Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Mixed-methods study demonstrates that affective listening mediates value transformation across five birth cohorts, highlighting music as an affective field for cultural translation.
This study examines how generational location becomes translated into value orientations through musical life in the context of China's social transformation. Using an explanatory mixed-methods design, it combines a stratified survey of five birth cohorts (1960s–2000s; N = 1,800) with lyric analysis of 15 representative popular songs. Hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling show that sociodemographic characteristics have limited explanatory power once musical life is considered. Instead, affective listening emerges as the principal mediating mechanism linking generational location to both instrumental and terminal values. Lyric analysis further illustrates how shared symbolic themes are interpreted differently across generations, revealing the cultural translation of historically situated experiences. Rather than treating generational differences as direct cohort effects, this study conceptualizes musical life as an affective mediating field through which generational location becomes associated with value orientations, extending Bourdieu-inspired cultural sociology from cultural reproduction to cultural translation.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Li et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: