“The Power of Music” Popular Music, Feminist Discourse, and Social Change: An Analysis of Gender Representation in Lyrics, Videos and Audience Comments
Date
2024
Authors
Adriázola, Valeria
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract
This thesis explores the intersection of popular music, feminist discourse, and social change. It addresses key questions about how pop singers integrate gender and feminist discourse into their songs and videos, the nature of audience responses, and the potential of popular music for social change.
The analysis focuses on Beyoncé's "If I Were A Boy" (2008), Taylor Swift's "The Man" (2019), and Pink's "Stupid Girls" (2006). Each song, in its own style and from different perspectives, addresses social norms that perpetuate gender inequalities. They encourage a re-evaluation of how women are perceived and treated in various contexts.
I employed a qualitative methodology to examine the selected songs and their music videos and used Lazar’s (2005) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Fairclough's (2010) Three-Dimensional Model. Through an inductive and deductive approach, a coding system was created to analyze the comments made by users on the YouTube platform.
The results demonstrate how the artists incorporate gender and feminist discourse in their songs but also show that the songs may unintentionally perpetuate elements of the patriarchal structures they seek to criticize. Also, the results show how audience comments tend to focus more on the artists than on the gender and feminist messages themselves. This approach suggests that the impact of the content may be overshadowed by the figure of the celebrities themselves.
Beyond these shortcomings, I want to show that music has a unique power to drive meaningful change, challenging norms and sparking conversations that enable us to envision a different future.