Cover not available

Article published In: The Politics of Sound: Intersections of Music, Discourse and Political Communication
Edited by Lyndon C.S. Way
[Journal of Language and Politics 18:4] 2019
► pp. 475–490

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Discourse, music and political communication

Towards a critical approach

 | University of Liverpool
Published online: 29 May 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.18065.way
Abstract
Political communication is expressed in politicians’ speeches, campaign advertisements and government statements. Politics are also articulated in music, in both traditional political contexts such as anthems and party political broadcasts as well as less traditional contexts including songs, promotional videos and live performances. There is a wide spectrum of opinions as to exactly what are relations between music and politics, though most scholars acknowledge it can communicate meanings, though again, what these are remains contentious. One way to better understand relations between music and politics and meanings expressed in music is to closely examine these issues through the prism of discourses analysis. Through such an examination, not only what is being communicated becomes clear, but also how this is done, contributing to the fields of political communication, musicology and discourse studies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Music, politics and relations between the two
  • 3.Prioritising a critical multimodal discursive approach
  • 4.In this special issue
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
References (77)
References
Abousnnouga, Gill, and David Machin. 2010. “Analysing the Language of War Monuments.” Visual Communication 9(2): 131–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodore. 1941. “On popular music.” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. New York: Institute of Social Research, 17–48, accessed 2 February 2016, [URL]
Almond, Gabriel, and G. Bingham Powell, Jr. 1966. Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Attali, Jacque. 1977. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Capple, Steve, and Reebee Garofalo. 1977. Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here to Pay: The History and Politics of the Music Industry. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, Norman. 1998. Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. “Music and meanings in the commercials.” Popular Music 13(1): 35–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. Music, Imagination and Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, Norman and Mark Everist. 1999. Rethinking Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Cleen, Benjamin, and Nico Carpentier. 2010. “Contesting the populist claim on ‘the People’ through popular culture: The 0110 concerts versus the Vlaams Belang,” Social Semiotics 20(2): 175–196. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Entman, Robert. 1989. Democracy without citizens: Media and the decay of American politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. Language and Power. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fiske, John. 1989. Understanding popular culture, London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fraley, Todd. 2009. “I got a natural skill…: Hip-hop, authenticity, and whiteness,” Howard Journal of Communications 20(1): 37–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1988. Music for Pleasure. Routledge: New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1981. Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure and the Politics of Rock‘n’roll. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garofalo, Reebee. 1986. Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the U.S.A. New York: Pearson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grossberg, Lawrence. 1992. We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. “Rock and roll in search of an audience.” In Popular Music and Communication, edited by James Lull, 175–197. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Suffolk: Metheun & co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hesmondhalgh, David, and Keith Negus. 2002. Popular Music Studies. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hess, Franklin. 2010. “From American form to Greek performance: The Global Hip-Hop poetics and politics of the Imiskoumbria.” In Languages of Global Hip Hop, edited by Maria Terkourafi, 162–193. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huq, Rupa. 2002. “Raving not drowning: Authenticity, pleasure and politics in the electronic dance scene.” In Popular Music Studies, edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus, 167–85. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. 1992. Dirty politics: Deception, distraction and democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Fans, bloggers and gamers: Media consumers in a digital age. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Korczynski, Marek. 2014. Songs of the factory: Pop Music, Culture and Resistance. New York: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther. 2010. Multimodality: A Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther, and Robert Hodge. 1979. Language as Ideology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. Multimodal Discourse. London: Hodder Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2017. “Discourse and Communication in the European Union: A multi-focus perspective of Critical Discourse Studies.” In Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, edited by Chris Hart and Piotr Cap, 407–432. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Recontextualisation of neoliberalism and the increasingly conceptual nature of discourse: Challenges for critical discourse studies.” Discourse and Society 27(3): 308–321. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał, and Bernhard Forchtner. 2016. “Theories and concepts in critical discourse studies: Facing challenges, moving beyond foundations.” Discourse and Society 27(3): 253–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto. 2005. On Populist Reason. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Jamie. 2010. “Globalizing keepin’ it real: South Korean Hip-Hop Playas.” In Languages of Global Hip Hop, edited by Maria Terkourafi, 139–161. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lorraine, Leu. 2006. “Music and national culture: Pop music and resistance in Brazil.” Portuguese Cultural Studies 1(1): 36–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Machin, David. 2016. “The need for a social and affordance-driven multimodal critical discourse studies.” Discourse and Society 27(3): 322–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “What is multimodal critical discourse studies?” Critical Discourse Studies 10(4): 347–355. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Analysing Popular Music. