Investigating the capacities of pop music in religious propaganda

Master's Thesis

Abstract

Populist music as an up-to-date art and the meeting place of new musical tools, different media and modern cultural markets with a wide audience has provided a platform for interdisciplinary studies, through which one can gain knowledge about society, especially its young groups.

In this thesis, the researcher tried to use The basis of the data theory method is to study the religious and propagandistic aspects of populist music and the process of religious exploitation of it in different media. For this purpose, first by using the method of qualitative content analysis, the research literature was reviewed and coded, and then we obtained theoretical data by interviewing experts and audiences, so that finally by referring to the theoretical notes during the research, we could choose central codes from among them for subsequent conceptualizations.

In the last stage, after the theoretical saturation of the data, the categories abstracted from the data, around a central concept that has the power of explanation, that is, the nature or other dimension The music of populist music formed the conceptual model of religious exploitation of populist music. In other words, contrary to the common notions that consider the musical capacities of popular music to be the cause of widespread exploitation of popular music in religious media advertisements, these non-musical features of popular music are the origin of the increasing religious exploitation of this art-media in society and mass media.  

Keywords:

People-friendly music, mass media, religious exploitation, non-musical dimension, religious propaganda

Introduction

Advertising has always been vital for the expansion of any thought. In every era, according to the requirements of the time, advertisements[1] were used by people who wanted to expand their way of thinking and lifestyle and to convey their views to others with different means and in different ways. With the complexity of these methods in the modern and post-modern era, various methods have been created in advertising, and at the same time, various tools are used in this field. Both in terms of software and hardware. The use of various and modern media and the use of new arts is one of several new methods of advertising in this era. Propaganda, which in the past was a term limited to the activities of religious institutions, has separated itself from the church in the West and religious institutions around the world, and various media have been responsible for propaganda activities with different methods and different goals. So that in today's world, the expansion of any thought and school is only possible with the help of mass media.

One of the arts that found its basic form at the beginning of the 20th century and dominated the world markets in the middle of the 20th century and was able to become the center of some changes in the analysis of cultural issues is popular music [2]. According to the capacities of popular music, it provided facilities to individuals and institutions to exploit it in different fields. One of these fields is advertising. Music in general and populist music in particular, because of what it is called in the semantics of music, and also because of other hidden capacities, was able to act very successfully in the promotion of commercial goods. The beauty associated with this type of music and visual effects, popular music audience and the popularity of this type of music caused many owners of advertising companies to consider popular music as a good tool to use in advertising and use it more and more in promoting their products. In this dissertation, using the foundation data method[3] based on field studies and interviews with experts and audiences of this music, the researcher seeks a deeper understanding of these capacities and how these two areas interact. According to these developments, one of its important branches, religious propaganda, has also found different dimensions and is always using new media.. On the other hand, art in general and pop music in the form that is intended in this treatise are more and more referred to by religious propaganda experts every day, and the different implications of this type of exploitation provide a basis for interdisciplinary studies. According to Storey (1389), the undoubted cultural and economic importance of populist music has made this type of music more central to the focus of cultural studies.

The presence of this type of music in everyday life[4] and its daily consumption[5] has caused it to find an important place in the matter of religious propagation, willingly or unwillingly, and with the change in the approaches of religious propagation, populist music has also somewhat established its position in this field and has become one of the tools. is, which is exploited every day in the field of religious propaganda like other fields of propaganda.

The researcher's problem in this treatise is to discover the hidden capacities that have led to such exploitations in order to gain an understanding of the relationship between popular music and religious propaganda. In fact, what is the function of this type of music in the matter of religious preaching and whether it can basically be considered as one of the tools of the matter of preaching or not, is one of the questions in the research. What is the audience's perception of popular music in religious advertisements and does the audience have a religious perception of popular music with religious contexts? And does this type of music help the audience to establish a deeper connection with religious concepts or not?

Finally, the researcher will discuss the policy of populist music in the media and seek to find the answer to the question of how and in which media the capacities of populist music can be used in the matter of religious propaganda. It is [6]. An interdisciplinary study will help the researcher to evaluate the desired phenomenon with a broader perspective and gain new horizons about the research topic. Interdisciplinary study in social sciences is a field that has opened its place in the field of cultural studies today, and many researches in the field of media and its connection with other fields of social sciences are carried out in the context of this study approach.

Music is a phenomenon that has been with humans since long ago and has appeared and emerged in different ways and in various species and periods in human life and has always been a suitable tool for expressing human opinions and thoughts. Therefore, it has always been desired by thinkers and philosophers in different ages and centuries, and it can be said that no great thinker has easily passed by this phenomenon. Denora [7] (2003):

Music has power [8] or so many believe. Through time and cultures, music has been related to beliefs, healing, corruption and many other changing issues. The idea behind these connections is that music has an effect on consciousness, body and emotions [9]. In contrast to this opinion, there is a view that says that music should be subject to control and adjustment because of what it can do.

Among the different genres of music, populist music is a good subject for this type of research due to the importance it has gained in the world community and Iranian society in the last few decades. In such a way that by addressing the different angles of this new musical genre, many hidden realities in the new culture and communities have been clarified for the researchers. It can be said that people-friendly music is one of the components of every culture, and by examining it, the researcher is guided to the knowledge of missing elements in the field of culture. Therefore, the researcher in this treatise, using the extensive research that has been done so far on these functions and capacities, tries to examine the capacities of one of the common types of music in the propagation of religion from the perspective of cultural studies. Popular music, with its known and sometimes unknown capacities, provides people with facilities to use these capacities and know this type of music in the matter of advertising with effective and up-to-date tools.