The Rhetoric of Revolt
Protest Rock and Drugs by John P. Robinson, Robert Pilskaln, and Paul Hirsch
National panel study shows behavioral overlap, functional dijjerences; “youth culture” may have accelerated but de-fused the radical movement. Social observers, beginning with Plato, have attributed to music and the other arts great powers to effect social change. Concern about this potential influence has provided severe criticisms of new forms of popular American music. In the 192Os, for example, moral polemicists in this country attacked the widespread diffusion of jazz music (16). These attacks presaged, in many ways, the attacks made on rock music in the 1960s. Where such critics saw all facets of 1920s jazz music as objectionable, reaction to the changes in popular music of the 1960s-rock music-was directed at the messages contained in the lyrics of the songs. Content analyses of lyrics showed that during the 1960s popular songs underwent a marked change from what had been an overwhelming concern with romantic love and courtship stages t o more frequent use of “story lines” concerning different sides of controversial social issues, such as Vietnam and alternative life styles.’ Some social scientists attributed to rock music powers to turn on, or otherwise seduce, the adolescent population:
’ For two reviews of this literature, see Hirsch (9) and Denisoff and Peterson (6); content analysis of lyrics can be found in Carey (3) and Cole (4). john P. Robinson is Professor of Communication and Director of the Communication Research Centcr at Cleveland State University. Robert Pilskaln is a graduate student in Sociology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and has broadcast his own weekly rock music revue. Paul Hirsch is Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Business and Research Associate in the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago. This work was supported in part by grant number 1-R01-HM17064 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by a general grant on the social impact of the mass media from the John and Mary Markle Foundation.
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Rock was pivotal in the collective youth activities of the late 1960s, the “love genemtion” emulation of California hippies, the anti-Vietnam war rallies, involvement with hallucinogenic drugs, and the great rock festivals which embodied all of these elements (17, p . 297). The matter was put most directly and eloquently by a first-hand observer of the youth scene:
The 12-inch long-playing vinylite phonograph record, with @s half-hour to minutes of songs, is an intellectual time bomb. . . . The Rolling Stones attack sexual taboos and endorse the directness of today’s young people. Not an overtly revolutionary act but one which-when coupled with the Beatles singing“1’d love to turn you on” and “ I get high with a little help from my friends . . .”-challenges fundamentals of American behavior. Once you set up a situation in which sacred tenets of the social fabric are treated as obsolete or irrelevant, anything can be questioned. . . . As I see it, the situation is plain: if you want to reach young people in this country (and revolutions ure made by the young . . .), then write a song, don’t buy an ad or issue a statement (8, p p . 161-162). 45
In this context the diffusion of popular rock records with “social protest” lyrics expressing critical views of the war, positive views of drug use, and commentaries on the hypocrisy of businessmen, political leaders, and others in roles of responsibility raised long-range questions about the audience impact of this form of popular culture. It also revived those fundamental questions about mass media and public opinion that invariably arise with the arrival of innovative media or innovations
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in media content. The common expectation, based on existing studies on the effects of mass media, was that rock music would have minimal effects on its audience (14, 22). Nevertheless, we were still curious what the changed content of media messages contained in “hit” songs might signify, if anything. Could the new lyrics be a reflection of changed attitudes on the part of youthful listeners; or might they b e acting to create new attitudes, subtly imbedded in the background noise or “sounds” for dancing? More specifically, could such new popular songs in any way be associated with parallel but separate upward movements of drug abuse and political dissent?
W e will draw upon a unique body of empirical evidence on the impact of the rock music phenomenon that bears on these questions. The data come from a comprehensive national panel study of Youth in Transition conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. This study had been following the behavior and attitudes of a panel of young men since their tenth year in school. The initial panel was a national cross-section of 2,200 boys selected by probability methods from 87 public high schools across the country in the fall of 1966. These boys were interviewed annually, including a point one year past their graduating year (1969) in high school in the spring of 1970. At this time, in addition to about an hour’s worth of questions asked on previous surveys, the 1,620 young men remaining in the panel were asked new questions dealing with (a) their usage of hard and soft drugs in the preceding year and (b) their mass media usage and preferences. Considerable care was devoted to facilitating honest and confidential responses to the questions on the extent of drug usage in the preceding year (11). They were part of a separate form labeled “Confidential Information” that also included questions on engagement in delinquent behaviors (e.g., car theft, interpersonal aggression) which the respondents had been asked in previous interviews. This information was filled out in private and mailed back to the Institute for Social Research. Scrupulous coding procedures were followed to remove any possibility that individual respondents could be linked to their answers to these confidential questions. Less than 2 percent of the respondents, on the average, omitted responses to each of the questions concerning drug usage. Another aspect bearing on the frankness, and perhaps the validity, of the answers was that close to forty percent of respondents did admit using one of the five illegal drugs. The percentage reporting use of each drug in the preceding year is given in Table 1 and ranges from 2 percent for heroin to 89 percent for alcohol. In the quite separate portion of the interview dealing with his use of the mass media, each young man was asked to describe his favorite music in response to the following question: “Suppose you had the chance to listen to your three favorite records (singles or albums). Which three would you pick? Which artist recorded them?” All records named were coded into one of the following categories: (a)
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Table 1: Drug use during the year after high school
Marijuana (pot, grass) o r hashish Amphetamines ( p e p pills, bennies, s p e e d , uppers) Barbiturates (yellow jackets, red devils, downers) Hallucinogens (LSD, mescaline, peyote, etc.) Heroin (smack, horse, “H”) Alcoholic beverages (liquor, beer, wine) Cigarettes
% W h o used
o h W h o did not use
34 14 9
2
66 86 91 89 98
89 68
11 32
11
protest rock; (b) soul, motown, or rhythm and blues, (c) all other hit records, including “bubble gum” and “old-style’’ rock; (d) non-hit show tunes, mood music, “square” pop singers; (e) country-and-western songs not on hit parade; and ( f ) all other, e.g., religious or classical music. These categories correspond closely to the terminology and radio station formats employed throughout the music industry during this period.2
The “protest rock” category i s of particular interest for its potential as a cultural indicator of attachment to and identification with what was publicly celebrated during these years as the new youth culture. Popular records in this category included those whose lyrics depart from the more traditional topics of courtship and love to address other social and political issues, including business ethics, drug use, and the actions of political leaders. We include here only records featured by the radio medium, thus excluding “protest” songs in the form of folk music (5) and topical broadsides (17) historically ignored by the mass media. (Almost none of our teenage respondents listed musical selections which had not received radio station airplay. ) Because “protest rock” is an arbitrary concept, in that both the intended and imputed meanings of song lyrics are sometimes ambiguous, we also “delegated” part of the decision over which records to include in this category to several third parties. For example, the U.S. Government, both through the Federal Communications Commission and former Vice President Spiro Agnew, released lists, identifying examples of records alleged to be “favorable” to illegal activities, principally drug-related. Time and Newsweek both publicized and sought The industry’s terms for the same categories, respectively, were “underground;” “soul;” “top 40;” “middle-of-the-road;” and “country.” Examples given to the coders included: H i t or underground protest songs: “Give Peace a Chance.” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono; “Have a Marijuana,” by David Peel; and “Streetfighting Man,” by the Rolling Stones. Soul: “Baby Don’t Leave Me,” by the Supremes; and “1 Heard It Through the Grapevine,” by Gladys Knight or Marvin Gaye. Other “hit” records: “Sugar. Sugar,” by the Archies; “ A Boy Named Sue,“ by Johnny Cash; “Tie a Yellow Ribbon (Around the Old Oak Tree),” by Dawn. Non-hit show tunes, mood music, “square” p o p singers: songs from “Fiddler on the Roof,” by Steve Lawrence, Doris Day.