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Introduction to Multimodal Analysis. London: Hodder Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Machin, David and Andrea Mayr. 2013. How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction, London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Machin, David, and John.E. Richardson. 2012. “Discourses of unity and purpose in the sounds of fascist music: A multimodal approach.” Critical Discourse Studies 9(4): 329–345. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Machin, David, and Theo van Leeuwen. 2016. “Multimodality, politics and ideology.” Journal of Language and Politics 15(3): 243–258. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzoleni, Gianpietro, and Winfried Schulz. 1999. “‘Mediatization’ of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?”, Political Communication 161 (31): 247–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKerrell, Simon, and Lyndon Way. 2017. “Understanding music as multimodal discourse.” In Music as Multimodal Discourse: Media, Power and Protest, edited by Lyndon Way and Simon McKerrell. 1–20. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna. 2013. “The late night TV show as a strategic genre.” In Analysing genres in political communication – Theory and practice, edited by P. Cap and U. Okulska. 321–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Sigrid. 2004. Analyzing Multimodal Interaction. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Falmer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peddie, Ian. 2011. Popular Music and Human Rights Volume 2: World Music. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richardson, John E. 2007. Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shuker, Roy. 2001. Understanding Popular Music. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stravinsky, Igor. 1936. Chroniques de ma vie [Chronicles of my life]. Paris: Denoel et Stael.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Street, John. 2013. “The sound of geopolitics: Popular music and political rights.” Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 11(1): 47–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1988. Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music. Oxford: Basil Blackwood.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagg, Phillip. 1984. Understanding musical time sense: Concepts, sketches and consequences, accessed 5 April 2008, [URL]
. 1982. “Nature as a musical mood category”. Nordens working paper series accessed 5 April 2008, [URL]
Terkourafi, Maria (ed.). 2010. Languages of Global Hip Hop. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun. 1993. “Principles of critical discourse analysis.” Discourse & Society 4(2): 249–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2017. “Critical Discourse Analysis and Multimodality.” In Contemporary Discourse Studies edited by Christopher Hart and Piotr Cap. 281–295. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo (ed.). 2012. The Critical analysis of Musical Discourse (special Edition) Critical Discourse Studies 9(4).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Discourse and practice – New tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford university press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. “Genre and field in critical discourse analysis: a synopsis.” Discourse and Society 4(2): 193–223. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo, and Ruth Wodak. 1999. “Legitimising immigration: A discourse historical approach.” Discourse Studies 1(1): 83–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vatikiotis, Pantelis. 2014. “New media, democracy, participation and the political”, Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture 5(3): 293–307.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Veloso, Francisco, and John Bateman. 2013. “The multimodal construction of acceptability: Marvel’s Civil War comic books and the PATRIOT Act”. Critical Discourse Studies 10(4): 427–443. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Von Hippel, Eric. 2005. Democratising innovation. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Way, Lyndon. 2018. Popular Music and Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies: Ideology, control and resistance in Turkey since 2002. London: Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Visual images in Turkish pop: The subversive role of cultural hybrids.” Visual Communication 15(2): 147–165. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Angela. 2010. “We ain’t terrorists but we Droppin’ Bombs’: Language use and localization in Egyptian hip hop.” In Languages of Global Hip Hop, edited by Maria Terkourafi, 67–95. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1988. Key Words. London: Fontana Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1963. Culture and Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2001. “What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its development.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis edited by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 1–13. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Bernhard Forchtner. 2014. “Embattled Vienna 1683–2010: Right-wing populism, collective memory and the fictionalisation of politics.” Visual Communication 13(2): 231–255. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zbikowski, Lawrence. 2015. “Words, music, and meaning.” In Semiotic de la musique, edited by P. A. Brandt and J. R. do Carmo, Jr., 143–164. Liege: Presses universitaires de Liege-Sciences humaines.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Fernández, Antonio Francisco Alaminos
2025. Emotional Governance Through Sound: Populism and Music in the Trump Era. European journal of American studies 20:2 DOI logo
Way, Lyndon C. S.
2025. Discourses of division during the cost-of-living crisis: digital popular culture responds to governmental actions. Multimodal Communication 14:2 ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo
Ahmad Sulaiman, Nafisah
2024. The effect of political songs on choice of candidate, political ideology, and party loyalty among young Nigerians. The Journal of International Communication 30:2 ► pp. 416 ff. DOI logo
Ciantar, Philip
2024. In pursuit of a sound future: industriousness in Maltese popular songs of the 1970s. Ethnomusicology Forum 33:2-3 ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
Graham, Phil & Andy Ward
2024. Music as symbolic action. Discourse & Society 35:1 ► pp. 66 ff. DOI logo
Caiani, Manuela & Enrico Padoan
2023. Populism, Popular Culture and (Pop) Music: An Introduction. In Populism and (Pop) Music, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Baptist, Najja K.
2022. Politics in the Key of Life. National Review of Black Politics 3:1-2 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Hellín García, María José
2021. It all comes down to sex. In Discourse Studies in Public Communication [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 92], ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue