Post on 30-Apr-2023
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 1
MKW 422 Music and Positive Media EffectsSabine ReichSpring 2015
What We Listen How We Share:
The Effects of Feel Accepted in the Case of Social Identity
Yusuf Gökberk Ertunç
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 4
There are many theories appeared on social and media
entertainment research to explain why we are consuming music
(Zillmann, 1988) and how we attribute a meaning our music tastes
in the case of music preference based group membership. (Abrams,
2009) Hence, main research question based on this two main
research area on media entertainment and well-being. However this
kind of broad inquiry would not be only too wide, actually it
could easily exceed the limit of sustainable research design.
Actually Baumeister did it by his well-known work “the need to
belong theory” (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) but even if a giant
meta theory could be formulated it is unthinkable to fit this
meta theory in to the just one paper. Based on that assumption we
think up; “how does the feel accepted influences individual’s
online music sharing motives in the case of social identity”
Because it is covers the base two theories of music and positive
media effects – media entertainment and social identity
researches. Also it has a capability to reveal conjunctions
between Baumeister’s “the need to belong” (Baumeister & Leary,
1995) theory and Trepte’s “The Social Identity Theory” (2006) by
discover paths in a newly emerged media area.
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Introduction
In our age music listening behavior has been dramatically change.
From the antiquity to invention of gramophone music actually
created and preserved by wandering bards. Homer, the famous
Ionian Hellenic poet’s works Iliad and Odyssey had been taught as
a religious text in ancient Greek.
After the written period of history the second one, religious
music appeared. Religious music especially in Christian and
Islamic empires become an only opportunity to develop and show
and show music abilities. Only exception from that time is
trumpets and annoying sound form shill pipes to give inspiration
to soldiers and instill fear to enemy.
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Religious area with great choirs and lots of sacred text based
chants appeared. After 12.century Western music has gained
polyphonic sounds which actually lead by Perotin and many others
composers. Polyphony was a breakthrough in music history which
leads us to baroque era. Johannes Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell,
Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann
are most famous composers from that times. Despite the Mozart and
Beethoven continued and improved that music style actually this
history still lives and create new music’s even if we are don’t
aware.
Richard Wagner and famous operas like Der Ring des Nibelungen
(The Ring of the Nibelung) actually opened a new era just before
invention of movies. Because he one of the examples that music is
not only music anymore. Music actually has a capability to evoke
emotions in audience while actual visual media played. It might
be not a new concept but followers of Wagner’s style actually
invented movie music industry.
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Bertolt Brecht’s and his well-known play The Threepenny Opera
(Die Dreigroschenoper) actually not only ordinary play written by
Brecht. It also increased repetition of Kurt Weill. After their
exile to US just like many other composers from Germany. Today
most famous composer from Hollywood is Hans Zimmer. He has known
by many well-known Hollywood movies like Inception, Interstellar,
The Dark Knight, The Last Samurai, Gladiator and also The Lion
King.
To sum up this historic evolution of music, music might have
always been as a creator of social identity by religious times to
Hollywood times. Also music used since on the beginning of
history as an altering mood and motivation source.
Relevance
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In today, now we are living in the Internet age. We are share and
listen to music. Communication or even listening music is not
only one way process anymore. As we are starting to become
producers not only listeners we just need to understand and
discover underlying motives in that mechanism. The question “Why
we are listening music?” is actually questioned dozens of times
(Zillmann 1988; Knobloch & Zillmann, 2002) but “Why we are
willing to show our music preferences” somehow new question. My
research question is “how does the feel accepted influences
individual’s online music sharing motives in the case of social
identity”.
Only social identity might be enough to get a proper way to see
patterns of our share motives in the Internet but actually we
need to Baumeister’s The Need to Belong Theory (Baumeister &
Leary, 1995) to open a new view of media and entertainment
research. Social Identity Theory (Trepte, 2006) express to
outside of this mechanisms but the need to belong give us to
chance to cultivate some assumptions about underlying mechanisms
in person’s choices.
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There are many underlying mechanism be present at personal music
choose and identity. Especially Zillmann and his well-known
research about the mood-management theory (1988) is some kind of
new modern way to understand why people listening music. Mood
management and mood regulation give us to understand individual’s
motives to listen music. But if we include social groups that
individual based explanation need’s to support with a lot of
other group and identity related researches.
However we don’t need to discover the Earth again. Baumeister’s
Need to Belong theory (1995) has merged these two concepts in to
one central idea. So it actually lead us to ask the last question
“How people How does social identity influences individual’s
online music sharing motives to feel accepted?”
