Constructing Racial Rhetoric: Media Depictions of Harm in Heavy Metal and Rap Music

The literatures on movements, the media, and the sociology of culture have addressed how ideological frames are imposed on events and cultural texts. I extend this work on social framing by describing the construction and selection processes that explain why media writers appropriate some frames but not others, and why some frames resonate with broad cultural beliefs. I analyze the rhetoric in media accounts from 1985 to 1990 of the dangers posed to children and society by heavy metal music and rap music. I also examine the images used to amplify each genre of music. Although both genres have lyrical and performance elements focusing on sex and defiance of authority strong enough to evoke a moral outcry, they evoke quite different reactions. I argue that the racial composition of the music's audiences and producers shape the way the two genres are perceived. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1993.