From Region to Class, The Changing Locus of Country Music: A Test of the Massification Hypothesis

Abstract

The regionalization, commercialization, and subsequent diffusion of country music are examined in terms of the massification hypothesis. Each of the data sets examined suggests that the massification theorists were right in observing that the old patterns of cultural diversity along ethnic, regional, and even class lines are being destroyed or buried. But they have erred in their prediction of ever-increasing cultural homogeneity. While country music is increasingly embraced by mid-life, working and lowermiddle class whites irrespective of regional origin, easy listening music is the preferred music in the same segment of the population. These data bring into question the assumption that social classes have distinct cultures and lead to the conjecture that these musical styles may represent convenient indicators of emerging classes. The impact of modernization on cultural diversity has long held the attention of scholars. Industrialization, urbanization, and particularly the mass media are said to destroy regional, ethnic, religious, occupational, and similar forms of cultural diversity, replacing these with the homogenized products of mass This massification hypothesis,was derived from observations made during the 1930s of the effects of commercial radio, music, movies, and mass circulation magazines on cultural traits in the United States, and also the propaganda uses made of these media by the rising totalitarian governments of Europe. The hypothesis was fully articulated in diverse essays and research studies made in the decade following World War II (Jacobs, 1959; Rosenberg and White, 1957). Dwight Macdonald (1957:62) puts the hypothesis most succinctly, Mass is a dynamic, revolutionary force, breaking down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste, and dissolving all cultural distinctions. It mixes and scrambles-everything together, producing what might be called * This project was funded in part by grant RO7855-73-154 from the National Endowment for the Humanities which is gratefully acknowledged. Johnny Bond, Norman Cohen, George Collier, Gregory Daniels, Skeeter Davis, Archie Green, William Ivey, Grelun Landon, Ronnie Light, Jens Lund, Anthony Oberschall, Ruth Slack, and James D. Thompson provided much information, insight and encouragement along the way; Victoria Bransford and Russell Davis helped in the coding; while Patricia Averill, George Lewis, Claire Peterson, Neil V. Rosenberg, and Richard Simpson have added greatly to the clarity of the argument by their careful reading of an earlier draft of the paper. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.183 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 05:49:50 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 498 / SOCIAL FORCES / vol. 53:3, march 1975 homogenized culture. Comprehensive critiques of the theory, data, and metaphysics of massification can be found in Bauer and Bauer (1960) and Gans (1966). For our purposes, it is convenient to separate the massification hypothesis into two elements: first, that the forces of modernization significantly reduced cultural diversity; and second, that an increasingly homogeneous mass has emerged. All available evidence supports the first assertion that many cultural differences have been destroyed. This can be seen whether one looks at general processes such as the Americanization of immigrants or traces the ebb of regional differences in a particular realm such as blues music or linguistic dialects. The second assertion, that of increasing homogeneity, is however an oversimplification at best. Although the few well-researched studies that have been made do show little significant difference in cultural tastes across a wide range of social classes or occupations, this may be, as Wilensky (1964) recognized, in part an artifact of the way measurements are made. First, media with little available diversity, such as radio in the 1940s and television in the 1950s and 1960s, are often used; and second, cultural taste is frequently conceptualized simply as high art versus popular culture or some similar distinction which arbitrarily restricts to one dimension the range of cultural diversity