Posted: September 16th, 2017

Sociology

Sociology

Order Description

The assignment is designed to allow you to present the results of your research into the assignment topic in a systematic way. It is an opportunity to show how you can marshal evidence and arguments and demonstrate that you can analyse the media in a sociological manner. It is also an opportunity to develop the more generic skills of putting together a paper in a well-organised and persuasive manner: such skills are important to careers in any complex organisation. The assignment is focussed on a particular topic, and requires both depth and informed reading in the area. It is worth 45% of your final mark. The marking criteria for the assignment can be found below.

Note that you need an overall mark of 50% in order to pass the unit, and you must have submitted the assignment and sat the final examination. This does not mean that you have to pass each component of the assessment in order to pass overall, it means that the final mark needs to be 50% or higher when all the individual components are added up. So you could fail the final examination and still pass overall of everything added up to at least 50%

This year’s assignment topic is:

“Music is such a personal thing. There is nothing social about it”. Discuss in the context of a sociologically-researchable topic of your choice.

Due date: Friday 14 August 2015 at 23:59 Armidale Time

Some recommended readings are below

We highly recommend that students begin the task now and not wait until the last week or two. The more time spent on this assignment the better it is likely to be and the more you will get out of it. Good work takes time and effort.

What reading do I need to do for the Assignment?
The assignment reading list below may look somewhat terrifying, but you don’t have to read everything on it! The assignment question is broad enough to allow you to approach it in many different ways, and I have suggested a number of areas below that you might want to think about. You will certainly be expected to demonstrate familiarity with at least three of the readings under the General Sociology of Music heading below, but after that it depends on the area that you want to concentrate upon (or areas — but no more than two please! Otherwise you risk spreading your argument too thinly). If you want to do your assignment on some aspect of music not mentioned below, please consult me on this matter before you make your final decision. In such a case, you would need to find your own readings.

As a general guide, a minimum of six references that are properly engaged with is appropriate for this assignment, and you may cite more if you wish. But remember the principle of diminishing returns: the more reading you do, the less value each extra item tends to add. If you try to cover too much, your presentation may come across as superficial. You may be better off concentrating on a smaller number of key readings and doing a good job with them rather than spreading your effort across too large a number. You have to work out what a key reading is for your purposes: that is called research! Suggested references are below, but you can also do your own research here! The references below can be accessed electronically through the UNE Library page: just type in the title of the reference and you should get to the article. This will usually be in the form of a pdf document you can download. The Library can advise on searches. You are expected to know how to do Library searches and download articles in electronic form by now.

General Sociology of Music

You will need to engage with and cite at least three readings from this General Sociology of Music section, then at least three from your specialised area.

Bennett, Andy. 2008. “Towards a cultural sociology of popular music.” Journal of Sociology 44(4):419-32.

Blau, Judith R. 1988. “Music as Social Circumstance.” Social Forces 66(4):883-902.

DeNora, Tia. 2003. “Music sociology: getting the music into the action.” British Journal of Music Education 20(2):165-77.

Kemple, Thomas M. 2009. “Weber/Simmel/Du Bois: Musical Thirds of Classical Sociology.” Journal of Classical Sociology 9(2):187-207.

Prior, Nick. 2011. “Critique and Renewal in the Sociology of Music: Bourdieu and Beyond.” Cultural Sociology 5(1):121-38.

Roy, William G., and Timothy J. Dowd. 2010. “What Is Sociological about Music?” Annual Review of Sociology 36(1):183-203.

Turley, Alan C. 2001. “Max Weber and the Sociology of Music.” Sociological Forum 16(4):633-53.

Wells, A. 1990. “Popular music: emotional use and management.” Journal of Popular Culture 24(1):105-17.

Advertising and Marketing

Alpert, Judy I., Mark I. Alpert, and Elliot N. Maltz. 2005. “Purchase occasion influence on the role of music in advertising.” Journal of Business Research 58(3):369-76.

