music, it is supposed to speak differently to the people.
I haven’t put a direct recording on your recording is a very easy way to make people like you to sell your records. It is a very easy way to make people respond to you. I would not like to take a voice of a legendary historical person to sell my records. Maybe I would influence people in a good way, but I don’t find it very creative. My reasons are purely esthetic.
Why do you think musicians do it?
I don’t think there are reasons behind why other musicians do it, someone just stumbles upon it, it sounds nice, so why not to put it on a record, I think that is maybe the reason. I might be wrong of course.
Do you see dance music artists expressing themselves politically?
I see it among the artists which are more grown up, mature, being a part of the scene for a while, but all the rising new stars are being rather concerned about their career and then after a while I think if they survive at doing what they do I think they start to pay attention to other things outside of their life.
So I’ve seen people doing it, Laurent Garnier, he has a really strong opinion and he is always eager to express it, but he is a legend he has been doing it for a long long time.
An me, I don’t think there is a big reason behind it. I am observing my own career, personally had a manager, never had a person telling me what to do. There were just stages in my life, when I was concerned about my life and then getting older, becoming more mature you become more involved with what is happening. I was being concerned only with my life. My attention was more the music the studio.
Do you think artist have a moral obligation on political or civic engagement?
I think it is our obligation and we can do it in a very pure way, because we are not part of the political life, we are quite independent so we can do it in a very pure way, but that has to come naturally.
We are the new rockstars. In the 90s 80s rock music was the biggest phenomenon. Now even if not house and techno all the music is being made electronically. So we are the new, electronic music is now the biggest thing. If the electronic music used to be small and pure and used to stand for something in the 90s and 80s, now it is just big, I don’t think it is socially or politically identified with something, but I hope we will go back to our routes. Represent something good like it used to be.
It is possible. As I said some of us grow up and we decide to use our power. So I believe it is possible that we can bring some good values.
Interviewee
#2
, no public Facebook profile, 2 K Twitter followers Do you often think of political or societal change within in the society? Me personally? Yes, all the time.What are your topics?
Just in a lot of things, aside of music and things I read a lot, everything covering from philosophy, economic issues, global politics, etc. I do read a lot and I watch the news. I got aspirations aside music which involve me reading a lot so I do have a commitment to read over an hour per day.
Do you discuss political issues?
I don’t discuss it with my music friends. I mean I’ve got various friends, my best friends, my DJ friends, a lot of them I’ve known the longest I don’t talk anything political with them. How about other circles?
