ROCK'S APPRECIATORS 

 
AUDIENCE TYPES: 
MASS (Blumer)  
TASTE PUBLICS (Gans)
SUBCULTURES  (Hebdige)
PASSIVE INTERPRETERS ('cultural dopes') 
to 
ACTIVE   INTERPRETERS 
ISOLATED 
 to 
INTERACTIVE 
HETEROGENOUS(demographics / values) 
 to 
HOMOGENEOUS (demographics / values)

 

 
AUDIENCE HISTORIES (e.g.): 
AGE of Rock's Audience:
Age
Age Term
Key Year
13-18 years old teenagers 1956
13-24 years old youth 1966
13-30 years old youth 1976
11-40 years old "free-floating youth" 1986
 8-60 years old "free-floating youth" 1996 
COMMON or FRAGMENTED  Rock Audience Taste   
         on one or several demographics:
                age, gender, social class, race/ethnicity, geographic regions 

 
Functions of Appreciation:
     Emotional: use to enhance mood or to change mood
     Social: e.g. rebellion against authorities, fit in with peers; provide identity

 
Dimensions of Appreciation:
     Style of Music: one genres or more; current and/or past genres
     Unit of Appreciation: song, album
     Use of Music: dancing, romancing, partying, soloing...
     Preferred Mediator: radio, jukebox, TV, own collection,live,
     Collection type(s): vinyl albums, 45s, CDs, 8-tracks, casettes, mp3s

 
Saliency of Fan Role: 
           merely like it                          to                           important part of self-definition / way of life

 
Sources of Individual Taste:
      Personal Relations:    friends, peers, siblings, parents, ... 
      Mediators:     radio, TV, record store, ... 

 
Features Appreciated:
     Inherent: sonic elements
            lyrics: (meaning of)
     Delineated, e.g.: 
               attachment to artist (cathexis / identification) 
               reaction from others (e.g. "cool," shocking, "prestige from below") 
               nostalgia