Scientific Methods in Media Effects Research

Content analysis is important to researchers so that they can describe the content of the communication output they are researching. However, one can’t draw conclusions from this content analysis. Manifest content is content that is shallow and on the surface. Latent content is content that might be more difficult to see and a researcher might have to look between the lines. Researchers decided to do a study to see the amount of lyrics referencing drugs and alcohol in popular songs. Within a study to analyze content, the sample is very important, because it needs to be a correct insight into the world scientists are trying to analyze. For this example, researchers used the Billboard top charts for songs to study. The study found that from these popular songs, 1/3 had explicit references to drugs and alcohol, and the majority of them mention the positive sides to drugs more frequently than the negative consequences. 77% of rap songs have references to drugs while pop songs only have references to drugs 9% of the time. Based off these findings Primack and his colleagues concluded that high schoolers are exposed to approximately 84 references to substances per day.

Reading this reminded me of growing up and hearing my first rap songs and being opened to that world. I had heard music before, but never really paid attention. I remember the first rap song I paid attention to was Stronger by Kanye West. The song came out in 2007 so I was 7. I remember it was just so different from everything else I’d heard. It also had curse words in it. That was my first experience hearing words like that in a song.

From there I have become so desensitized to curse words in rap songs that I don’t realize how dirty some of them are until I play them around adults or my parents. Like there are some lyrics. Like Bandz Make Her Dance from Juicy J – “She make that ass clap dancing like she on a d— / Bring it back I threw a stack that’s a lucky bitch / Up and down she’s going she’s sliding on that pole”. Listening to that with parents around is not fun.