Bruner, G. C. 1990. “Music mood, and marketing.” Journal of Marketing 54(4):94-104.

Eckhardt, Giana M., and Alan Bradshaw. 2014. “The erasure of antagonisms between popular music and advertising.” Marketing Theory 14(2):167-83.

Gerlich, R. Nicholas, Leigh Browning, and Lori Westermann. 2010. “I’ve Got the Music in Me: A Study of Peak Musical Memory Age and the Implications for Future Advertising.” Journal of College Teaching & Learning 7(2):61.

Gorn, Gerald J. 1982. “The Effects of Music in Advertising on Choice Behavior: A Classical Conditioning Approach.” The Journal of Marketing 46(1):94-101.

Hung, Kineta. 2000. “Narrative Music in Congruent and Incongruent TV Advertising.” Journal of Advertising 29(1):25-34.

Klein, Bethany. 2008. “In perfect harmony: Popular music and cola advertising.” Popular Music and Society 31(1):1-20.

Krzysztof, Kubacki, and Croft Robin. 2004. “Mass Marketing, Music, and Morality.” Journal of Marketing Management 20(5,6):577-90.

Scott, Linda M. 1990. “Understanding jingles and needledrop: a rhetorical approach to music in advertising.” Journal of Consumer Research 17(2):223-36.

Stevens, Carolyn S. 2011. “Touching the Audience: Music and television advertising in Japan.” Japanese Studies 31(1):37-51.

Zander, Mark F. 2006. “Musical Influences in Advertising: How Music Modifies First Impressions of Product Endorsers and Brands.” Psychology of Music 34(4):465-80.

Age Groups

Bennett, Andy, and Jodie Taylor. 2012. “Popular music and the aesthetics of ageing.” Popular Music 31(2):231-43.

Forman, Murray. 2012. “‘How we feel the music’: Popular music by elders and for elders.” Popular Music 31(2):245-60.

Hays, T. 2005. “Wellbeing in later life through music.” Australasian Journal on Ageing 24(1):28.

Pruitt, Lesley J. 2011. “Music, youth, and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland.” Global Change, Peace and Security 23(2):207-22.

Taylor, Jodie. 2010. “Queer Temporalities and the Significance of ‘Music Scene’ Participation in the Social Identities of Middle-aged Queers.” Sociology 44(5):893-907.

Wang, Jing. 2005. “Youth culture, music, and cell phone branding in China.” Global Media and Communication 1(2):185-201.

Australia

Baker, Sarah, and Alison Huber. 2013. “Locating the canon in Tamworth: Historical narratives, cultural memory and Australia’s ‘Country Music Capital’.” Popular Music 32(2):223-40.

Dunbar-Hall, Peter. 1997. “Music and meaning: The aboriginal rock album.” Australian Aboriginal Studies (1):38-47.

Gibson, Chris, and Deborah Davidson. 2004. “Tamworth, Australia’s ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions.” Journal of Rural Studies 20(4):387-404.

Neuenfeldt, Karl. 2008. “Aboriginal contemporary music as Australian cultural heritage: The black image band’s CD, beautiful land and sea.” Popular Music and Society 31(4):453-67.

Ottosson, Åse. 2010. “Aboriginal music and passion: Interculturality and difference in Australian desert towns.” Ethnos 75(3):275-300.

Smith, Graeme. 2011. “Singers and songwriters in Australian country music.” Musicology Australia 33(2):213-22.

Tucker, Shirley. 2006. “The ‘Country’ in Contemporary Australian Women’s Country Music: Gender, History, Narrative.” Journal of Australian Studies (86):111-18.

Wear, Rae. 2006. “The Populist Message of Australian Country Music.” Journal of Australian Studies 30(88):73-81.

Whiteoak, John, and Aline Scott-Maxwell. 2010. “Cha-Cha-Cha to Ciuff Ciuff: Modernity, ‘tradition’ and the Italian-Australian popular music scene of the 1960s.” Musicology Australia 32(2):301-18.

