Taylor Swift is a global icon. Her success is largely due to her deeply personal lyricism and relatable persona. This thesis explores Swift’s artistic evolution by analyzing her transformation from...Show moreTaylor Swift is a global icon. Her success is largely due to her deeply personal lyricism and relatable persona. This thesis explores Swift’s artistic evolution by analyzing her transformation from a country music artist to a global pop star. By examining her public persona and intimate lyricism, this thesis places Swift within the tradition of Confessional poetry which is characterized by its emotional vulnerability, autobiographical storytelling, and vivid imagery. Additionally, Swift pushes the boundaries of Confessional poetry by weaving feminist ideals into her lyrics. By bridging personal vulnerability with cultural commentary, Swift transforms deeply personal experiences into universal reflections that resonate with her audience. This thesis argues that Swift asserts her place as a modern Confessional poet and feminist lyricist whose work contributes to contemporary cultural and literary discourse.Show less
This paper investigated discourse on the use of the English language in Dutch pop music. An important term in this research was societal treatment. Societal treatment studies deal with the explicit...Show moreThis paper investigated discourse on the use of the English language in Dutch pop music. An important term in this research was societal treatment. Societal treatment studies deal with the explicit manifestations of beliefs, feelings and behavioural intents present in a wide range of communications (Santello 2015). The questions which were researched in this thesis were: What are the language attitudes of the people of the Netherlands towards Dutch and towards English in pop music? Do they have a language preference? Three methods were used to look at the societal treatment of English and Dutch in pop music: content analysis, indirect measurement, and direct measurement (Van Meurs 2010). In the content analysis, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) was gathered about the use of Dutch and English in pop music from different forums. All this data was categorized into twenty-three different categories. The indirect measurement consists of a questionnaire which focused on the four tendencies which were found in the content analysis. These four tendencies were the connection to the song, the understanding of the song, the thoughts on the lyrics, and the enjoyment of the song. The goal of this questionnaire was to define if there were differences in the treatment of Dutch and English in these tendencies by letting people evaluate different video clips. In all the video clips Dutch artists were present but half of the video clips were sung in Dutch and the other half was sung in English. The direct measurement was the creation of two discussions online which focused on upcoming new Dutch music genres and the language attitudes of the Dutch towards the Dutch language. Overall, the results show that most of the Dutch have a negative language attitude towards their first language and have a language preference for English in pop music.Show less
In this thesis I will research how young Indonesians express their identities or how they create new identities in the period from the 1990s until today and I will examine this through forms of...Show moreIn this thesis I will research how young Indonesians express their identities or how they create new identities in the period from the 1990s until today and I will examine this through forms of Indonesian popular music. Popular music is an important site of cultural struggle and can reveal much about class, gender and other social divisions. That is why I want to zoom in on these social divisions by dividing them in class, religion and gender, to see how each of them relates to popular music and identity formation. I choose to focus on class, religion and gender because these have undergone drastic and interesting transformations during the period I want to examine, allowing people to reconsider their place or someone else’s in the social ladder, as a religious person or as a woman or man in society. Popular music and the way people consume it can reveal a lot about people’s thoughts and conceptions on class, religion and gender in contemporary Indonesia. The period from the 1990s until the present knew for example a remarkable growth of the Indonesian middle class who adopted a consumerist lifestyle and wanted to set themselves apart from the lower class, using popular music among other things. Concerning religion, I will focus on the developments of Islam in Indonesia, the religion of roughly 90% of the country's population. The fall of Suharto has been a significant turning-point for religious expression, because for much of the New Order, Islam was marginalized especially in the political sphere and Islamic organizations were restricted. After 1998, Indonesian Muslims could express themselves more freely, leading to an amplified process of Islamization which includes the creation of new Islamic political parties, the rise of radical Islam and the expression of religious identities in public that could not be expressed before, particularly extremist ones. Moreover, in the 21st century Muslim pop culture has flourished immensely and popular music has helped in the process of articulating religious identity. Finally, issues of gender, including for example femininity, masculinity and the role of women in the family have become a more prominent subject of discussions and debates in the past two decades. Women's rights groups and opinions about feminism have more political support than before, but so has (conservative) Islam. This leads to diverse opinions about popular female artists who are regarded as a role model to some and an actor of immorality to others. Popular music is a strong medium to spur debates about gender and to introduce new images of how young men and women can, or should, dress and behave. Consequently, this makes young Indonesians rethink and possibly reshape their gender identities.Show less
