White Listeners Research Articles

Effects of Listeners' and Performers' Race on Music Preferences

This study's purpose was to examine the effects of black and white listeners' and performers' race on music preferences. On a Likert-type rating scale, middle-school (n = 102) and university (n =119) listeners indicated how much they liked or disliked 20 taped music examples. On a second rating scale, the listeners selected a point closest to the racial identifier that they believed described the performer's race. A second measurement examined the participants' attitudes toward social encounters with blacks and whites. Only the black listeners showed statistically significant differences in their music preferences for white and black performers (p < .01). These listeners gave stronger preference ratings when they identified the performer's race as black. White listeners' preference ratings, however, were virtually equal for the black and white performers. On the social-encounter measurement, both black and white respondents provided more positive responses to statements of encounters with members of their own race than with the other racial group.

Rock Eras: Interpretations of Music and Society 1954–1984 by Jim Curtis

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 343 jazz from the airwaves without taking racism into account. Individual radio stations, and later the networks, consciously avoided black music and performers for fear of alienating white listeners, exactly as happens on MTV today. The same lack of insight mars Douglas’s discussion of “Amos ’n Andy.” Without an understanding that this important early program emerged from the American minstrel tradition, a racist entertainment form stealing its ideas from AfricanAmericans and repaying them with degrading portrayals, “Amos ’n Andy” makes no sense. Finally, the text is too sparsely footnoted. While the bibliography is complete and current, many chapters have fewer than five footnotes, most of them citations to earlier, romanticized histories. Douglas discusses the important events, personalities, and trends in radio broadcasting of the 1920s, but gives the reader few clues about where he obtained his information. Students could find little help with research projects here. Teachers need a short history of radio broadcasting for use in colleges and high schools, but deficiencies in scope and content, a lack of historical vision, and poorly documented research make Douglas’s book unsuitable for this purpose. Susan Smui.yan Dr. Smit.v.-w, an assistant professor in the Department of American Civilization at Brown University, is writing a book on the commercialization of American broadcast radio. Recently she was a National Science Foundation Fellow at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Rock Eras: Interpretations of Music and Society 1954 — 1984. By Jim Curtis. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1987. Pp. 363; notes, index. $33.95 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). Jim Curtis has written an impressive account of the social and cultural significance of rock music. Profoundly influenced by Mar­ shall McLuhan’s Understanding Media, the author thematically chron­ icles the complex history of rock prior to its popularization by Elvis Presley and through the ensuing three decades. Curtis maintains that the combination of charismatic rock musicians and technological innovations forged an irrepressible tandem of societal influence in post-World War II popular culture, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. Rock Eras is one of the first scholarly treatments of the rock culture and industry. Curtis succeeds admirably in his analysis of rock’s symbiotic relationship with conventional society, especially as it existed in America. Because musical styles and tastes were evolving and transforming so rapidly during the thirty years Curtis examined, he divided the era into separate, five-year segments for scrutiny. Not­ 344 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE withstanding this piecemeal approach, Curtis accurately emphasizes the weight of such momentous events as the civil rights movement or Vietnam and rock’s connection with them. Curtis’s ruminations concerning rock’s effect are enlivened with provocative historical considerations. European immigration, reli­ gious versus secular input, Winthrop’s covenant theology, Turner’s frontier thesis, and Jefferson’s agrarianism are all explored. Curtis fails, however, to describe adequately the actual equipment that facilitated the electronic wizardry essential to rock’s flourishing and sustenance. Rock is brimming with examples of technological devel­ opments and refinements: electric guitars, amplifiers, synthesizers, improved drum kits, advanced recording techniques, music videos, and light shows testify to the crucial importance of technology. Unfortunately, Rock Eras does not sufficiently examine this decisive aspect of rock music. (One glaring sin of bibliographical omission is the absence of Rock Hardware, edited by Tony Bacon, which describes the nuts and bolts of rock technology.) Perhaps the most serious flaw of Rock Eras is the total dearth of oral interviews with those who actually made the music, many of whom are still living. The author’s heavy reliance on secondary sources is regrettable. Another limitation is the complete lack of photographs and illustrations that could have shown some of rock’s colorfully vivid performers and concerts, as evidenced in The Art of Rock by Paul Grushkin. Despite its shortcomings, Rock Eras is an important contribution to both the historiography of contemporary American history and rock music itself. Whether portraying Beatlemania or the mindless noise of some heavy metal groups, Curtis diligently depicts the various musi­ cians in question and their import. He is to be commended for his thoughtful approach to the...

The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting by George H. Douglas