The Rhetoric of ReooltjProtest Rock and Drugs
Table 2: Percentage of persons using drugs as a function of protest music preference Three favorite records included
of persons who used Marijuana Amphetamines Barbiturates Hallucinogens Heroin Alcoholic beverages Cigarettes
3 protest
2 protest
1 protest
0 protest
records
records
records
Total sample
( N = 291)
(N = 310)
record (N = 256)
(N = 390)
(N = 1620)
56 22 15 21 3 94 67
44 20 12 18 3 94 70
22 10 7 6 3 84 66
34 14 9 11 2 89 68
27 11 5 7
1 90
72
Note: This table does not suggest that all or most listeners to “protest” records reported having used drugs. (A majority did not.) Nor does the table suggest that non-users were more likely to become users on exposure to music. (The table, in fact, should not obscure the majorities of listeners who are non-users.) What these data do suggest is simply that those who reported having used drugs were also more likely to have included protestoriented records among their favorites.
to “translate” the meanings of various popular hits for the public. Mainly, however, it was the “underground” radio stations, usually FM, which usually certified selected recordings and performing groups as legitimate artifacts of the “new” youth culture, even though their lyrics per se might not have anything directly to do with social p r ~ t e s t As . ~ used here, then, the term “protest rock” broadly encompasses the “acid rock” of Jimi Hendrix, the “hard rock” of Janis Joplin, and the softer, more contemplative selections of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Using these criteria, each respondent was given a score according to the number of protest records listed among his three favorites-a score of three being assigned to a respondent listing a protest record for all three favorites down to a score of zero if the respondent listed no protest rock selections among his favorites. Despite the diversity of both popular music and protest rock records listed, reliability checks conducted several months apart showed different coders agreeing on the appropriate song style categories for well over 80 percent of the records listed. In all, the sample distributed itself rather evenly across the four possible categories with 18 percent listing protest records for all three selections, 19 percent for two out of three, 16 percent for one out of three, and 24 percent listing no protest favorites. The remaining 23 percent of the sample could not be coded onto the above scale because they failed to list enough records. The statistical relation between preference for protest records and usage of This, in turn, produced a hybrid category which was further coded two ways, each with high intercoder ( 8) reliability. When songs with alleged “drug lyrics” were coded separately, this subcategory proved substantially ~ P S Srelated to drug use than the entire “protest rock” category, and it was subsequently dropped in favor of the latter, broader, more inclusive and socially aware coding category High coding reliability of protest music was also reported by Mashkin and Volgy (15)
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each of the drugs examined for the 1970 Youth in Transition sample is outlined in Table 2. Reported usage for five of the drugs varied monotonically with preference for protest music. The association was most pronounced for marijuana and for hallucinogens (e.g., LSD). Usage of marijuana, for example, increased from about 25 percent for those having only one or no protest favorites to almost 50 percent among those having two or three protest favorites. For hallucinogens, t h e parallel was from 7 percent usage among the non-protest oriented to 20 percent among those whose predominant choices ran to protest records. Although weaker associations between preference for protest music and reported drug usage were found for amphetamines and for barbiturates, t h e percentage of reported usage among those with two or three protest music favorites was still nearly twice as high as among those with one or no such favorites. The relationship with use of alcoholic beverages deserves particular attention because, unlike the four drugs just mentioned, its use is largely legal. Its use was practically universal among all music groups, but this should not obscure the correlation that does exist between protest music and alcoholic beverages. If one looks at non-usage percentages instead of usage percentages, the roughly one-to-two ratio obtains again-6 percent non-usage among the protest audience compared to 14 percent among those less inclined toward protest music. Against this background of clear positive associations, t h e lack of corresponding differential relations for cigarette and heroin usage is also significant. Since cigarette smoking obviously has less mind-altering effects and is probably embedded in a different pattern of social behavior than the other drugs, its deviation from the pattern is not terribly unexpected. Heroin usage is generally much more integral to the drug scene, however, and its lack of relation to a preference for protest music carries much more significance. T o be sure, few admitted heroin users were in the sample, and the reluctance of heroin users to have submitted to an interview might explain the lack of any relationship being obtained. Nevertheless, our more extended discussions of the associations between protest music preference and drug usage does not apply to heroin. It is, of course, a long road between correlation a n d causation. Before reaching any conclusions about protest music being a cause of drug usage, in the same sense of “cause” in the physical sciences, we conducted a vigorous search for “third” variables that could ultimately explain (or explain away) the results. Using the rich variety of background material available in the Youth in Transition file, we did find one variable that seriously attenuated the relations in Table 2-the allpowerful peer group. Including peer group usage as a predictor clearly showed friends’ behavior rather than music as an impetus toward experimenting with drugs. Much as Becker (1) has described the socialization of the marijuana user, drug usage is more dependent on the actions of other people than on the presence of a handy radio or phonograph. However, the relations in Table 2 did survive explanation by a battery of plausible alternative “third” variables, such as college attendance, size of college, grades in school, parental education (a measure of the social class in which the young man was socialized), a n d region of residence. Moreover, the
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relations were only slightly attenuated when the “counter-culture” variable of attitudes towards the war in Vietnam was introduced as a third variable. The relation even held up across race, despite the fact that the vast majority of blacks expressed a preference for “soul music.” Nor were the results affected by considering amount of usage, rather than the fact of usage, as the dependent variable. Perhaps the most dynamic evidence of a linkage between the two variables, however, is its isolation to that portion of the protest music audience which had just become initiated to the drug scene during the year of the study (18). This was also, of course, the year most of them moved away from home. It bears repeating that these data in no way constitute “proof” that listening to protest rock music caused significant numbers of youth to experiment with both illegal and legal mind-altering drugs. Not all third variables have been explored. Possibly, some personal orientation (e.g., a general interest in music) or some social contextual variables (e.g., access to music and drugs) underlies the correlation; some observers are convinced that both phenomena were promoted by a conspiracy within the drug industry. Nor can we offer any definitive evidence to reject the opposite hypothesis, i.e., that drug use causes preference for protest music. Final resolution of these matters must await an even more comprehensive data set than that available to us; even then we would need to supplement such data with a careful set of observational studies that identified the social mechanisms underlying both drug usage and music preference. How much of the relation we have identified, for example, is tied to the lyrics in the music compared to the music itself? The persistence of the basic relations shown in Table 2 remains impressive, however. The relations are much stronger than the relation between preference for TV violence and participation in violent behavior found in the same sample. Moreover, despite the more powerful influence of the peer group, some vestiges of the drug-music relation could be found among young men if some of their friends had tried the drug. It is with such results in mind that we engage in the following speculations on some possible implications of our results-not only for the field of mass media research, but in terms of the unique social atmosphere in which the rock music phenomenon flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The persistence of the basic relations shown in Table 2 thus remains impressive, despite the more powerful effect of peer group influence. Even with friends’ usage controlled, some vestiges of the relations could be foundparticularly if some or a few of one’s friends have tried the drug. H o w do these results relate to the larger field of mass media research?
