Abstracts Sociology

Identifying the Impact of Major Cultural Events on General Music Consumption Habit in the United States

by Kenneth Tom Eng

Since 2001, the United States seems to have experienced a major cultural shift in the sudden popularity of country music. Anecdotally, this was due to an increase in the sentiment and rhetoric surrounding national pride caused by a variety of events that would affect our perceptions of our cultural climate, and country music is the most commonly perceived form of expression of those ideals. In this study, I try to find correlations on whether major cultural events actually do affect the way we consume music and if certain events have changed our listening habits as a reaction to them specifically. By analyzing data collected from the Billboard Hot 100 chart and Google Trends data, I come to the surprising conclusion that no tangible relationship is found between major cultural events and music consumption despite overwhelming anecdotal evidence to the contrary and major improvements in data collection methods, and that metrics other than cultural events are much better indicators and explanations for shifts in Billboard chart movement. After coming to this conclusion, I explore the complexity and nuances of the Billboard charts and their data collection methodology, which plays a major role in how song positions are charted while also offering an explanation for the original premise of the ???sudden??? popularity of country music. I also examine the history of Google Trends data and present a justification for this study based on related experiments including Google Flu Trends. I present modifications for my own methodology for a potentially more nuanced analysis in order to find micro trends in chart movement as opposed to major general trends. Finally, I include a discussion on the psychology of Internet search behaviors and unique music perception, and why these are perhaps the most important factors affecting this study.