2. Research Questions Have the messages in popular music changed from a year before President Obama to a year after? Have the messages become more political? How have the messages addressing the President changed from President Bush to President Obama?

3. Literature Review Music as an Organizing Community – Scott-Heron (1979), Denisoff (1970), Baum (2002) The Politics of Music – Rose (1991), Fox and Williams (1974) The ‘Documentary’ – Stewart (2005) Music as a Form of Expression – Brader (2005), Maher (2005), Sullivan (2003)

4. Theory of Social Construction Donileen Loseke (2003) Social Problems Claims-making and Claims-makers – Best (2005), Sullivan (2003)

5. Methodology Content Analysis Definition of a Political Message Data Collection – Population = 516 Songs; Sample = 32 songs – Five Genres: Modern Rock, Pop, Rap/Hip-Hop, R&B, Country – Billboard.com – Coding Sheet

6. Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths – Amount of Previous Literature – Convenience of Locating and Listening to Songs Weaknesses – Coding – Limitation of Billboard.com charts – Time frame

7. Findings

11. Discussion Music artists express themselves and their views through their music as a way to communicate with the rest of the world. Country artists use their whole song to voice these messages where as most rap/hip-hop artist use a line or a word to reference the issue.

12. Questions? Thank you for listening!