With the exception of the hypothesis of greater influence of personal over impersonal sources, these results do not fit well within the general framework that has been applied to summarizing conclusions about the effects of the mass media (14), for this literature consistently interprets the media as either relatively powerless in the face of strong institutional and interpersonal forces or
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simply ineffective. They certainly would not support the view that the “mass culture” presented by the mass media only reflect and serve to reinforce the dominant social values of American society (9, 20). Klapper’s (14, p. 8) overall conclusion that “. . . the media are more likely to reinforce than to change” clearly understates what the data at several points in our analysis may be implying, as far as “dominant” social values are concerned. Moreover, one of the unique features of the data reported here is that the media stimuli are a more pervasive part of the daily lives of the young men than the media stimuli in the largely laboratory evidence available to Klapper. As Klapper acknowledged in his concluding chapter:
Little attention has here been given to the potentials of persuasive mass communication at times of massive political upheaval or in situations of actual or imminent social unrest. . . . W e have already alluded to the probable but unmapped interplay between mass media and cultural values. To look more closely at one aspect of the matter one might postulate that the media play a particularly important role in the socialization and acculturation of children ( 1 4 , p p . 254-255). To the extent that “protest” music has had any effects, they are quite likely to be more long range and more “global” than the effects of single stimuli-the specific program, message, or lyric (19) so frequently focused upon in mass media research. It is probably for this reason that the simple reinforcement principle seems a superficial explanation of the statistical relationship that links protest music and drug usage in our national sample. As such then, if “media effects” are to be inferred from the data presented here, they would fall into the situation of “imminent social unrest” noted by Klapper. The relation between rock music and its audience may stand as a dramatic instance of the potential of specialized media to facilitate a cultural (or political) fragmentation of the mass audience.
W e would therefore emphasize the possible role that the dissemination of rock music had in helping to create, sustain, and celebrate an atmosphere of social change through its legitimation of subcultural attitudes. While hardly responsible in any direct “causal” sense for opposition to the war or for teenagers’ experimentation with new drugs, the glamorization of performers who were accorded high status by one’s peers and participated in activities unpopular or illegal in the view of the dominant culture may have served as one of many contributing factors encouraging greater experimentation with new or different subcultural norms and life styles. It created an atmosphere in which young people who had not partaken of its many forms might consider themselves out of style or in need of enlightenment. This phenomenon cannot be fully appreciated without reference to the larger societal context in which it occurred. The creation of a youth constituency and the diffusion of a “youth culture,” while ultimately linked to the emergence
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Reprinted with permission from The Media Reader (Valdez and Crowe. Eds ), p 218
of “top 40” radio stations in the 1950s, gained striking salience in the media climate of the 1960s. The emphasis on “youth” in the 1960 elections evolved into a key feature of John Kennedy’s administrative style and thus was catapulted onto the national landscape. Media reporters exaggerated the import of demographic data on the increased size of this youth constituency. With the increased national policy debate about these “future leaders,” a relaxation of norms and subsequent ambiguity about youth behavior created a vacuum within which the features of the “youth culture” explored here could evolve. Conditions were, of course, exacerbated by inability of political leaders to address the frustrations generated by the sudden loss of John Kennedy. The size and rising disposable income of the new teenage market also needs to be considered. In fact, the initial changes in lyric content appear to have been due to market forces at the supply end of the music industry, irrespective of audience demand. Increasing competition within the record industry led to the granting of more artistic freedom to performers, who were permitted as a result to choose and record their own songs-which, in turn, expressed the values of their own subculture (9, 10, 17). What did preference for this type of music signify about audience members and subgroups? Data from additional local surveys between 1969-1972 document protest music preference to have been a significant cultural indicator of “anti-establishment” orientations, of which drug taking could also have been symbolic. In these teenage samples, we found the music preference correlating significantly with other “protest” or “anti-establishment” responses-including negative attitudes toward big business and the military, and favorable attitudes
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Journal of Communication, Autumn 1976
toward hippie life styles.‘ Similar results were independently reported by researchers at the University of Iowa ( 7 ) and the University of Arizona (15) at about the same time. The protest music audience was also found to be more “aware” of people and events publicized in the news media (even when age, grades in school, and other control variables were taken into account), suggesting that it was perhaps a “forerunner” group in terms of societal concerns and media sophistication (18). The relation between popular music and drugs thus appears as part of a larger network of shared attitudes and behavior, of which a key element was an openness and willingness to explore new ways of looking at the new world. In terms of interpreting the proliferation of drug usage in the 1960s and 1970s, these and other factors also need to be considered, such as the extension of the pre-existing drug networks as a highly profitable business with a vast potential market, and the extensive familiarity with aspects of drug use as popular media treated drugs as a “growing social concern.” This familiarity was augmented by the celebration of certain drug experiences and the denigration of others by popular recording artists. Depending on whom and what one listened to in the 1960s, one derived more or less extensive appreciation of what drugs were about. In some instances and for some drugs, the picture was favorable or at least fashionable. As we have seen, however, access to a drug network and a supportive milieu encouraging experimentation was more crucial than media coverage in the decision to experiment with drugs.
