When politics goes pop: on the intersections of popular and political culture and the case of Serbian student protests

Drawing from work in dialogic theory and cultural studies, this paper provides a perspective on how popular music becomes a facet of social movements. It critiques current work in the social movement literatures analyzing the role of pop in mobilization and collective action, and explores how dialogic analysis and selected work in cultural studies can expand extant perspectives on the role of framing, collective identity, emotions and narrative to include pop music. The perspective is illustrated through an analysis of the use of rock music in episodes of student protest against the Milošević regime in Serbia in 1996/97 and 2000.