Class

Hubbs, Nadine. 2013. “Country music, the queer, and the redneck.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 66(3):852-56.

Scott, Derek B. 2002. “Music and social class in Victorian London.” Urban History 29(1):60-73.

Temperley, Nicholas, and William Weber. 1976. “Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna.” The American Historical Review 81(4):844.

Gender

Bannister, Matthew. 2010. “Boys and girls come out to play: gender and music-making in Hamilton, New Zealand/Aotearoa.” Genders (52).

Bjorck, Cecilia. 2011. “Freedom, Constraint, or Both? Readings on Popular Music and Gender.” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 10(2):8.

Cateforis, Theo. 2009. “Rebel Girls and Singing Boys: Performing Music and Gender in the Teen Movie.” Current Musicology (87):161-90.

Cogan, Brian, and Gina Cogan. 2006. “Gender and Authenticity in Japanese Popular Music: 1980–2000.” Popular Music and Society 29(1):69-90.

Colley, Ann, Adrian North, and David J. Hargreaves. 2003. “Gender bias in the evaluation of new age music.” Scandinavian journal of psychology 44(2):125-31.

DeBano, Wendy S. 2005. “Enveloping music in gender, nation, and Islam: Women’s music festivals in post-revolutionary Iran.” Iranian Studies 38(3):441-62.

Frisby, Cynthia M., and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey. 2012. “Race and Genre in the Use of Sexual Objectification in Female Artists’ Music Videos.” Howard Journal of Communications 23(1):66-87.

Fuziah Kartini Hassan, Basri, Ibrahim Faridah, and Samani Mus Chairil. 2010. “What’s Hip, What’s Hop? Disharmonized Representations of Gender in Music Videos.” Jurnal Komunikasi : Malaysian Journal of Communication 26(2):33-46.

Hallam, Susan, Lynne Rogers, and Andrea Creech. 2008. “Gender differences in musical instrument choice.” International Journal of Music Education 26(1):7-19.

Koizumi, Kyoko. 2002. “Popular Music, Gender and High School Pupils in Japan: Personal Music in School and Leisure Sites.” Popular Music 21(1):107-25.

Michaelle, Cameron, Baker Julie, and Peterson Mark. 2013. “Waiting for Service: The Effects of Music Volume and Gender.” Services Marketing Quarterly 34(4):257.

Moisala, Pirkko. 1999. “Musical Gender in Performance.” Women & Music – A Journal of Gender and Culture 3(Journal Article):1FF-1FF.

Pavlidis, Adele. 2012. “From Riot Grrrls to roller derby? Exploring the relations between gender, music and sport.” Leisure Studies 31(2):165-76.

Ramirez, Michael. 2012. “Performing gender by performing music: Constructions of masculinities in a college music scene.” Journal of Men’s Studies 20(2):108-24.

Sabelli, Sonia. 2011. “‘Dubbing di diaspora’: Gender and reggae music inna Babylon.” Social Identities 17(1):137-52.

Samuel, Dwinell. 2009. “‘Fuck the Border’? Music, Gender and Globalisation.” Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies (JCGS) 1(1):90-110.

Schmutz, Vaughn, and Alison Faupel. 2010. “Gender and Cultural Consecration in Popular Music.” Social Forces 89(2):685-707.

Toth, Csaba. 2008. “J-Pop and performances of young female identity: Music, gender and urban space in Tokyo.” Young 16(2):111-29.

Wallis, Cara. 2011. “Performing Gender: A Content Analysis of Gender Display in Music Videos.” Sex Roles 64(3):160-72.

Werner, Ann. 2009. “Girls consuming music at home: Gender and the exchange of music through new media.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 12(3):269-84.

Zarate Rosales, Alberto. 2004. “Religious Music on Commercial Radio. Gender Relations.” Convergencia 11(36):61-79.