The two “countercultural” phenomena of drugs and politics ought to be viewed more as analytically and behaviorally distinct. Certainly in the leadership cadres-the movers within the movement-the more one was “into drugs,” the less effective one was in political organization, and the more one was committed to political change, the less one used any but the softest drugs. As explicit statements of Black Panther and SDS figures attest, the drug and political cultures coalesced only insofar as marijuana was tacitly approved as the only permissible drug for radicals. Kenneth Keniston’s (12, 13) portraits of the “uncommitted” and “young radicals” suggest that while drug use and apoliticality may have coalesced, political activism and extensive drug use did not. The network of political activists and the network of confirmed drug users probably found few points of exchange. Indeed, it makes intuitive sense that groups committed to a vision of programmatic social change would deliberately distance themselves from those individuals and groups whose lifestyles somehow trivialized or suggested the irrelevance of the envisioned changes. It is not unreasonable also to suggest that the more involved proponents of “freak culture” went out of their way to avoid both the radical political community as well as the community of straights (21). Our impression then is that rock music of the 1960s was most influential in its portrayal of drug usage as both a part of the rock scene and an aspect of
‘ Curiously it predicted poorly to stands on racial issues like open housing and integrated schools suggesting that such manifestations of brotherhood were outside the boundaries of protest.
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The Rhetoric of ReooltlProtest Rock and Drugs
generational behavior. Although some political messages were also influentially conveyed, protest music was less effective in conveying a consistent or enduring leftward political orientation, as some inconsistencies of political attitudes among protest music listeners revealed. Protest rock constituted a cultural revolution insofar as it was aligned with and helped shape the youth culture of that period. In addition to themes relating to politics and drugs, protest rock also expressed and perhaps created greater audience regard for intimacy, spontaneity, and the search for identity. While protest music may have helped to create a favorable climate for drug experimentation and the articulation of social protest, its influence was certainly less significant than the momentous events of the sixties: the civil rights movement, the agony of Vietnam, the political mobilization of the left, and the advent of spokespersons for every form of liberation. In this sense, sixties rock became a musical indicator of the concerns, anxieties, and motives of at least a portion of a generation attempting to establish a standpoint from which to comprehend and react to these events. But at most it summoned from youth a token form of participation in the “counterculture.” Thus, one can hardly regard rock music as revolutionary in the sense of encouraging radical political consciousness and a commitment to change by extralegal or violent means. Although occasionally celebrating impulsive or sporadic violence, rock music never approximated a Marxist or neo- Marxist stance. It could only suggest an orientation requiring more direct experience for deep commitment. In fact, our study suggests that rock music may have served to channel social unrest into a more politically passive direction. By helping to translate revolutionary opinions into rhetorical cant, protest rock facilitated token opposition to the status quo among youth peripheral to the leadership cadres. By combining these political messages with its permissive ambience and tacit support of sexual and drug experimentation, protest rock may have dissipated their impact by associating them in the minds of the larger public with illegal, frightening-and hence more politically vulnerable-patterns of behavior. In their attempt to interpret the meaning of the diverse strands of youth culture, the mass media legitimized the radical freak as its most appropriate spokesperson. Thus the changes effected by popular music in the 1960s are no more explicable as revolutionary in the Marxist sense than were the activities of the counterculture. As Peter Berger (2) has suggested, the movement arising from youth culture was not amenable to the formation of revolutionary cadres. It was, however, a movement for progressive change and a new humanism. While protest rock music may have placed its stamp of approval on certain forms of drug experimentation, it also encouraged this new humanism.
REFERENCES 1 . Ekcker, Howard S. Outsiders. New York: Free Press, 1953. 2. Berger. Peter L. and Richard J. Newhaus. Movement and Reookition. New York: Doubleday, 1970.
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3 . Carey, James T. “Changing Courtship Patterns in the Popular Song.” American Journal of
Sociology 74, 1969, pp. 720-731, 4 . Cole, Richard R. “Top Songs in the Sixties: A Content Analysis of Popular Lyrics.” American
Eehaoioral Scientist 14(3), 1971, pp, 389-400. 5. Denisoff, R. Serge. Sing a Song of Social Significance. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Press, 1972. 6. Denisoff, R. Serge and Richard A. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. 7. Fox, W. and J. Williams. “Political Orientation and Music Preferences among College Students.” Public Opinion Quarterly 38, 1974, pp. 353-371. 8. Gleason, Ralph. “The Greater Sound.” The Drama Reuiew, Summer 1969. Reprinted in R. Denisoff and R. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. 9. Hirsch, Paul M. “Sociological Approaches to the Pop Music Phenomenon.” American Eehaoioral Scientist 14(3), 1971, pp. 371-388. 10. Hirsch, Paul M. “Organizational Effectiveness and the Institutional Environment.” Administrative Science Quarterly 20, September 1975, pp. 3 2 7 3 4 4 . 11. Johnston, Lloyd. Drugs and American Youth. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1973. 12. Keniston, Kenneth. The Uncommitted. New York: Delta, 1965. 13. Keniston, Kenneth. Young Radicals. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1968. 14. Klapper, Joseph. The Efects of Mass Communication. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960. 15. Mashkin, K. and T. Volgy. “Socio-Political Attitudes and Musical Preferences.“ Social Science Quarterly 56, 1975, pp. 450-459. 16. Peterson, Richard A. “Market and Moralist Censors of a Rising Art Form: Jazz.” Arts in Society 4(2), 1967. Reprinted in R. Denisoff and R. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. 17. Peterson, Richard A. and David G. Berger. “Three Eras in the Manufacture of Popular Music Lyrics.” In R. Denisoff and R. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. pp. 282303. 18. Robinson, John P. “Rock Music Preferences and Drug Usage.” Paper presented at the 1972 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. 19. Robinson, John P. and Paul Hirsch. “It’s the Sound that Does It.” Psychology Today 3, October 1969, pp. 42-45. 20. Rosenberg, Bernard and D. M. White (Eds.) Mass Culture Reoisited. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. 21. Weider, D. Lawrence and Don Zimmerman. “Generational Experience and the Development of Freak Culture.” Journal of Social Issues 30, 1974, pp. 137-163. 22. Weiss, Walter. “Effects of the Mass Media of Communication.” In G . Lindzey and E. Aronson (Eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. Reading, Mass. : Addison- Wesley, 1971.
