7.6.2024: From Trending to Mind-Bending: The Functions and Effects of Music Video Experiences (Wilson)
Music videos have been a part of mainstream music listening culture for decades – and with good reason. This format gives music enthusiasts a visual connection to their favourite music, often in the form of storylines, performances, and social commentary. Little is known about how this type of information affects our perception of the music. In fact, music psychology research has largely neglected this medium altogether.
MA Johanna Wilson’s doctoral dissertation, From Trending to Mind-Bending: The Functions and Effects of Music Video Experiences addresses this research gap in order to answer the questions: Why we watch music videos? What is it about this format that we find so engaging, and how does it influence our emotional reactions? And how does exposure to music video content affect the way we appreciate and understand the music in future listens, outside the music video context?
Four studies were conducted, each using different methodological practices to explore these questions. It approaches the topic of music videos from the angle of multiple disciplines within music and psychology research, including everyday music listening, music evoked emotions, music as a skill for supporting well-being, music and memory, film music, and audio-visual perception.
The findings from the studies in this dissertation overwhelmingly support the notion that audio-visual methods of music engagement are becoming increasingly popular as a result of new technological advancements and platforms like YouTube.
Not only are music videos an engaging method of music consumption with the ability to evoke strong reactions in viewers – they also have the potential to influence how listeners perceive and understanding the meaning of their favourite songs going forward, even recalling images from the video in their mind’s eye in future listens.
Music videos which feature narratives, dance and performance elements were particularly effective in creating a long-term change in how listeners perceived the music by creating or reinforcing existing personal relationships with the music. These findings are especially pertinent in today’s music listening landscape, where new multimedia formats of music engagement continue to emerge and grow in popularity.
MA Johanna Wilson defends their doctoral dissertation in Musicology "From Trending to Mind- Bending: The functions and effects of music video experiences" 7.6.2024 at 12.00 in Musica M103. Opponent is professor Tuomas Eerola (Durham University) and custos is professor Suvi Saarikallio (University of Jyväskylä).
The event is in English.
Publication: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-86-0206-4
Bio:
Johanna N. Wilson (publishing name: Dasovich-Wilson) is a project researcher for the Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain and MUSICONNECT: Music as youth empowerment research groups. Her research has also been sponsored by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation and the University of Jyväskylä's Faculty of Humanities.
Further information:
Johann Wilson, johanna.n.wilson@jyu.fi