342 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE fully, he argues, that, “By 1870, the photographic image was par with the printed word in human communication” (p. 273). Only Helena Wright’s paper focuses on photography as an art, examining how 19th-century American landscapes were produced, packaged, and sold by artist-entrepreneurs, many of whom hrst worked for the railroads or government surveying parties. Using the three Bierstadt brothers as a case study, she illuminates the complex relations between painting, engraving, and changes in photographic processes, partic­ ularly the Albertype. Her work admirably illustrates Jenkins’s conten­ tion that “the theories of science and the products of technology are reflections of their historical contexts and are expressions of the values, attitudes and conceptions of their society and culture” (p. 23). Unfortunately, few of the other essays provide much insight into the relations between photography and society. The volume as a whole is a useful record of technical developments of interest to specialists. David E. Nye Dr. Nye is an associate professor at Copenhagen University. He edited A Catalogue of the General Electric Photographic Archives, 1890-1940, and is the author of The Invented Self and image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric. His most recent book, Electrifying America, is published by MIT Press. The Early Days ofRadio Broadcasting. By George H. Douglas. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland (Box 611 28640), 1987. Pp. viii + 248; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $25.95+ $ 1.50 handling. George Douglas, in The Early Days ofRadio Broadcasting, attempts an “informal history” of American broadcast radio in the 1920s. Unfor­ tunately, a historically naive and nostalgic approach mars a book that might otherwise have been especially useful as a classroom text. Because Douglas poorly explains the underlying causes and effects of the events he describes, students would be left with information about, but little understanding of, broadcasting’s first decade. Doug­ las’s work embodies the shortcomings of narrative history without providing the virtues of a well-told story. The reader finds out what happened but not why, since the author fails to make sense of the chronology he outlines. This approach becomes critical in the discus­ sion of evolving radio technology. Douglas lists the technological changes that occur but presupposes a technical knowledge most people lack. In addition, he never talks about the interaction between the technological developments and the form taken by radio broad­ casting. The book presents little historical context for many of the events described. Douglas’s treatment of racial issues particularly suffers from this lack of historical framework. He discusses the absence of TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 343 jazz from the airwaves without taking racism into account. Individual radio stations, and later the networks, consciously avoided black music and performers for fear of alienating white listeners, exactly as happens on MTV today. The same lack of insight mars Douglas’s discussion of “Amos ’n Andy.” Without an understanding that this important early program emerged from the American minstrel tradition, a racist entertainment form stealing its ideas from AfricanAmericans and repaying them with degrading portrayals, “Amos ’n Andy” makes no sense. Finally, the text is too sparsely footnoted. While the bibliography is complete and current, many chapters have fewer than five footnotes, most of them citations to earlier, romanticized histories. Douglas discusses the important events, personalities, and trends in radio broadcasting of the 1920s, but gives the reader few clues about where he obtained his information. Students could find little help with research projects here. Teachers need a short history of radio broadcasting for use in colleges and high schools, but deficiencies in scope and content, a lack of historical vision, and poorly documented research make Douglas’s book unsuitable for this purpose. Susan Smui.yan Dr. Smit.v.-w, an assistant professor in the Department of American Civilization at Brown University, is writing a book on the commercialization of American broadcast radio. Recently she was a National Science Foundation Fellow at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Rock Eras: Interpretations of Music and Society 1954 — 1984. By Jim Curtis. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1987. Pp. 363; notes, index. $33.95 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). Jim Curtis has...

White listeners’ responses to “sounding black” and “sounding white”: The effects of message content on judgments about language1

The effects of sounding black on white listeners’ perceptions of experiential and narrative content versus abstract and intellectual content were examined. Using the matched guise technique and 93 college student subjects, three hypotheses were tested: (1) Sounding black predisposes white listeners to respond more negatively to a speaker than sounding white, regardless of content; (2) Sounding black elicits more negative responses from white listeners when message content is abstract than when it is experiential; (3) Sounding black predisposes white listeners to describe the speaker in stereotypic terms. In addition to the three hypotheses, one research question was also posed: do white listeners focus their perceptions differently depending on whether a speaker “sounds black” or “sounds white” and depending on whether message content is abstract or experiential? Free descriptions and the Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale were completed by the subjects. Hypothesis 1 was not supported. Hypotheses 2 and 3 gained partial support. Results on perceptual focusing suggest that both stereotypic and egocentric filters shape listener responses. Limitations, future research, and bidialectalism are discussed.

Speaker Intelligibility of Black and White School Children for Black and White Adult Listeners Under Varying Listening Conditions

Word discrimination scores were obtained from 25 black and 25 white college students. Monosyllabic words were spoken by 24 black and 24 white children from a low socio-economic urban environment. Listening was conducted in quiet, at a 10 dB signal-to-noise ratio, and at a 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Results showed black children and white children were equally intelligible to the black adult-listeners, while the white adult-listeners found white children significantly more intelligible than black children. Word discrimination scores for black adults listening to black children were comparable to those of white adults listening to the white children. The quiet listening condition yielded the best scores, 10 dB S/N next best, and 0 dB the poorest. Noise deteriorated word discrimination scores of the black and white listeners differently.

Discrimination of Dialect from Temporal Patterns of the Speech Signal

To determine whether dialect discrimination could be made on the basis of temporal sequencing (or rhythm) of the speech signal, speech samples were collected from 90 Ss, identified as black, white, and Mexican-American. Samples were matched on basis of similarity of context. Similar samples were recorded, using a triad test format. Two racially similar and one different speaker, e.g., black, black and white, formed a triad. 24 ads were put together and recorded. An electronic logic system (Schmitt trigger design) generated a noise analogy (temporal pattern) for the speech signal 24 noise-analogy triads and 24 speaker triads were presented to groups of black, white, and Mexican-American listeners to determine whether ethnically identified listener groups could distinguish speakers' patterns. Our ethnically distinct Ss were unable to distinguish between dialects on the basis of temporal patterns alone. There was a tendency for all listeners to detect the Mexican-American speech at the chance level.

Intelligibility of black and white speakers for black and white listeners.

The purpose of this study was the investigation of the auditory discrimination ability of black and white listeners. Ten black and ten white subjects listened to PB-lists spoken by ten black and ten white speakers. There were no significant differences found between the discrimination ability of the two groups. However, both groups obtained better discrimination scores when listening to white rather than black speakers.