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Protest Rock and Drugs by John P. Robinson, Robert Pilskaln, and Paul Hirsch
National panel study shows behavioral overlap, functional dijjerences; “youth culture” may have accelerated but de-fused the radical movement. Social observers, beginning with Plato, have attributed to music and the other arts great powers to effect social change. Concern about this potential influence has provided severe criticisms of new forms of popular American music. In the 192Os, for example, moral polemicists in this country attacked the widespread diffusion of jazz music (16). These attacks presaged, in many ways, the attacks made on rock music in the 1960s. Where such critics saw all facets of 1920s jazz music as objectionable, reaction to the changes in popular music of the 1960s-rock music-was directed at the messages contained in the lyrics of the songs. Content analyses of lyrics showed that during the 1960s popular songs underwent a marked change from what had been an overwhelming concern with romantic love and courtship stages t o more frequent use of “story lines” concerning different sides of controversial social issues, such as Vietnam and alternative life styles.’ Some social scientists attributed to rock music powers to turn on, or otherwise seduce, the adolescent population:
’ For two reviews of this literature, see Hirsch (9) and Denisoff and Peterson (6); content analysis of lyrics can be found in Carey (3) and Cole (4). john P. Robinson is Professor of Communication and Director of the Communication Research Centcr at Cleveland State University. Robert Pilskaln is a graduate student in Sociology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and has broadcast his own weekly rock music revue. Paul Hirsch is Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Business and Research Associate in the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago. This work was supported in part by grant number 1-R01-HM17064 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by a general grant on the social impact of the mass media from the John and Mary Markle Foundation.
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Rock was pivotal in the collective youth activities of the late 1960s, the “love genemtion” emulation of California hippies, the anti-Vietnam war rallies, involvement with hallucinogenic drugs, and the great rock festivals which embodied all of these elements (17, p . 297). The matter was put most directly and eloquently by a first-hand observer of the youth scene:
The 12-inch long-playing vinylite phonograph record, with @s half-hour to minutes of songs, is an intellectual time bomb. . . . The Rolling Stones attack sexual taboos and endorse the directness of today’s young people. Not an overtly revolutionary act but one which-when coupled with the Beatles singing“1’d love to turn you on” and “ I get high with a little help from my friends . . .”-challenges fundamentals of American behavior. Once you set up a situation in which sacred tenets of the social fabric are treated as obsolete or irrelevant, anything can be questioned. . . . As I see it, the situation is plain: if you want to reach young people in this country (and revolutions ure made by the young . . .), then write a song, don’t buy an ad or issue a statement (8, p p . 161-162). 45
In this context the diffusion of popular rock records with “social protest” lyrics expressing critical views of the war, positive views of drug use, and commentaries on the hypocrisy of businessmen, political leaders, and others in roles of responsibility raised long-range questions about the audience impact of this form of popular culture. It also revived those fundamental questions about mass media and public opinion that invariably arise with the arrival of innovative media or innovations
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The Rhetoric of ReuoltlProtest Rock and Drugs
in media content. The common expectation, based on existing studies on the effects of mass media, was that rock music would have minimal effects on its audience (14, 22). Nevertheless, we were still curious what the changed content of media messages contained in “hit” songs might signify, if anything. Could the new lyrics be a reflection of changed attitudes on the part of youthful listeners; or might they b e acting to create new attitudes, subtly imbedded in the background noise or “sounds” for dancing? More specifically, could such new popular songs in any way be associated with parallel but separate upward movements of drug abuse and political dissent?
W e will draw upon a unique body of empirical evidence on the impact of the rock music phenomenon that bears on these questions. The data come from a comprehensive national panel study of Youth in Transition conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. This study had been following the behavior and attitudes of a panel of young men since their tenth year in school. The initial panel was a national cross-section of 2,200 boys selected by probability methods from 87 public high schools across the country in the fall of 1966. These boys were interviewed annually, including a point one year past their graduating year (1969) in high school in the spring of 1970. At this time, in addition to about an hour’s worth of questions asked on previous surveys, the 1,620 young men remaining in the panel were asked new questions dealing with (a) their usage of hard and soft drugs in the preceding year and (b) their mass media usage and preferences. Considerable care was devoted to facilitating honest and confidential responses to the questions on the extent of drug usage in the preceding year (11). They were part of a separate form labeled “Confidential Information” that also included questions on engagement in delinquent behaviors (e.g., car theft, interpersonal aggression) which the respondents had been asked in previous interviews. This information was filled out in private and mailed back to the Institute for Social Research. Scrupulous coding procedures were followed to remove any possibility that individual respondents could be linked to their answers to these confidential questions. Less than 2 percent of the respondents, on the average, omitted responses to each of the questions concerning drug usage. Another aspect bearing on the frankness, and perhaps the validity, of the answers was that close to forty percent of respondents did admit using one of the five illegal drugs. The percentage reporting use of each drug in the preceding year is given in Table 1 and ranges from 2 percent for heroin to 89 percent for alcohol. In the quite separate portion of the interview dealing with his use of the mass media, each young man was asked to describe his favorite music in response to the following question: “Suppose you had the chance to listen to your three favorite records (singles or albums). Which three would you pick? Which artist recorded them?” All records named were coded into one of the following categories: (a)
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Table 1: Drug use during the year after high school
Marijuana (pot, grass) o r hashish Amphetamines ( p e p pills, bennies, s p e e d , uppers) Barbiturates (yellow jackets, red devils, downers) Hallucinogens (LSD, mescaline, peyote, etc.) Heroin (smack, horse, “H”) Alcoholic beverages (liquor, beer, wine) Cigarettes
% W h o used
o h W h o did not use
34 14 9
2
66 86 91 89 98
89 68
11 32
11
protest rock; (b) soul, motown, or rhythm and blues, (c) all other hit records, including “bubble gum” and “old-style’’ rock; (d) non-hit show tunes, mood music, “square” pop singers; (e) country-and-western songs not on hit parade; and ( f ) all other, e.g., religious or classical music. These categories correspond closely to the terminology and radio station formats employed throughout the music industry during this period.2
The “protest rock” category i s of particular interest for its potential as a cultural indicator of attachment to and identification with what was publicly celebrated during these years as the new youth culture. Popular records in this category included those whose lyrics depart from the more traditional topics of courtship and love to address other social and political issues, including business ethics, drug use, and the actions of political leaders. We include here only records featured by the radio medium, thus excluding “protest” songs in the form of folk music (5) and topical broadsides (17) historically ignored by the mass media. (Almost none of our teenage respondents listed musical selections which had not received radio station airplay. ) Because “protest rock” is an arbitrary concept, in that both the intended and imputed meanings of song lyrics are sometimes ambiguous, we also “delegated” part of the decision over which records to include in this category to several third parties. For example, the U.S. Government, both through the Federal Communications Commission and former Vice President Spiro Agnew, released lists, identifying examples of records alleged to be “favorable” to illegal activities, principally drug-related. Time and Newsweek both publicized and sought The industry’s terms for the same categories, respectively, were “underground;” “soul;” “top 40;” “middle-of-the-road;” and “country.” Examples given to the coders included: H i t or underground protest songs: “Give Peace a Chance.” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono; “Have a Marijuana,” by David Peel; and “Streetfighting Man,” by the Rolling Stones. Soul: “Baby Don’t Leave Me,” by the Supremes; and “1 Heard It Through the Grapevine,” by Gladys Knight or Marvin Gaye. Other “hit” records: “Sugar. Sugar,” by the Archies; “ A Boy Named Sue,“ by Johnny Cash; “Tie a Yellow Ribbon (Around the Old Oak Tree),” by Dawn. Non-hit show tunes, mood music, “square” p o p singers: songs from “Fiddler on the Roof,” by Steve Lawrence, Doris Day.
