Digital Commons Network^™

Hiplife Music In Ghana: Postcolonial Performances Of Modernity, Nii Kotei Nikoi

Doctoral Dissertations

This research project examines the operation of development discourse in popular culture, how it is reproduced, contested and how alternatives are imagined. It is a post-development study of the production and consumption of Ghanaian hiplife music videos and culture. It explores how hiplife makers challenge development discourse and advance alternative ideas of social transformation. Considering the enduring (and damaging) legacies of colonialism, hiplife as a site of relative freedom of expression is fertile for the potential production of a decolonial vocabulary to heal colonial wounds— undoing colonial sensibilities imposed on the colonized. The project reveals that mainstream male hiplife stars …

An Examination Of Music Majors' Perceived Barriers To Complying With An Exercise Program, Matthew William Seitz

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focused on a mixed-methods exploration of the barriers and motivation to exercise in a sample of music majors at a large southeastern university. Due to dietary concerns and other obstacles to engaging in regular exercise, musicians are at a greater dietary and cardiovascular risk than the general population. Previous research has revealed music majors, in general, do not identify as exercisers. This comes with its obvious health risks. Self-determination theory and exercise identity literature posits individuals who more strongly identify as exercisers and who are more intrinsically motivated to exercise will workout more often and more consistently than …

Capitals Of Punk: Paris, Dc, And The Circulation Of Urban Counternarratives, Tyler William Sonnichsen

Doctoral Dissertations

In the history of underground music in the punk era, few cities’ scenes have garnered as much respect and influence as Washington, DC. Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Scream, Rites of Spring, Fugazi, and a deep catalog of other regional groups have accrued legendary status among fans of hardcore and have become subjects of popular books and documentaries. However, few accounts have investigated DC’s underground influence on other urban landscapes outside of the United States. This dissertation focuses on that relationship between DC and another iconic Western capital with a largely unheralded hardcore punk history, Paris.

Using qualitative, ethnographic methods, this …

Burnout In Young Adult Performing Artists, Benjamin Hyun Stocking

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of burnout in adolescent/young adult performing arts (i.e. a World-Class junior drum & bugle corps) at the beginning of their competitive training season. Specifically, this study took particular interest in investigating the predictive influence of psychological variables such as performance anxiety, psychological coping skills, and coping functions in predicting who was more prone to burnout as well as who returned or dropped out after the competitive season.

Data were drawn from an archive of 144 drum corps performers, representing one world class drum and bugle corps at the beginning of …

The Aurality Of Rhetoric: A Critical Hermeneutic Of Cape Breton’S Rhetorical Music Community, Gregory J. Dorchak

Doctoral Dissertations

Although the field of rhetorical studies has expanded from the notion that rhetoric only applies to speeches, there has been little attention paid to the rhetoric of sound. This project focuses on the rhetoric of sound, specifically the musical rhetoric of the community of Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada. Cape Breton has a long history of maintaining a traditional music community, with its origins in Scotland. The fiddle music of Cape Breton is renowned as a genre of Celtic music. This project looks at the rhetorical acts of the musicians and investigates how these acts of vernacular rhetoric …

Individual Differences In Emotional Response To Music, Sarah Kathleen N. Fischer

Doctoral Dissertations

Although emotional experiences with music have been enjoyed for millennia, research involving music has focused primarily on emotions perceived rather than felt, and not much research exists into differential emotional response to music as a function of individual differences. A recent study (Djikic, 2011) looked at the effect of music on personality, but it did not assess emotional state before or after listening. In an extension of that study, the present research explores how changes in emotion may be related to self-reported personality. Relationships between extraversion and neuroticism, emotional state before and after music listening, and liking the stimulus were …

"Rapping About Authenticity": Exploring The Differences In Perceptions Of "Authenticity" In Rap Music By Consumers.", James L. Wright

Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, social scientists have not only marginalized rap music as a viable unit of scholarly analysis, but failed at attempts to understand the thoughts and actions of rap music consumers. This study analyzes the connection between rap music’s (and the artists’) authenticity and how those perceptions of authenticity affect music consumers’ decision making process, thus providing a possible explanation as to why music fans purchase rap music. The goal of this research was to see if the reasons rap music fans provide explaining the rationale behind their purchases match the images and perceptions presumably held by the general public about …