IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/meanco/v11y2023i2p241-254.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Music as Soft Power: The Electoral Use of Spotify

Author

Listed:
  • Raquel Quevedo-Redondo

    (Department of Early Modern History, Modern History, History of America and Journalism, University of Valladolid, Spain)

  • Marta Rebolledo

    (Department of Public Communication, University of Navarra, Spain)

  • Nuria Navarro-Sierra

    (Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising, King Juan Carlos University, Spain)

Abstract

The changes brought by new technologies and the ensuing rapid development of the communication field have resulted in an increasing number of studies on politicians’ use of the internet and social media. However, while election campaigns have been the predominant research area in political communication scholarship, music has not yet been taken as an object of study alongside spectacularisation and politainment. Aside from some preliminary studies, systematic research on music in politics is scarce. The literature holds that music is a universal language. Music in politics can therefore be deemed to be an identification tool that can help politicians connect with voters and bring together positions between the different actors of international relations. This is an exploratory study about the use of music in political campaigning. It is focused on the role played by the Spotify playlists created by the main political parties in recent election campaigns in Spain. The initial hypothesis is that some of the candidates strategically selected songs to be shared with their followers. A quantitative content analysis ( N = 400) of some Spotify playlists showed that there were significant differences in the selection of songs among the different political parties. This research contributes to the understanding of how Spotify has been used for electoral campaigning, as well as shedding some light on the current communication literature on music and politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Raquel Quevedo-Redondo & Marta Rebolledo & Nuria Navarro-Sierra, 2023. "Music as Soft Power: The Electoral Use of Spotify," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 241-254.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v11:y:2023:i:2:p:241-254
    DOI: 10.17645/mac.v11i2.6344
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/6344
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/mac.v11i2.6344?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v11:y:2023:i:2:p:241-254. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.