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Also Ellemers, Kortekaas, Ouwerkerk self-categorization,
commitment to the group and group self-esteem theory (1999) help
us to understand group dynamics in the case of online
environment. As we know people used to perceive themselves and
others friend or foe since beginning of history. With the help of
this theory which is derived by Ellemers we can create some
assumption about online environments and people’s organization on
that social media sites.
Lastly, Trepte’s work on Social Identity Theory (2006) help us to
develop our research question by collecting main concepts about
group relationships and individual’s role in that groups.
Reception process can also give us to great opportunity to use
that as an independent variable.
In conclusion, with the help of these studies we can form a
research question which made by social identity theory and the
need to belong.
Central Concepts
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In this exploratory research we define some key concepts to
investigate. “The Social Identity Theory” It actually formulated
by Tajfel and Turner (1979) but in this research we use more
modern and more familiar version from Sabine Trepte’s research
(2006).
Because our main aim on outcomes in Internet based sharing and
Trepte’s research include computer-mediated communication. Trepte
define this concept by “People categorize themselves and others
as belonging to different social groups and evaluate these
categorizations.” (Trepte 2006, p. 255) So it means that people
may only identify themselves by belong one of groups and
cultivate some assumptions towards others.
Second one is reception process. Reception process is define what
we perceive and how we affected by entertainment media. In our
research reception process based on computer-mediated
communication and understanding key points of reception one of
crucial point to measure the effect of social exclusion effects.
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Third is self-esteem. Self-esteem is one of key point of this
research. Self-esteem takes a part as depended variable to
understand the effects of social exclusion. It will show
relationship between online sharing and feel acceptance.
Fourth is the social group. From the original research based on
“the social identity theory” (Tajfel Turner, 1979, p. 40) Social
identity theories never consider people as an individual.
According to this study, people behave and even identify
themselves by their social group so we need to examine group and
its relationships not in the concept of individual.
Fifth one is social exclusion. Social exclusion is main obstacle
to achieve feel accepted and it cause severe anxiety. “Insofar as
isolation is a function of the belongingness need, whereas
helplessness is a frustration of control (which is probably
another fundamental motivation). Anxiety and general distress
seem to be a natural consequence of being separated from
important others.” Also social exclusion can cause distress and
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 13
also if individuals define themselves by their groups it could
also diminish their social identity.
Moreover Baumeister has found a relationship between jealousy and
anxiety by Mathes, Adams, and Davies (1985) research but he
claims that there are not much support to claim directly this
view.
Furthermore, perception of belonging one of key concept we want
to consider. By reason of need to belonging and also feel
accepted is strongly tied with that concept, we can conduct and
interpret our research with the help of Williams’
“Cyberostracism: Effects of being ignored over the Internet”
research.
Williams’ define ostracized person as a target and ostracize
person as a source so these definitions will also be part of
formulation to give a meaning to feel accepted part of this
study. But in our version we can also aimed to measure public
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 14
embarrassment and ridicule just like mentioned in Williams’ study
(2000).
Existing Research
“The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a
Fundamental Human Motivation” (Baumeister 1995) is provide most
of theoretical background for us.
Baumeister’s study indicate most of meta theoretician like Freud
to understand individual’s inside motives, Maslow's hierarchy of
needs (1943) opened our mind to understand people’s fundamental
needs to reach life achievements. Baumeister’s need to belong
theory help us to collect a lot of concepts from a new and
scientific meta theory unlike older famous ones.
“Social Identity Theory”(Trepte 2006) help us to design a
research about identity process by give a meaning to the
influence of social identity on entertainment media presences.
Trepte’s theory helps us to design our research to understand
what people’s motives are to achieve positive social identity.
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Individuals not only describe themselves by their knowledge or
what they listen. They actually describe themselves in a social
group. If there are no social groups in fact there are no social
identities.
“Social Identity on a Nation Scale: Optimal Distinctiveness and
young People’s Self-Expression Through Musical Preference”(Abrams
2009) like Trepte’s study give us chance to conduct a group based
experiment.
Abrams actually opened our way by about conducting research in
the area of social identity. Moreover Abrams study give us to
chance to examine self-categorization theory by help us the
modern patterns of developing a music based identity. Abrams
study also showed us “Optimal Distinctiveness Theory” to
understand the new identification mechanisms especially for
younger generations.
By that theory we can assume that only mood-management and to
gain hedonic valance (Zillmann 1988, Knobloch 2002) are not
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 16
enough. Even if the mood-management theory enhanced by eudemonic,
experience based views(Rieger, Reinecke, Frichlich, Bente 2014)
opened us to new view if we need to identify and understand
people’s media preferences we still need to consider humans as a
social beings.
