The issue I’ll be researching is how the evolution of music and its genres impacts society. Which without the understanding of how and why these impacts occur, can cause problems in society that people might not even realize are occurring. Some such examples would be an overabundance of the same music being played on the radio for long periods of time, certain artists gaining fame unnaturally quicker than others, and the power of parasocial relationships between fans and artists. What inspired me to want to investigate this type of thing would be how I was raised with music as a second language and how this has only cemented the importance of music within my values. I remember in elementary school being able to sing along to at least the chorus of every song that would play on the radio for years and playing guessing games of predicting the lyrics of new songs that would play. I remember my dad telling me about all sorts of details regarding what the local music scene was like when he was younger and how the bands he knew changed over time. I remember getting a radio with a CD player for my birthday one year in middle school and religiously listening to all of my parents' old CDs. Music to me has always been heavily ingrained in my everyday life, which has caused me to regard it with a heavier significance and has generated this long-lasting vested interest in all its aspects. There are countless examples from the past and currently going on today of music causing positive and negatives impacts on society, but I’m researching this topic in the hopes of understanding the specifics of why and how these impacts occur. 

Communication is one of those words that if you asked people to define, they might give you any sort of unique answer as there is even dispute among scholars as to what the most accurate definition could be. But according to the book written by doctors Floyd, Schrodt, Erbert, and Scharp, some of the most important features to include in any communication definition are that it’s a process, it’s symbolic, it focuses on meaning, and it’s ever present (p.2). There are many concepts involved in the process of communication: such as encoding messages, decoding messages, feedback loops, different contexts, and outside noise. The topic of this website can be firmly put into the decoding part of the communication process as it is most focused on how society is impacted by music and the messages it contains, or in other words, how society decodes it. A more extensive knowledge of the communication discipline would help to form ideas about why and how the messages society receives from music occur.

The relevance of studying this topic is gaining a better understanding of how the evolution of music and its genres affects us on both a personal level and on a societal level. I think that any person that enjoys music is affected by this issue and a larger community could only gain a more in-depth understanding of how and why they might be affected by music through the investigation of this issue. One important aspect of music is the meanings that it contains, without which it couldn’t be classified as communication, and the way that this is classified is closely related to poetry in its similarity. According to the theorist Burke’s book Permanence and Change, “the center of authority must be situated in a philosophy, or psychology, of poetry, rather than in a body of poetry” (p.66). Which can then be applied to music as well to understand where that meaning within songs come from and how it gains some of its significance to society. The evolution of music and its genres is a concept that constantly bleeds into everyday life, whether that’s through anything like songs playing in the background at a restaurant or playing songs on your phone while you get ready. Music itself is also something that many people can attribute a lot of personal significance to as they could be using it to do anything like change their mood, hold fond memories, or increase their productivity. So, why not try to find a better understanding of why and how this might be affecting us on a deeper level?