The Rhetoric of ReooltjProtest Rock and Drugs
Table 2: Percentage of persons using drugs as a function of protest music preference Three favorite records included
of persons who used Marijuana Amphetamines Barbiturates Hallucinogens Heroin Alcoholic beverages Cigarettes
3 protest
2 protest
1 protest
0 protest
records
records
records
Total sample
( N = 291)
(N = 310)
record (N = 256)
(N = 390)
(N = 1620)
56 22 15 21 3 94 67
44 20 12 18 3 94 70
22 10 7 6 3 84 66
34 14 9 11 2 89 68
27 11 5 7
1 90
72
Note: This table does not suggest that all or most listeners to “protest” records reported having used drugs. (A majority did not.) Nor does the table suggest that non-users were more likely to become users on exposure to music. (The table, in fact, should not obscure the majorities of listeners who are non-users.) What these data do suggest is simply that those who reported having used drugs were also more likely to have included protestoriented records among their favorites.
to “translate” the meanings of various popular hits for the public. Mainly, however, it was the “underground” radio stations, usually FM, which usually certified selected recordings and performing groups as legitimate artifacts of the “new” youth culture, even though their lyrics per se might not have anything directly to do with social p r ~ t e s t As . ~ used here, then, the term “protest rock” broadly encompasses the “acid rock” of Jimi Hendrix, the “hard rock” of Janis Joplin, and the softer, more contemplative selections of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Using these criteria, each respondent was given a score according to the number of protest records listed among his three favorites-a score of three being assigned to a respondent listing a protest record for all three favorites down to a score of zero if the respondent listed no protest rock selections among his favorites. Despite the diversity of both popular music and protest rock records listed, reliability checks conducted several months apart showed different coders agreeing on the appropriate song style categories for well over 80 percent of the records listed. In all, the sample distributed itself rather evenly across the four possible categories with 18 percent listing protest records for all three selections, 19 percent for two out of three, 16 percent for one out of three, and 24 percent listing no protest favorites. The remaining 23 percent of the sample could not be coded onto the above scale because they failed to list enough records. The statistical relation between preference for protest records and usage of This, in turn, produced a hybrid category which was further coded two ways, each with high intercoder ( 8) reliability. When songs with alleged “drug lyrics” were coded separately, this subcategory proved substantially ~ P S Srelated to drug use than the entire “protest rock” category, and it was subsequently dropped in favor of the latter, broader, more inclusive and socially aware coding category High coding reliability of protest music was also reported by Mashkin and Volgy (15)
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each of the drugs examined for the 1970 Youth in Transition sample is outlined in Table 2. Reported usage for five of the drugs varied monotonically with preference for protest music. The association was most pronounced for marijuana and for hallucinogens (e.g., LSD). Usage of marijuana, for example, increased from about 25 percent for those having only one or no protest favorites to almost 50 percent among those having two or three protest favorites. For hallucinogens, t h e parallel was from 7 percent usage among the non-protest oriented to 20 percent among those whose predominant choices ran to protest records. Although weaker associations between preference for protest music and reported drug usage were found for amphetamines and for barbiturates, t h e percentage of reported usage among those with two or three protest music favorites was still nearly twice as high as among those with one or no such favorites. The relationship with use of alcoholic beverages deserves particular attention because, unlike the four drugs just mentioned, its use is largely legal. Its use was practically universal among all music groups, but this should not obscure the correlation that does exist between protest music and alcoholic beverages. If one looks at non-usage percentages instead of usage percentages, the roughly one-to-two ratio obtains again-6 percent non-usage among the protest audience compared to 14 percent among those less inclined toward protest music. Against this background of clear positive associations, t h e lack of corresponding differential relations for cigarette and heroin usage is also significant. Since cigarette smoking obviously has less mind-altering effects and is probably embedded in a different pattern of social behavior than the other drugs, its deviation from the pattern is not terribly unexpected. Heroin usage is generally much more integral to the drug scene, however, and its lack of relation to a preference for protest music carries much more significance. T o be sure, few admitted heroin users were in the sample, and the reluctance of heroin users to have submitted to an interview might explain the lack of any relationship being obtained. Nevertheless, our more extended discussions of the associations between protest music preference and drug usage does not apply to heroin. It is, of course, a long road between correlation a n d causation. Before reaching any conclusions about protest music being a cause of drug usage, in the same sense of “cause” in the physical sciences, we conducted a vigorous search for “third” variables that could ultimately explain (or explain away) the results. Using the rich variety of background material available in the Youth in Transition file, we did find one variable that seriously attenuated the relations in Table 2-the allpowerful peer group. Including peer group usage as a predictor clearly showed friends’ behavior rather than music as an impetus toward experimenting with drugs. Much as Becker (1) has described the socialization of the marijuana user, drug usage is more dependent on the actions of other people than on the presence of a handy radio or phonograph. However, the relations in Table 2 did survive explanation by a battery of plausible alternative “third” variables, such as college attendance, size of college, grades in school, parental education (a measure of the social class in which the young man was socialized), a n d region of residence. Moreover, the
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relations were only slightly attenuated when the “counter-culture” variable of attitudes towards the war in Vietnam was introduced as a third variable. The relation even held up across race, despite the fact that the vast majority of blacks expressed a preference for “soul music.” Nor were the results affected by considering amount of usage, rather than the fact of usage, as the dependent variable. Perhaps the most dynamic evidence of a linkage between the two variables, however, is its isolation to that portion of the protest music audience which had just become initiated to the drug scene during the year of the study (18). This was also, of course, the year most of them moved away from home. It bears repeating that these data in no way constitute “proof” that listening to protest rock music caused significant numbers of youth to experiment with both illegal and legal mind-altering drugs. Not all third variables have been explored. Possibly, some personal orientation (e.g., a general interest in music) or some social contextual variables (e.g., access to music and drugs) underlies the correlation; some observers are convinced that both phenomena were promoted by a conspiracy within the drug industry. Nor can we offer any definitive evidence to reject the opposite hypothesis, i.e., that drug use causes preference for protest music. Final resolution of these matters must await an even more comprehensive data set than that available to us; even then we would need to supplement such data with a careful set of observational studies that identified the social mechanisms underlying both drug usage and music preference. How much of the relation we have identified, for example, is tied to the lyrics in the music compared to the music itself? The persistence of the basic relations shown in Table 2 remains impressive, however. The relations are much stronger than the relation between preference for TV violence and participation in violent behavior found in the same sample. Moreover, despite the more powerful influence of the peer group, some vestiges of the drug-music relation could be found among young men if some of their friends had tried the drug. It is with such results in mind that we engage in the following speculations on some possible implications of our results-not only for the field of mass media research, but in terms of the unique social atmosphere in which the rock music phenomenon flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The persistence of the basic relations shown in Table 2 thus remains impressive, despite the more powerful effect of peer group influence. Even with friends’ usage controlled, some vestiges of the relations could be foundparticularly if some or a few of one’s friends have tried the drug. H o w do these results relate to the larger field of mass media research?
