Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2015

Degree Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Mass Communication and Journalism

First Advisor

Paul Linden

Abstract

This paper examines the attitudes held by college students in regard to Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and how these attitudes affect consumption. The media and a large body of research defame EDM for its associations of drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and violence. However, there is also literature that examines Electronic Dance Music in a more anthropological way in order to focus on its culture, rituals, and social functions. In order to discover immediate perceptions among EDM’s core demographic, 57 college students from the University of Southern Mississippi were surveyed on these issues. The research shows that in regards to drug abuse scholarship and media representations of EDM are generally ambivalent and slightly negative. Surveyed college students mirror the ambivalence, but have a positive bias with regard to the function of solidarity often associated with EDM. The respondents did not consider drug abuse, promiscuity, and violence to be restricted to EDM in comparison to other popular music genres.

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