Richardson, Jeanita, and Kim Scott. "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context." The Journal of Negro Education, 71.3 (2002): 175-192.
This article's intention is to take a different look at rap music/industry from a positive outlook. Its main purpose is to show why rap music shouldn't be seen as just deviant behavior put into words. The belief being that making a negative impression about rap, without understanding its meaning and how it came about is unfair. The statement "Rap music, is rooted in the African tradition of speaking rhythmically to a beat generally supplied by background music" (Richardson 176) really sets the stage for the rest of the article, as a beginning to show the truth behind rap music.
Richardson and Scott truly seem to believe that too many negative attitudes nationwide are directed at rap music, when many other forms of music and media could also be seen as having negative messages. They realize that rap does give off negative messages about drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc, however they think that if put into a rap artist's shoes, many people would better understand the intended theme of the songs.
This article seems to be perfect to provide information to write my paper. It not only gives the an opinion on America's portrayal, but also a personal opinion about rap music. The use of both personal opinion and outside sources/facts really increases the functionality of the article. What seems logical is to use this source as information for one point of view on the topic and find another article with a mostly negative outlook on rap.
Fried, Carrie. "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29.4 (1999): 705-721.
The use of experiments and polls is very prevalent in Fried's "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." The idea of the article is not necessarily to persuade or convince, but to let the reader form their own opinion based on informational studies and statistics. By stating both positive and negative results of rap music, the article becomes a very balanced, straight-forward article. The two following quotes provide this balanced reporting: "It has been argued that rap serves as a voice of protest for those left out of the “American dream” (Fried 706)," and "...exposure to violent rap videos leads to a greater acceptance of violence and lowered academic aspirations among young African Americans (Fried 706)." The article also makes many comparisons between rap and other genres of music, especially country and heavy metal in order to show the difference in perceptions of similar quotes in music.
Fried purposely takes no apparent opinion on the topic in the article. She solely is providing information for the reader to form their own perspective about rap music. This is good for my paper, in that a neutral viewpoint gives non-biased, factual information about rap and its effects on Americans. The various graphs and charts will provide me with proven numbers to work with, if needed, to persuade the reader in my own paper.
Iwamoto, Derek. "Tupac Shakur: Understanding the Identity Formation of Hyper-Masculinity of a Popular Hip-Hop Artist." Black Scholar, 33.2 (2003): 44-49.
This Tupac Shakur article is the first one i read that focused on a specific rapper, compared to the rap industry as a whole. It basically differentiated Shakur's "masks" in the wide variety of songs he produced and showed how they influenced the media and public perception of not only him, but rap music as a whole. For example, many of his songs did reference violence, so Iwamoto showed the difference in the effect this had on followers of rap and non-followers. Now, because he was a major artist within the rap scene, many people associated the rest of rap with him as well. The article did provide two sides of information throughout.
Though the author's perspective wasn't shown too much in the article, his perspective seems to be critical of the public's general negative quick interpretation of rap, especially those with little knowledge of it. He seems to think that rap has both positive and negative effects, but also appreciates the creativity that goes into creating rap songs. Overall, I'd classify his position as neutral or slightly a positive outlook on rap.
A micro-research paper like this provides specific examples of the ideas that other articles just touch on. It will be good to incorporate both general and specific material into my paper to create a balance of information. I can use the information in this article to explain the broad topics within my paper.
Conrad, Kate, Travis Dixon, and Yuanyuan Zhang. "Controversial Rap Themes, Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53.1 (2009): 134-156.
Key terms:
Materialism: Expression of one's wealth
Misogyny: portrayal of men's dominance over women (in rap music videos)
Colorism: prejudice based on skin tone/color
The content of this article is laid out almost perfectly in the title of the article. Its main purpose is to analyze rap music videos and show how they affect people's overall portrayal of rap music. The authors use various research and experiments to analyze three main issues with rap music: thematic content, Afrocentric features, and gender differences. They provide both negative and positive themes found within rap music and use them to figure out the relation of music video content to listener's perception. Also, the article not only focused on skin color, it got specific enough to examine skin tone of blacks and how darkness effects perception.
