Violent Trends in Hip-Hop Entertainment Journalism

Abstract

While the prevalence and adverse effects of violence in hip-hop music and music videos have been studied extensively, hip-hop entertainment journalism, which reports on hip-hop news and events, has been largely unexplored. The purpose of this study was to examine violent trends in hip-hop journalism. We conducted a content analysis on a random sample of 970 news articles, 218 interview articles and the accompanying photographs from three hip-hop themed websites, and 56 radio interviews from hip-hop themed FM radio stations. Content was coded for type of violence, reality status, narrative sequence, and tone. The findings suggest that a significant portion of hip-hop journalism communications contain violence. More than half of all articles (52.3%; n = 663) contained violence. The prevalence of violence was higher for interview articles (73.4%, n = 218) than for news articles (45.9%, n = 445). The most common categories were violent metaphors, weapons, feuding (e.g., verbal aggression), and fighting. Almost 70% of radio interviews ( n = 37) contained at least one mention of violence and the most common types of violence were fighting/physical assault and feuding. Furthermore, the majority of violence for all articles and radio content were reported as real and were presented from the performer sequence. News articles depicted more consequences, whereas interview articles and radio interviews depicted more positive portrayals. Potential implications for youth exposure hip-hop journalism are discussed.