With the exception of the hypothesis of greater influence of personal over impersonal sources, these results do not fit well within the general framework that has been applied to summarizing conclusions about the effects of the mass media (14), for this literature consistently interprets the media as either relatively powerless in the face of strong institutional and interpersonal forces or
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simply ineffective. They certainly would not support the view that the “mass culture” presented by the mass media only reflect and serve to reinforce the dominant social values of American society (9, 20). Klapper’s (14, p. 8) overall conclusion that “. . . the media are more likely to reinforce than to change” clearly understates what the data at several points in our analysis may be implying, as far as “dominant” social values are concerned. Moreover, one of the unique features of the data reported here is that the media stimuli are a more pervasive part of the daily lives of the young men than the media stimuli in the largely laboratory evidence available to Klapper. As Klapper acknowledged in his concluding chapter:
Little attention has here been given to the potentials of persuasive mass communication at times of massive political upheaval or in situations of actual or imminent social unrest. . . . W e have already alluded to the probable but unmapped interplay between mass media and cultural values. To look more closely at one aspect of the matter one might postulate that the media play a particularly important role in the socialization and acculturation of children ( 1 4 , p p . 254-255). To the extent that “protest” music has had any effects, they are quite likely to be more long range and more “global” than the effects of single stimuli-the specific program, message, or lyric (19) so frequently focused upon in mass media research. It is probably for this reason that the simple reinforcement principle seems a superficial explanation of the statistical relationship that links protest music and drug usage in our national sample. As such then, if “media effects” are to be inferred from the data presented here, they would fall into the situation of “imminent social unrest” noted by Klapper. The relation between rock music and its audience may stand as a dramatic instance of the potential of specialized media to facilitate a cultural (or political) fragmentation of the mass audience.
W e would therefore emphasize the possible role that the dissemination of rock music had in helping to create, sustain, and celebrate an atmosphere of social change through its legitimation of subcultural attitudes. While hardly responsible in any direct “causal” sense for opposition to the war or for teenagers’ experimentation with new drugs, the glamorization of performers who were accorded high status by one’s peers and participated in activities unpopular or illegal in the view of the dominant culture may have served as one of many contributing factors encouraging greater experimentation with new or different subcultural norms and life styles. It created an atmosphere in which young people who had not partaken of its many forms might consider themselves out of style or in need of enlightenment. This phenomenon cannot be fully appreciated without reference to the larger societal context in which it occurred. The creation of a youth constituency and the diffusion of a “youth culture,” while ultimately linked to the emergence
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The Rhetoric of ReooltlProtest Rock and Drugs
Reprinted with permission from The Media Reader (Valdez and Crowe. Eds ), p 218
of “top 40” radio stations in the 1950s, gained striking salience in the media climate of the 1960s. The emphasis on “youth” in the 1960 elections evolved into a key feature of John Kennedy’s administrative style and thus was catapulted onto the national landscape. Media reporters exaggerated the import of demographic data on the increased size of this youth constituency. With the increased national policy debate about these “future leaders,” a relaxation of norms and subsequent ambiguity about youth behavior created a vacuum within which the features of the “youth culture” explored here could evolve. Conditions were, of course, exacerbated by inability of political leaders to address the frustrations generated by the sudden loss of John Kennedy. The size and rising disposable income of the new teenage market also needs to be considered. In fact, the initial changes in lyric content appear to have been due to market forces at the supply end of the music industry, irrespective of audience demand. Increasing competition within the record industry led to the granting of more artistic freedom to performers, who were permitted as a result to choose and record their own songs-which, in turn, expressed the values of their own subculture (9, 10, 17). What did preference for this type of music signify about audience members and subgroups? Data from additional local surveys between 1969-1972 document protest music preference to have been a significant cultural indicator of “anti-establishment” orientations, of which drug taking could also have been symbolic. In these teenage samples, we found the music preference correlating significantly with other “protest” or “anti-establishment” responses-including negative attitudes toward big business and the military, and favorable attitudes
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Journal of Communication, Autumn 1976
toward hippie life styles.‘ Similar results were independently reported by researchers at the University of Iowa ( 7 ) and the University of Arizona (15) at about the same time. The protest music audience was also found to be more “aware” of people and events publicized in the news media (even when age, grades in school, and other control variables were taken into account), suggesting that it was perhaps a “forerunner” group in terms of societal concerns and media sophistication (18). The relation between popular music and drugs thus appears as part of a larger network of shared attitudes and behavior, of which a key element was an openness and willingness to explore new ways of looking at the new world. In terms of interpreting the proliferation of drug usage in the 1960s and 1970s, these and other factors also need to be considered, such as the extension of the pre-existing drug networks as a highly profitable business with a vast potential market, and the extensive familiarity with aspects of drug use as popular media treated drugs as a “growing social concern.” This familiarity was augmented by the celebration of certain drug experiences and the denigration of others by popular recording artists. Depending on whom and what one listened to in the 1960s, one derived more or less extensive appreciation of what drugs were about. In some instances and for some drugs, the picture was favorable or at least fashionable. As we have seen, however, access to a drug network and a supportive milieu encouraging experimentation was more crucial than media coverage in the decision to experiment with drugs.