Since there are three different authors for this article, it is hard to tell what perspectives they each have. However, it seems as though they are trying to write a neutral article that focuses on research to provide answers to their questions. They use very little personal bias and focus mostly on facts found in experiments of rap music videos.
I like that this article showed the relation of the actual rap songs and the videos that go with them. It provides me with information from a whole new viewpoint that I previously wasn't planning on going into.
Adams, Terri, and Douglas Fuller. "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music."Journal of Black Studies, 36.6 (2006): 938-957.
Keyword: Misogyny- hatred or disdain toward women (939)
Adams and Fullers' article has one large goal in mind: to show the relationship between misogynistic views in rap music and the overall view of African American women throughout history. They claim that since misogyny emerged in rap music during the 1980s, it has remained a large component of rap in many different ways. Even songs with a title that doesn't relate to women at all sometimes fit misogynistic comments in their songs somewhere. Adams and Fuller claim that the use of misogyny in rap is what causes 1, many people to have a negative view of rap music, and 2, those who like rap to develop racist or sexist views.
The authors definitely have a negative view of rap and do not agree with the representation of women in rap music. They only provide one perspective, making this a rather biased article. Facts and cited information is used to promote their viewpoint, but again that is the only one discussed throughout. The positive themes within rap are never examined.
This article will work well to conflict previous articles I found like "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context," which has a more positive outlook on rap music. When used to argue against each other, I think they will provide an interesting argument in my own paper. I personally do not agree with this article, but it's good to use "balanced coverage" when writing my own paper, even if I disagree with something.
Trapp, Erin. "The Push and Pull of Hip-Hop: A Social Movement Analysis." American Behavioral Scientist, 48.11 (2005): 1482-1495.
The article examines how hip-hop and rap have affected social movements, using two different theories. The new social movement theory states "...music asserts the shifting identities of (largely) African American youth into the larger culture that could not previously accommodate the ideas and practices expressed in these identities" (1483). This is considered to be the "push" effect. The new social movement theory can be compared to the political opportunity theory which says hip-hop/ rap artists are social movement leaders themselves. This theory is called the "pull" effect. Trapp uses the work of rap and hip-hop icons Queen Latifah and Tupac Shakur (who grew with similar lifestyles), to show the difference in portrayal of women in their songs.
Trapp has a very neutral standpoint in her article, she solely wanted to explore the difference between an artist who creates a new social movement and one who simply promotes an existing one. However, by the end of the article, she comes to a conclusion based on her research, without ever taking a side in the article.
This article was useful for more than just information. Trapp's ability to make a conclusion about her topic without using bias, as I explained in the previous paragraph, will help me write my own paper. From an information standpoint, the use of the two contrasting theories is different from any other article I've read so far. Two contrasting ideas like this is always useful, because I'll be able to put both in my paper and allow the reader to make their own decision on which they feel is more correct.
Sullivan, Rachel. "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?." Journal of Black Studies, 33.5 (2003): 605-622.
This article provides a first-hand look at how rap has affected rap music fans. It is different from many other articles that examine rap portrayal, in that, most focus on studies and writer's viewpoints, instead of the opinions of individual rap music listeners. Teenagers are the focus of the article, because they make up the majority of rap music listeners. Interviews are used to determine the difference of perception of rap based on race. It was found that rap music is liked by a wide variety of races, but was easier to actual relate to for a African American kids. The history and origin of rap provided in the beginning of the article shows why rap is characterized like is today.
The author Rachel E. Sullivan, writes from a purely research-based standpoint. Once again, personal opinion is absent in this paper. As shown under the title, she is writing in affiliation with the University of Connecticut. The title- "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?" seems to show she wrote in a very similar manner as I will be. A question in the title like so, leads to inquiry, as I will also be doing.