Zhukov, Katie. 2006. “Gender Issues in Instrumental Music Teaching in Australian Conservatoriums.” Research Studies in Education 26(1):22-36.

Politics

Allatson, Paul. 2007. “‘Antes cursi que sencilla’: Eurovision Song Contests and the Kitsch-Drive to Euro-Unity.” Culture, Theory and Critique 48(1):87-98.

Allen, Lara. 2004. “Music and Politics in Africa.” Social Dynamics 30(2):1-19.

Bensimon, Moshe. 2009. “The Dynamic of Songs in Intergroup Conflict and Proximity: The Case of the Israeli Disengagement from the Gaza Strip.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 12(3):397-412.

Brincker, Benedikte. 2014. “The role of classical music in the construction of nationalism: a cross-national perspective.” Nations and Nationalism 20(4):664-82.

Brooke, Caroline. 2001. “Soviet Music in the International Arena, 1932–41.” European History Quarterly 31(2):231-64.

Collins, Marcus. 2014. “The Beatles’ Politics.” British Journal of Politics & International Relations 16(2):291-309.

Futrell, Robert, Pete Simi, and Gottschalk Simon. 2006. “Understanding Music in Movements: The White Power Music Scene.” The Sociological Quarterly 47(2):275-304.

Goehr, Lydia. 1994. “Political Music and the Politics of Music.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52(1):99-112.

Kolt, Robert Paul. 2014. “Nationalism in Western art music: a reassessment.” National Identities 17(1):63-71.

le Roux-Kemp, Andra. 2014. “Struggle music: South African politics in song”. Law and Humanities, 8 (2): 247-268.

Leerssen, Joep. 2014. “Romanticism, music, nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 20(4):606-27.

Roy, William G. 2002. “Aesthetic Identity, Race, and American Folk Music.” Qualitative Sociology 25(3):459-69.

Valassopoulos, Anastasia, and Dalia Said Mostafa. 2014. “Popular Protest Music and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.” Popular Music and Society 37(5):638-59.

Wallace, Claire, and Raimund Alt. 2001. “Youth Cultures under Authoritarian Regimes: The Case of the Swings Against the Nazis.” Youth & Society 32(3):275-302.

Wear, Rae. 2006. “The populist message of Australian country music.” Journal of Australian Studies 30(88):73-81.

Race

Frisby, Cynthia M., and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey. 2012. “Race and Genre in the Use of Sexual Objectification in Female Artists’ Music Videos.” Howard Journal of Communications 23(1):66-87.

Jason, Toynbee. 2013. “Race, History, and Black British Jazz.” Black Music Research Journal 33(1):1-25.

Joanna, R. Smolko. 2012. “Southern Fried Foster: Representing Race and Place through Music in Looney Tunes Cartoons.” American Music 30(3):344-72.

Mann, Geoff. 2008. “Why does country music sound white? Race and the voice of nostalgia.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(1):73-100.

Mattern, Mark. 1997. “Let the Good Times Unroll: Music and Race Relations in Southwest Louisiana.” Black Music Research Journal 17(2):159-68.

Pasler, Jann. 2006. “Theorizing Race in Nineteenth-Century France: Music as Emblem of Identity.” The Musical Quarterly 89(4):459-504.

Roberts, Tamara. 2011. “Michael Jackson’s Kingdom: Music, Race, and the Sound of the Mainstream.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23(1):19-39.

Roy, William G. 2002. “Aesthetic Identity, Race, and American Folk Music.” Qualitative Sociology 25(3):459-69.

World Music/Global

Achterberg, Peter, Johan Heilbron, Dick Houtman, and Stef Aupers. 2011. “A Cultural Globalization of Popular Music? American, Dutch, French, and German Popular Music Charts (1965 to 2006).” American Behavioral Scientist 55(5):589-608.