“Self-Categorization, Commitment to the Group and Group Self-
Esteem as Related but Distinct Aspects of Social
Identity”(Ellemers, Kortekaas, Ouwerkerk, 1999) help us to
understand underlying mechanism ingroup and outgroup
relationships
With Ellemers’ research we can understand and manipulate group
preferences effects on individuals. We can investigate in group
favoritism and examine the group commitment also intergroup
differentiation. If we are going to conduct a research about
social exclusion it is perfectly fit for the support our main
assumptions.
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“Cyberostacism: Effects of Being Ignored over the
Internet”(Williams, 2000) In the end we will replicate the
experiment conditions like William’s Cyberostracism research to
understand the effect of social exclusion.
Cyberostracism research like Baumeister the need to belong
research suggested four fundamental needs to satisfy: Belonging,
Self-Esteem, Control and Meaningful existence. William’s
cyberball game could actually adapt our music share and belonging
study.
Definition of Research Gap
Baumeister’s the need to belong theory (1995) create us to
perceive and develop judgements about general concepts in media
and entertainment theory.
There are many researches based on need to belonging, social
identity theory. In media and entertainment researches we can
define even conduct many experiments to get a proper base to
define that theories. However even if we took Abrams study
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“social identity on a nation scale” research (2009), survey
method and target participants are not so suitable. Abrams aimed
to perceive young people’s social identity development but he
choose a way to mail his survey to participants’ houses.
Abrams never mentioned mailing as a drawback of his study but
actually it is actually crucial limitation for social identity
researches. Especially younger generations not only strange mail
based surveys this method could be more time consuming but it’s
effective to directly engage a proper sample from population by
eliminating many of sample error.
Other studies used experimental groups to prove their assumptions
but despite the Abrams study they may have high internal
reliability but their outcomes can be debatable in the case of
external validity.
In our research question “how does social identity influences
individual’s online music sharing motives to feel accepted”
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 19
actually based on Internet so even if we want, it is hard to
conduct like Abrams study.
Trepte’s Social Identity Theory (2006) is an explanatory research
and it has not contains some research design to adapt our
research. However it expands our horizon and social identity
based concepts help us to reach a proper jargon to support our
research and its design.
In Ellemers’ Self-Categorization, Commitment to the Group and
Group Self-Esteem research (1999) Ellemers focused on group
relations. In this self-categorization research there are many
group dynamic has been revealed but as a nature of this theory
its position become very far away from individuals. This self-
categorization and commitment research did not investigate
directly the effect of need to belong and acceptance which we
will be included that parts to our research about feel accepted.
Cyberostracism experiment people participated from their isolated
environment and “they were insulated from public embarrassment
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 20
and ridicule.”(Williams, 2000) This was effected their experiment
to fail to found support for an affect against control and
meaningful existence. Because of that we will conduct this
experiment in a real life condition to figure out how can we
eliminate or correct this outcome.
Furthermore, people are just do not only listen music anymore.
They are share and wait for appreciation by “likes” and
“comments”. Our music tastes do not only subject of our personal
preferences, actually it is represents our identity on social
media.
Hypotheses
H1: Individual’s shares music based on their targeted social
identity not only their music tastes
From Zillmann’s Mood Management Theory (1988) we know that people
use music as a mood regulator to benefit from its hedonic
valance. However in society or even in social media we have
identities so somehow we feel some kind of need to strict or
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 21
broad our music tastes not only in the case of mood management,
to fit a social group with a proper image.
For example a socialist person can share revolutionary songs or
even some traditional music but if that person go beyond that and
shares popular music it could damage that person’s identity and
he/she could not collect “likes” and “comments”.
Furthermore, that situation is actually valid for metal music
listeners. Even if they liked, they have to cover their hard rock
music choice. Because especially with music based niche social
identities are too tender against some kind of deviation.
With this hypothesis we just want to investigate how people
preserve and build their social identity and what is the role of
“optimal distinctiveness theory” (Abrams, 2009)?
H2: Feeling accepted is the main motive sharing music
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This assumption based on the question of why we are share music
on social media? According to Zillmann’s Mood Management Theory
(1988; Knobloch 2002) “(a) individuals strive to rid themselves
of bad moods or, at least, seek to diminish the intensity of such
moods, and (b) individuals strive to perpetuate good moods and
seek to maintain the intensity of these moods”. However it is not
explain why we have an inclination to express our music
preferences. Insofar we will investigate the main motivation of
this behavior.