The two “countercultural” phenomena of drugs and politics ought to be viewed more as analytically and behaviorally distinct. Certainly in the leadership cadres-the movers within the movement-the more one was “into drugs,” the less effective one was in political organization, and the more one was committed to political change, the less one used any but the softest drugs. As explicit statements of Black Panther and SDS figures attest, the drug and political cultures coalesced only insofar as marijuana was tacitly approved as the only permissible drug for radicals. Kenneth Keniston’s (12, 13) portraits of the “uncommitted” and “young radicals” suggest that while drug use and apoliticality may have coalesced, political activism and extensive drug use did not. The network of political activists and the network of confirmed drug users probably found few points of exchange. Indeed, it makes intuitive sense that groups committed to a vision of programmatic social change would deliberately distance themselves from those individuals and groups whose lifestyles somehow trivialized or suggested the irrelevance of the envisioned changes. It is not unreasonable also to suggest that the more involved proponents of “freak culture” went out of their way to avoid both the radical political community as well as the community of straights (21). Our impression then is that rock music of the 1960s was most influential in its portrayal of drug usage as both a part of the rock scene and an aspect of
‘ Curiously it predicted poorly to stands on racial issues like open housing and integrated schools suggesting that such manifestations of brotherhood were outside the boundaries of protest.
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The Rhetoric of ReooltlProtest Rock and Drugs
generational behavior. Although some political messages were also influentially conveyed, protest music was less effective in conveying a consistent or enduring leftward political orientation, as some inconsistencies of political attitudes among protest music listeners revealed. Protest rock constituted a cultural revolution insofar as it was aligned with and helped shape the youth culture of that period. In addition to themes relating to politics and drugs, protest rock also expressed and perhaps created greater audience regard for intimacy, spontaneity, and the search for identity. While protest music may have helped to create a favorable climate for drug experimentation and the articulation of social protest, its influence was certainly less significant than the momentous events of the sixties: the civil rights movement, the agony of Vietnam, the political mobilization of the left, and the advent of spokespersons for every form of liberation. In this sense, sixties rock became a musical indicator of the concerns, anxieties, and motives of at least a portion of a generation attempting to establish a standpoint from which to comprehend and react to these events. But at most it summoned from youth a token form of participation in the “counterculture.” Thus, one can hardly regard rock music as revolutionary in the sense of encouraging radical political consciousness and a commitment to change by extralegal or violent means. Although occasionally celebrating impulsive or sporadic violence, rock music never approximated a Marxist or neo- Marxist stance. It could only suggest an orientation requiring more direct experience for deep commitment. In fact, our study suggests that rock music may have served to channel social unrest into a more politically passive direction. By helping to translate revolutionary opinions into rhetorical cant, protest rock facilitated token opposition to the status quo among youth peripheral to the leadership cadres. By combining these political messages with its permissive ambience and tacit support of sexual and drug experimentation, protest rock may have dissipated their impact by associating them in the minds of the larger public with illegal, frightening-and hence more politically vulnerable-patterns of behavior. In their attempt to interpret the meaning of the diverse strands of youth culture, the mass media legitimized the radical freak as its most appropriate spokesperson. Thus the changes effected by popular music in the 1960s are no more explicable as revolutionary in the Marxist sense than were the activities of the counterculture. As Peter Berger (2) has suggested, the movement arising from youth culture was not amenable to the formation of revolutionary cadres. It was, however, a movement for progressive change and a new humanism. While protest rock music may have placed its stamp of approval on certain forms of drug experimentation, it also encouraged this new humanism.
REFERENCES 1 . Ekcker, Howard S. Outsiders. New York: Free Press, 1953. 2. Berger. Peter L. and Richard J. Newhaus. Movement and Reookition. New York: Doubleday, 1970.
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3 . Carey, James T. “Changing Courtship Patterns in the Popular Song.” American Journal of
Sociology 74, 1969, pp. 720-731, 4 . Cole, Richard R. “Top Songs in the Sixties: A Content Analysis of Popular Lyrics.” American
Eehaoioral Scientist 14(3), 1971, pp, 389-400. 5. Denisoff, R. Serge. Sing a Song of Social Significance. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Press, 1972. 6. Denisoff, R. Serge and Richard A. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. 7. Fox, W. and J. Williams. “Political Orientation and Music Preferences among College Students.” Public Opinion Quarterly 38, 1974, pp. 353-371. 8. Gleason, Ralph. “The Greater Sound.” The Drama Reuiew, Summer 1969. Reprinted in R. Denisoff and R. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. 9. Hirsch, Paul M. “Sociological Approaches to the Pop Music Phenomenon.” American Eehaoioral Scientist 14(3), 1971, pp. 371-388. 10. Hirsch, Paul M. “Organizational Effectiveness and the Institutional Environment.” Administrative Science Quarterly 20, September 1975, pp. 3 2 7 3 4 4 . 11. Johnston, Lloyd. Drugs and American Youth. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1973. 12. Keniston, Kenneth. The Uncommitted. New York: Delta, 1965. 13. Keniston, Kenneth. Young Radicals. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1968. 14. Klapper, Joseph. The Efects of Mass Communication. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960. 15. Mashkin, K. and T. Volgy. “Socio-Political Attitudes and Musical Preferences.“ Social Science Quarterly 56, 1975, pp. 450-459. 16. Peterson, Richard A. “Market and Moralist Censors of a Rising Art Form: Jazz.” Arts in Society 4(2), 1967. Reprinted in R. Denisoff and R. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. 17. Peterson, Richard A. and David G. Berger. “Three Eras in the Manufacture of Popular Music Lyrics.” In R. Denisoff and R. Peterson (Eds.) The Sounds of Social Change. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972. pp. 282303. 18. Robinson, John P. “Rock Music Preferences and Drug Usage.” Paper presented at the 1972 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. 19. Robinson, John P. and Paul Hirsch. “It’s the Sound that Does It.” Psychology Today 3, October 1969, pp. 42-45. 20. Rosenberg, Bernard and D. M. White (Eds.) Mass Culture Reoisited. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. 21. Weider, D. Lawrence and Don Zimmerman. “Generational Experience and the Development of Freak Culture.” Journal of Social Issues 30, 1974, pp. 137-163. 22. Weiss, Walter. “Effects of the Mass Media of Communication.” In G . Lindzey and E. Aronson (Eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. Reading, Mass. : Addison- Wesley, 1971.
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