Sacred Symbols with a Secular Beat?: A Content Analysis of Religious and Sexual Imagery in Modern Rock, Hip Hop, Christian, and Country Music Videos

A content analysis of music videos for the 2008 top-rated songs in four musical genres was conducted in order to gauge change in the presence of religious and sexual symbols since the mid-1990s and to determine if sexual and religious images were prevalent in the increasingly popular hip hop genre....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religion and popular culture 2012-10, Vol.24 (3), p.432-448
Main Authors: Morgan, Tanja N, Hampton, Cheryl A, Davenport, Shanise, Young, Ellen, Badzinski, Diane M, Richardson, Kathy Brittain, Woods, Robert H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cole, Keyshia
Content analysis
Hip hop culture
Imagery
Keys, Alicia
Lil Wayne (rapper)
Music videos
Religion
Sexuality
Swift, Taylor
Underwood, Carrie
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Summary:A content analysis of music videos for the 2008 top-rated songs in four musical genres was conducted in order to gauge change in the presence of religious and sexual symbols since the mid-1990s and to determine if sexual and religious images were prevalent in the increasingly popular hip hop genre. Religious images appeared in about one-third of videos across genres, and sexual images appeared in more than half the videos and in all of the hip hop videos. Hip hop and country videos had the highest co-occurrences of religious and sexual imagery, although there was co-occurrence in each genre. The significance and possible interpretations of the symbols and their co-occurrence are discussed.
ISSN:1703-289X
1703-289X
DOI:10.1353/rpc.2012.0033