Adolescents' use of socially disvalued media: towards a theory of media delinquency.

(Special Issue: Adolescents' Uses of the Media) Keith Roe.

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Oct 1995 v24 n5 p617(15)

Author's Abstract: COPYRIGHT Plenum Publishing Corporation 1995

This article essentially addresses one specific question: Why do some adolescents actively and sometimes flauntingly use socially disvalued media contents? Using the empirical examples of use of heavy metal rock and video violence, particular emphasis is first placed on the role of the school as a generating context for both delinquency and (popular) cultural dispositions. Second, by combining these parallel fields of inquiry, a theory of "media delinquency" is proposed that places the use of socially disvalued media within a wider theoretical context of adolescent development.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT Plenum Publishing Corporation 1995

INTRODUCTION

In communication research it is now well established that adolescents use the media of communication in order to seek and obtain various gratifications. The motivations they report for using various media typically involve items such as "relaxation," "killing time," "atmosphere creation," and not least, "mood control" (Roe, 1985). What, though, is the mood of the adolescent who, at the end of the school day, turns to high volume, angry, heavy metal rock; or who inserts a cassette containing large amounts of raw explicit violence into the VCR? The purpose of this article is to examine some of the reasons why adolescents are attracted to such socially disvalued media contents. In particular, the role of the school in stimulating such use will be investigated.

Finally, a theory of "media delinquency" will be proposed that places the use of socially disvalued media within a wider theoretical context of adolescent development. SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL COMMITMENT, AND MUSIC PREFERENCES There has long been indirect evidence of a link between school achievement and use of music. Involvement in certain adolescent subcultures has been found to be negatively related to school achievement (Coleman, 1961; Stinchcombe, 1964; Hargreaves, 1967; Willis, 1977; Power, 1986; Walker, 1988), and many subcultures express a strong attachment to some form of music (Sugarman, 1967; Brown and O'Leary, 1971; Clarke, 1973; Murdock and Phelps, 1973; Brake, 1977; Willis, 1978, 1984).

Moreover, links between education and music preferences have been identified in taste culture and other approaches (Fox and Wince, 1975; Fink et al., 1985; Robinson and Fink, 1986; Lewis, 1987; Christenson and Peterson, 1988; cf. Cooper, 1991). Cumulative evidence of a more direct relationship between school achievement and music use has been provided by Swedish research. In a longitudinal study Roe (1983a, 1985, 1987a; cf. Rosengren and Windahl et al., 1989) found that school achievement and attitude to school have independent effects on music preferences, even when controlling for social background. Similarly, in a study of adolescents' use of music video TV, Roe and Lofgren (1988) found school to be associated with amount and time of viewing, the size and composition of the viewing group, the extent to which visual vs. audio elements were considered important, and the motives for use.

School achievement has also been found to be related to the number of records and tapes that adolescents possess, the amount of time they spend listening to records, preference for different musical genres, knowledge of popular music and their familiarity with youth culture argot (Roe, 1990a; cf. von Feilitzen and Roe, 1992).

In a follow-up study, Roe (1992) analyzed the relationship between academic achievement and various music preferences more specifically. A taste for classical music was found to be positively associated with school achievement, even after controlling for socioeconomic background. Below average achieving students fell below the mean level of preference for classical music, those with average achievement fell almost on the mean, and those with above average achievement were above the mean. Similar results were obtained for jazz and blues, a finding that supports Bourdieu and Passeron's (1979, p. 41) prediction that a taste for these music types now tends to be combined with a taste for traditional forms like classical music and is typical of groups bound for the highest levels of the educational system. Conversely, a taste for heavy metal (which may be situated at the opposite pole of cultural legitimacy from classical music) was found to be characteristic of very disconted, low-achieving, mostly male students from lower working-class backgrounds. Here the best predictor variable was students level of (dis)satisfaction with school.

Exploring these relationships still more fully, Roe (1993a) reported the following:

1. A generally positive relationship between school achievement and liking for classical music, as well as for mainstream forms of pop.

2. That the tastes expressed by high achievers from lower status backgrounds were more similar to those expressed by high achievers from higher status backgrounds than they were to the tastes expressed by low achievers from lower status backgrounds.