Arom, Simha, and Denis-Constant Martin. 2006. “Combiner les sons pour réinventer le monde: La World Music, sociologie et analyse musicale.” L’Homme (177/178):155-78. [in French: ignore if you don’t read French]

Cogan, Brian, and Gina Cogan. 2006. “Gender and Authenticity in Japanese Popular Music: 1980–2000.” Popular Music and Society 29(1):69-90.

Dorin, Stephane. 2012. “Songs of Life in Calcutta: Protest and Social Commentary in Contemporary Bengali Popular Music.” Journal of Creative Communications 7(3):197-208.

Emielu, Austin. 2011. “Some theoretical perspectives on African popular music.” Popular Music 30(3):371-88.

Fuziah Kartini Hassan, Basri, Ibrahim Faridah, and Samani Mus Chairil. 2010. “What’s Hip, What’s Hop? Disharmonized Representations of Gender in Music Videos.” Jurnal Komunikasi : Malaysian Journal of Communication 26(2):33-46.

Huang, Hao. 2012. “Why Chinese people play Western classical music: Transcultural roots of music philosophy.” International Journal of Music Education 30(2):161-76.

Hwang, Okon. 2009. “No “Korean Wave” here: western classical music and the changing value system in South Korea.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 31(Journal Article):56.

James, Robin. 2005. “On Popular Music in Postcolonial Theory.” Philosophia Africana 2(8):171-87.

Koizumi, Kyoko. 2002. “Popular Music, Gender and High School Pupils in Japan: Personal Music in School and Leisure Sites.” Popular Music 21(1):107-25.

Pacini, Deborah. 1989. “Social Identity and Class in “Bachata,” an Emerging Dominican Popular Music.” Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 10(1):69-91.

Piroth, Scott. 2008. “Popular music and identity in Quebec.” American Review of Canadian Studies 38(2):145-64.

Sabelli, Sonia. 2011. “‘Dubbing di diaspora’: Gender and reggae music inna Babylon.” Social Identities 17(1):137-52.

Samuel, Dwinell. 2009. “‘Fuck the Border’? Music, Gender and Globalisation.” Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies (JCGS) 1(1):90-110.

Toth, Csaba. 2008. “J-Pop and performances of young female identity: Music, gender and urban space in Tokyo.” Young 16(2):111-29.

Yang, Mina. 2007. “East Meets West in the Concert Hall: Asians and Classical Music in the Century of Imperialism, Post-Colonialism, and Multiculturalism.” Asian Music 38(1):1-30.

General points on essay preparation and writing
The Academic Skills Office provides lots of useful fact sheets on essay writing.

The physical presentation of your assignment should be characterised by the following:

Your name, student number, assignment title, unit code (SOCY307) and word count should be on a front page
Use double spacing please!
12 point font is ideal (slightly larger is OK, but don’t go smaller than 12 point)
Easily readable font — NOT something like this!
Left margin about 4cm, right margin about 3cm
Number your pages
Include a reference list!
KEEP AN ELECTRONIC COPY OF YOUR ESSAY! Sometimes electronic files get corrupted or just don’t go through the system, so always keep a back-up.

Essays often require several drafts. In an initial draft you can write down all the points that are relevant to the topic. In a second draft you can concentrate on the points you have chosen to emphasise and search for an interesting way of organising the material. A third draft is usually required to polish the expression.

How will the assignment be assessed?

The marker will be asking the following questions about your assignment:

How well is the argument based on the evidence/ideas cited?
You need to show that your argument is properly grounded in order to convince the reader
How clearly, succinctly and logically is the argument presented?
If the reader has difficulty in following your meaning, then you have not communicated your ideas properly
How critically has the relevant literature been analysed?
You need to show a good conceptual grasp of the ideas in the literature if you want to do well
Is the standard of spelling, grammar and syntax sufficient?
Note that awkward and ungrammatical expressions can obscure your meaning
Is the Introduction (or introductory section) sufficiently informative? Is the assignment convincingly “set up”?
You need to get the reader on your wavelength pretty quickly
Is the Conclusion (or concluding section) sufficiently informative? Is the assignment convincingly “wrapped up”?
What can the reader “take away” intellectually from your presentation?
Have enough references been used?
See above for advice
Has the referencing been done correctly?
See below for advice
Provide a brief Introduction: give the reader an idea of what you are going to say. This is an opportunity for you to get the reader on your own wavelength. If they have some clues about what to expect, they will find it easier to navigate their way through your essay. The Introduction can be the last thing you write but the first thing to appear in the assignment.

