Booze, Drugs, and Pop Music: Trends in Substance Portrayals in the Billboard Top 100-1968-2008

Booze, Drugs, and Pop Music: Trends in Substance Portrayals in the Billboard Top 100-1968-2008

This paper presents the results of a content analysis of alcohol and drug portrayals in the top 100 Billboard songs from each of the years 1968, 1978, 1988, 1998, and 2008, thus allowing both a characterization of substance portrayals in music generally and an analysis of changes over time. Of the f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Substance use & misuse 2012-01, Vol.47 (2), p.121-129
Main Authors: Christenson, Peter, Roberts, Donald F., Bjork, Nicholas
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Alcohol Drinking - history
Alcohol Drinking - trends
Alcohol use
Attitude
Behavior
Bibliometrics
Billboard
Billboards
Cannabis
Content analysis
drug portrayal
Drug use
History, 20th Century
History, 21st Century
Humans
Marijuana
Mass Media Effects
Music
Music - history
Music - psychology
Pop music
pop songs
Popular music
Ratings & rankings
Songs
Street Drugs
substance use
Substance-Related Disorders - epidemiology
Substance-Related Disorders - history
Trends
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Description
Summary:This paper presents the results of a content analysis of alcohol and drug portrayals in the top 100 Billboard songs from each of the years 1968, 1978, 1988, 1998, and 2008, thus allowing both a characterization of substance portrayals in music generally and an analysis of changes over time. Of the final sample of 496 songs, 10.3% contained a reference to alcohol and 5.7% contained a reference to drugs. A substantial increase was found over the decades, and in particular over the last two: in 1988, 12% of songs referred to either or both classes of substance, compared to 30% in 2008. Marijuana was by far the most frequently mentioned drug. Both alcohol and drugs were much more likely to be portrayed positively than negatively, especially in recent decades. The results are discussed in terms of relevant theories of media processing and impact.
ISSN:1082-6084
1532-2491