3. A generally negative relationship between school achievement and liking for heavy metal. In middle-class groups there was a similar, but much less negative, tendency for mainstream rock. Conversely, in the working-class groups there was a positive relationship between achievement and the level of liking for mainstream rock.

4. The tastes expressed by low achievers from higher status backgrounds were more similar to those expressed by low achievers from lower status backgrounds than they were to the tastes expressed by high achievers from higher status backgrounds.

5. Jazz and blues manifested patterns closer to that of classical music than to those of pop and rock.

6. Knowledge of more legitimate forms of music increased with higher social status background.

7. Knowledge of more legitimate forms of music increased with higher school achievement.

8. The association between school achievement and music knowledge was stronger than that between social status background and music knowledge.

9. The mean level of knowledge of all types of music analyzed was especially high among middle- and upper middle-class high and very high achievers. The importance of rock for those adolescents experiencing status disjunction difficulties was noted by Frith (1983). He came to the conclusion that music was most important for adolescents (whether middle class or working class) who in some way rejected their class cultures (cf. Wilmott, 1969). Moreover, according to Trondman (1990), tastes in rock have now become intimately related to the establishment of social hierarchies and may thereby mark social distance between classes and social settings.

In general terms, this implies that social mobility will be related to changes in media use. Specifically, intergenerational status mobility, occurring within a larger context of status inequality, is likely to be accompanied by distinctive shifts in the self-esteem, identity, and lifestyle of individuals and groups that, in turn, lead to distinctive cultural taste and media use patterns. Following this perspective, Roe (1994) made two specific predictions:

(1) that individuals and groups that have a "broken trajectory" (i.e., become objectively or subjectively separated, in an upward or a downwards direction, from their status origin) will tend to display music tastes "deviant" from those typical of their status background; and

(2) that individuals and groups on a downward trajectory (i.e., those facing "downclassing"), as a result of their negative experiences, ceteris paribus, face more severe problems of social and psychological adjustment than others, and that consequently they will tend to display culturally disvalued music tastes.

These predictions were tested on longitudinal data of Swedish respondents when they were 15 and 20 years old. The results provided support for the two predictions. Different types of social mobility, upward and downward, occupational and educational, were found to be differentially related to preferences for music types differing in cultural legitimacy. It was concluded that the segmentation of the music audience can be seen, at least in part, as resulting from the trajectory of individuals and groups within various dimensions of the social status hierarchy. For example, a very strong liking for disco music was associated with upward occupational mobility, a strong preference for heavy metal was related to downward educational mobility, and a very high level of liking for classical music was most characteristic of intergenerational upwards mobility into higher education (cf. Engel et al., 1987).

For those who anticipate neither relative success nor relative failure, and who thereby feel less acutely the need to distinguish themselves conspicuously (in whatever direction) from mainstream culture, less demonstrative cultural elements such as television may offer fitting symbolic spaces. In general, the importance for adolescents of the anticipated future is a recurring theme in research (see, e.g., Larson and Asmussen (1991)). A number of studies (Roe, 1983a, 1984, 1987a, 1992) have also indicated the importance of adolescents commitment to school as an explanatory variable with regard to music preferences.

It was found that a negative commitment to school is related to a preference for "harder" form of rock, while a positive commitment to school is associated with a taste for more "acceptable" types of popular music. The school commitment variable also helps to explain why, contrary to the general trend, some high achievers actually prefer music types such as heavy metal rock, and why some low achievers manifest a "mainstream" pop orientation. Variations in school commitment, in turn, also raise the question of the characteristics adolescents bring with them to school. In this respect (Arnett, 1991, p. 89) found that heavy metal fans express a strong dislike of school because they find the structure and regimentation of the institution difficult to take. In a subsequent study (Arnett, 1992, p. 313) he found that preferences for hard rock or heavy metal music are also associated with higher levels of sensation seeking. He concluded that adolescents who are high in sensation seeking are attracted to hard rock and heavy metal music (as well as to reckless behaviour) because of the high intensity of sensation that these experiences provide. This high sensation need may also explain why they become negative to the normally low sensation environment of the school.

SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL COMMITMENT, AND VIDEO VIOLENCE

Some early studies of television viewing also found links with school variables. For example, McLeod et a