The body of your essay should be about the substantive argument you are making: discuss theories, approaches, evidence, etc.

Remember that you are writing for an audience, not just for yourself! This is important: keeping it in mind will help you to remember to communicate clearly. The reader cannot see into your mind – you must guide them explicitly through your presentation.

Write a concluding section that tells the reader where we have all got to. The Conclusion is something the reader can “take away” as an intellectual reward for having gone on your journey with you.

Headings are usually good to use: they allow the reader to see the structure of your piece more easily, and also allow you to see it too. They are not strictly required, but highly recommended.

Spelling and grammar: check that these are OK.

Grammatical errors that do not obscure your meaning are irritating to the reader, but not fatal. So a few minor grammatical errors are not going to matter very much. But you still don’t want to put your marker in a bad mood because of grammatical errors!
Grammatical errors that do get in the way of your meaning are a different matter. If the reader cannot get what you are trying to say because of grammatical errors, then you have failed to communicate and will most certainly lose marks.
Stick to the word limit: 3000 words ± 10%.

If your assignment is too long, the reader may legitimately not go beyond the maximum allowed – and miss your exquisitely crafted conclusion.
If your assignment is too short, you may not be able to develop a convincing presentation.
Attach a reference list! Do not forget this: the lack of a reference list guarantees lost marks.

The reference list must be in alphabetical order (by order of author’s surname).
There should be nothing in the reference list that you have not explicitly referenced in the body of the text.
All references in the body of the text must be listed in the reference list.
You must use the Chicago author-date system of referencing. This link to the fact sheet should answer any questions you may have. Again: do not forget to list your references at the end of the assignment!
Should you use the first person?

In general, this should be avoided. So instead of writing “I think that…” it would be better to say something like “The evidence from X, Y, Z [whatever] demonstrates that…”.

Should you use passive constructions?

In general, it is better to know who the agent of an action is so try to avoid using the passive voice. Sometimes it may be unavoidable, but ask yourself: who (or what) is the agent here, and why would I not name them?

Do not use long quotations in this assignment. A sentence or two here and there is acceptable, but generally when you discuss the work of an author you should paraphrase the material by putting it into your own words, ensuring nevertheless that you reference it properly.

No Abstract is required.

Be very careful of taking anything from websites. It seems so easy to sit at your computer and trawl through a few sites taking a bit from here and a bit from there, but this will lead you into major problems so do not get into the habit of doing it. First, you may not be able to tell if a website is reliable or not, or what its context is, and you might end up taking irrelevant material from it that seriously undermines your essay. Second, it is easy for markers to get a sense that something has been copied and it is easy to trace material taken from websites, so do not think this is an easy way to find material your markers won’t know about. If you do use websites make sure you reference them – if you don’t do this you open yourself to a charge of plagiarism.

Do not plagiarise. Read the advice to students on this serious matter.

KEEP A COPY OF YOUR ESSAY so that in the event of the loss or destruction of your work we can ask you to send it in.

Non-discriminatory language
You must be careful to use non-discriminatory language in assignments. You must avoid language that makes inappropriate reference to sex, disability, language, race and ethnicity. Look at this ASO factsheet.

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Table of contents
1 Welcome
2 Unit Coordinator and Administrative Contact
3 Learning Outcomes and Graduate Attributes
4 Readings
5 Assessment Summary
6 Assessment in Detail 1: The Online Quizzes and the Assignment
7 Assessment in Detail 2: The Examination
8 Assessment Submission
9 Marking Policy
10 UNE Grading System
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