Music and politics.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Street, John.

Series:

Polity contemporary political communication series.

Polity contemporary political communication series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

vii, 195 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Polity Press, 2011.

Summary:

It is common to hear talk of how music can inspire crowds, move individuals and mobilize movements. We know too how governments can live in fear of its effects, censor its sounds and imprison its creators. At the same time, there are governments that use music for propaganda or for torture. All these examples speak of music's political importance. While we may share these assumptions about music's power, we rarely stop to analyse what it is about organized sound - notes and rhythms -that has these effects.

This book examines music's political power. It shows how music has been at the heart of accounts of political order, how musicians from Bono to Blue have claimed to speak for peoples and political causes. It looks at the emergence of music as an object of public policy, in the classroom or in the copyright courts, as the focus of national pride or employment opportunities. The book brings together ideas about music's political significance (from Aristotle, via Rousseau, to Adorno and beyond) to tell of the extraordinary potency of music across time and space. At its heart lies the argument that music and politics are inseparably linked, and that each animates the other. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Sound barriers: censoring music 9

2 Falling on deaf ears? Music policy 24

3 Striking a chord: from political communication to political representation 41

4 All together now: music as political participation 62

5 Fight the power: music as mobilization 79

6 'Invisible republics': making music, making history 98

7 Sounding good: the politics of taste 118

8 Politics as music: the sound of ideas and ideology 140

9 One more time with feeling: music as political experience 160.

ISBN:

0745635431

9780745635439

9780745635446

074563544X

OCLC:

703548475

Publisher Number:

99946303392