"Would You Hear My Voice Come Through the Music?": The Uses and Meaning of Music in the Lives of Adolescents
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Authors
Rochman, Melissa S.
Issue Date
2000
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
This study examined the uses and meaning of music in the lives of adolescents. Sixty-five suburban high school students between the ages of 15 and 19 completed a survey with questions regarding their music listening habits. The participants were almost evenly divided between females and males; the majority were Asian American. Participants reported being from generally upper-level income groups. All responses were content-analyzed and categorized by four raters according to Arnett's typology of adolescents' media uses for self-socialization. This typology is comprised of five uses: entertainment, identity formation, high sensation, coping, and youth subculture identification. Results of quantitative analyses indicated that the majority of adolescents' uses of music were categorizable into Arnett's typology of adolescents' uses of media for self-socialization. Adolescents specified certain uses of music: entertainment, coping, and identity formation, with greater frequency than others. No significant gender or ethnic differences were found in this study in relation to the adolescents' specified uses of music. Three additional uses of music emerged from this analysis: unconscious connection, meaning/lyrical content, and mood-matching music/music-matching mood. These uses support the hypothesis that adolescents may be utilizing music to provide twinship self-object functions. Given the large percentage of participants of Asian-American descent, the study discusses the possible uses of music as an aid to acculturation and identity formation in Asian American adolescents. Implications of these findings highlight that music is being used by adolescents for many different aspects of "growing up". The need for understanding the relationship between adolescents and music is discussed, with emphasis on the clinical utility ofthis understanding.