The interviews of teenage kids will be very useful to me when writing my own paper. I can relate well to other teenager's opinions of rap, because I am a teen that listens to rap as well. Also, because this paper is written in a similar way that I plan to write mine, it will be a nice guide for me to look at.
Tyson, Edgar. "Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale: A Validation Study." Research on Social Work Practice, 16.2 (2006): 211-223.
Tyson's article is actually a study that tests the Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale (RAP), which apparently is supposed to measure a person's feelings towards rap based on the content of rap music. Using various theories, studies and procedures this study confirmed that the RAP was a good measure of people's feelings towards rap music.
The author of this article wrote from a skeptical perspective. He probably felt that there was no way a sheet of paper like the RAP could prove a person's perception of rap music. He used experiments he conducted to prove himself wrong, and then put the results of his study into a paper.
I don't really think this article is going to be very useful for answering my own research question, it contains a lot of information I really don't think will be useful to me. However, I feel the actual RAP Scale and its measures of people's perceptions may possibly be useful. I may try to find a copy of it and use it to support claims in my paper.
Herd, Denise. "Changing Images of Violence in Rap Music Lyrics: 1979-1997." Journal of Public Health Policy, 30.4 (2009): 395-406.
The idea of this article is to explain the changes within rap music, especially lyrically from the 1970s to the 1990s. Obviously, rap music has changed tremendously in many ways since its beginning in the 1970s. This specific article focuses mostly on the appearance of violent references within rap songs. It finds that violent phrases have more than doubled in rap music as a whole in the 20-year span. Violence has gradually become associated with power, wealth, glamour, etc., which has also increased acceptance of rap. Changing social conditions and increased teenage violent behavior is seen as a cause of such a change.
It seems as though the writer is concerned with the content in rap music, especially violent references, which would be why she chose to write about such a topic. It seemed that by the end of the article she became more understanding of rap, based off of the information she gathered about changing social conditions which explained why rap has changed.
The examining of actual content of rap music in this article will be very helpful in providing information to back-up a conclusion I'll eventually make about my own research question.
1 from Original Research Question:
Research Question: "How has the portrayal of the father figure in television sitcoms changed throughout the life of sitcoms?"
Scharrer, Erica. "From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45.1 (2001): 23-40.
Summary: Over the years, the representation of fathers in television sitcoms has changed gradually but drastically. For example, jokes directed toward the man of the family used to be non-existent, where as today it is very common. The fact that sitcoms tend to follow the current economic and social states of a country, explain why this is true. Historically, when men were the main breadwinners for the family and women were stay-at-home moms, men were respected more than women. This idea of men being more important than women basically prohibited jokes being made against men in sitcoms. Today, women are much more present in the workforce and are viewed as equal to men, making jokes against men more appropriate.
An aspect that changes more randomly is when relating a man's portrayal in sitcoms to their economic class on the show. For the most part, more shows with a middle-class father will make fun of the character when compared to a show with an upper-class father. The idea being a middle-class father has less "power" than an upper-class one. Overall, sitcoms represent real-life society and allow a "weak" father character to be the basis of a joke, whereas a "strong" is the opposite. For example, in real-life tall men are usually seen as powerful and short men viewed as weak.
Author's Perspective: While reading the article, I got a feel of a feminist perspective without even realizing that a woman wrote it until after i read it. A majority of the article is not only about how a father's portrayal has changed, but a wife's as well. I feel as though Scharrer likes the idea that today's portrayal is not as unfair; that is something she points out numerous times. She definitely feels that the portrayal of fathers in sitcoms has changed quite a bit, and rightfully so. Her research led right to that conclusion.
How it helps me: This article provides a lot of information as to why the portrayal of fathers has changed and lays out how it occurred over time. I feel it will be useful for me when writing my own paper, especially from the "shift in power aspect."