H3: No feedback from multiple music sharing awake a feeling of
social exclusion and causes basic anxiety
According to Self-Categorization Theory (Ellemers, Kortekaas,
Ouwerkerk, 1999), we have perceived and objective popularity. So
if a person does not get much objective popularity it will damage
person’s self-concept. If we consider music sharing as an
achievement by people’s expression in the case of Optimal
Distinctiveness Theory (Abrams, 2009) we can actually interpret
that assumption to the need to belong theory by “People prefer
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 23
achievements that are validated, recognized, and valued by other
people over solitary achievements” (Baumeister, 1995, p.498)
Suggested Research Design
Experiments might be good for prove our hypotheses however first
we need to be sure about our hypothesis to found a correct
experiment conditions. So we need to first test our assumptions
is it correct or not.
So for an explanatory research it is good to choose a survey –
personality tests based research to test our three main
hypotheses.
After that we can conduct our research. However on the Internet
it is hard to control participants so we need to simulate this
effect in a controlled environment. First we need to 6 – 12
participants inside one classroom. However 5 – 11 of them
actually will be conductor of research and just one participant
will not aware of that. At the end we will conducted this
experiment with 4 different groups with 12 different original
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subjects. Because, to collect as much as sample and eliminate
biases we conducted same condition three times with three
different participants. Praise, rejection and ignore situations
will be tested.
We will say original participant to: “We want measure young
people music choose. So we gathered a focus group to understand
which music genre will be preferred among young people.” However
other participants will aware of our aim and they help us to
manipulate original subject.
These groups will praise, contradict and ignore the music
suggestion of original subjects to affect their self-esteem
level. After the experiment, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
(Rosenberg, 1965) in Trepte’s Social Identity Theory research
(2006) can be used to determine our subjects self-esteem.
Actually we want to simulate cyberball effect in the case of
music sharing by just turning back to the real life to virtual
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 25
one just Williams’ research about cyberostracism (Williams,
2000).
However before starting online experiments, it is a great
opportunity to see the effects of exclusion and need to belonging
on our music preference based self-esteem hypothesis. In
laboratory environment we can get clues to improve our research
methods to conduct a larger version on the Internet.
Conclusion
In conclusion “The Need to Belong” (Baumeister, 1995) and “Social
Identity Theory” (Trepte, 2006) related questions are common in
media and entertainment researches but it needs to be adapt new
media environment to keep update their assumptions and their
results. Because before that media theories does not require a
lot of update and revision just like today. Mediums limited by
newspapers, radios, televisions. They are non-interactive and
easy to texted mediums by reason of their one-way communication
potential.
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Because of that reason we need to frequently remake and update
old theories to new ones, especially in the Internet age. So in
this research design we just intend to conduct a research based
on Trepte’s assumptions (Trepte, 2006), Baumeister’s terminology
(Baumeister & Leary 1995), Abrams’ practice (Abrams, 2009),
Ellemers’ group relations (Ellemers, 1999) and Williams’
cyberostracism (Williams, 2000).
Online identities and relations are still waiting to be
investigating further. We hope this new area will be more develop
and be more collaborative with participants just like the essence
of the online environment.
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Referances
Trepte, S. (2006). Social identity theory. In J. Bryant & P.
Vorderer (Eds.), Psychology of
entertaintment. (pp. 255-271). Mahwah, NJ US: Lawrence Erlbaum
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Baumeister, R:F, Leary, M.R. (1995), The need to belong: Desire
for interpersonal attachments
as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin,
117(3), 497-529. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
Abrams, D. (2009). Social identity on a national scale: Optimal
distinctiveness and young
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 28
people’s self-expression through musical preference. Group
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10.1177/1368430209102841
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categorisation, commitment to the
group and group self-esteem as related but distinct aspects
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Rieger, D., Reinecke, L., Frischlich, L., & Bente, G. (2014).
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WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 29
being linking with hedonic and eudemonic entertainment
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Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of
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22.06.2015
Hereby I declare that I have written this thesis by my own.
Furthermore, I confirm that no other sources have been used than
those specified in the thesis itself. This thesis, in same or
similar form, has not been available to any audit authority yet.
Ich versichere, dass ich die Arbeit selbstständig und ohne
Benutzung anderer als der angegebenen Hilfsmittel angefertigt
habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich oder sinngemäß aus
WHAT WE LISTEN HOW WE SHARE? 31
Veröffentlichungen in schriftlich er oder elektronischer Form
entnommen sind, habe ich als solche unter Angabe der Quelle
kenntlich gemacht. Mir ist bekannt, dass im Falle einer falschen
Versicherung die Arbeit mit „nicht ausreichend" bewertet wird.
Ich bin ferner damit einverstanden, dass meine Arbeit zum Zwecke
eines Plagiatsabgleichs in elektronischer Form versendet und
gespeichert werden kann.
Yusuf Gökberk Ertunç