Running head: MUSIC VIDEO CONTENT ANALYSIS 1

A Content Analysis of Popular Music Videos and its Potential Implications

Alex Giglio
Elon University
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 2

Abstract

The media has the power to impact the way we formulate ideas and concepts. Music videos in

particular is a powerful medium that has been proven to alter thoughts and behaviors in

adolescents and emerging adults, even after brief exposure. In terms of sexuality, they typically

portray women as submissive and men portrayed as dominant. This study analyzed 25 trending

music videos for seven different overt sexual behaviors and sexual interactions between people

in the videos. The results showed that the majority of the videos featured sexual behavior, mostly

in the pop genre, and women were responsible for 80% of the overt sexual behaviors. Portrayals

of sexuality in modern music videos have the potential to alter the perceptions of sex consumers

hold and it is crucial to hinder this.

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Introduction

With the rise of streaming platforms, consumers can view exclusive videos on Spotify,

Apple Music, and Tidal. Even social media applications like Snapchat have premiered music

videos for artists. These platforms can be reached via cell phone, tablet, and computer which

makes this medium incredibly accessible (Sharp, 2008; Luckerson, 2013; Nelson Jr., 2016). This

means, thanks to the digital age, music videos are easily accessible to consumers which may

increase exposure.

Music videos typically have sexual content since sex sells (Cummins, 2007) and they

show dramatized ways in which we typically view men and women within society which further

confirms previous thoughts (Goffman, 1976). They have also been found to alter adolescents and

young adults perceptions of sex (Zhang, Miller, and Harrison, 2008; Wright and Rubin, 2017;

Kistler and Lee, 2010; Ward, Hansbrough, and Walker, 2005; Wright and Qureshi, 2015).

Identity development is dynamic which allows for people to change how they view themselves

and navigate the world as they mature. Various factors such as school, peers, gender, can play a

role in developing and altering these identities. The media can also be a large influence on

identity development. It is important to understand the sexual content of music videos and the

implications it may have on adolescents and young adults’ perception of sex.

Literature Review

Formation of Ideas

Social scripting theory states that human beings follow certain patterns that help them

determine how to react and attach meaning to situations. They figure out these scripts through

the stimuli and society surrounding them and internalize their own script that instructs them on

how to behave (Tomkins, 1978). This theory can be applied to how boys and girls learn about
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their sexuality (Simon and Gagnon, 1984). A closer review of this theory shows that there are

various factors that determine how men and women develop their sexual scripts from societal

pressures to biological differences. Men see sex as something that is open and directly about

pleasure where as women see it as something to be keep hidden and emotional. (Wiederman,

2005).

Maas, Shearer, Gillen, and Lefkowitz (2015) gave a 2-question questionnaire to 220

college students that asked them how their gender affected their thoughts and feelings on sex and

how being the opposite gender would make them feel. They found that women were more

focused on the risk of being sexually active while men were more focused on their libidos.

Women also focused on the emotional aspect of sex far more than men did. Internalized gender

roles did play a part in the sex lives of young adults since each were aware that sex was easier or

harder for the other gender. The older that the participants were, the less likely gender played a

role in their perceptions of sex.

The model of multiple dimensions of identity state that each individual has inner

attributes and values that are unaffected as a person ages and develop their identity but they have

different facets of their identity, such as gender, class and sexuality, that play a role in current

identity (Jones and McEwen, 2000). Abes, Jones, and McEwen (2007) suggest that individuals

have a meaning-making filter that helps control what messages from the outside world, such as

stereotypes and media, play a part in shaping their identity. An individual’s identity can be

shaped by these influences so the meaning-making filter allows them to deflect or absorb

messages from the outside world.

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The Impact of Media

With the amount of media people have access to, it would be impossible to consume it

all. Therefore, choices need to made. There are various different reasons that people gravitate

towards certain media. The media practice model claims one of the likely reasons is due to

confirmation bias. Teenagers will seek out media that matches with their ideologies. Gender,

race, and class also affect what type of media people seek out. Once they choose the media to

consume, it plays a role in how they act, think, and develop their identities (Steele & Brown,

1995). The media affects how emerging adults carry themselves as well. College students see

depictions of themselves in TV shows and if they idolize them, they try to emulate them in their

daily lives (Arnett, 2002; Brown, 2006).

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) suggests that people can develop inner working models

that influence how they behave based off what they see in the media. Whether or not the viewer

has partaken in certain activities, they might be influenced to do so in the future based off the

portrayal of observing others do them in the media. Therefore, it is theorized that if the

consequences of the action shown are negative, then people are less likely to do that action. It

also states that people are more likely to imitate those they perceive as similar to themselves

(Bandura, 2001), a concept that is related to Wishful identification (Hoffner, 1996). Wishful

identification means that people live vicariously through media personalities with perceived

similarities to themselves (Hoffner, 1996; Cohen, 2001). Hoffner and Buchanan, 2005 found that

young adults relate to personalities with who they believe they share similar thoughts and

behaviors. This could lead to a parasocial relationships which is a non-mutual relationship

consumers form with media personalities (Horton and Wohl, 1956). Together, this means that
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media personalities and characters can play a role in consumers perceptions of sex due to lack of

previous inner working models or out of idolization.

Brown (2006) suggests that media literacy courses during adolescence can help people

select media without narrowing their views and be able to decipher what is realistic. Pinkleton,

Austin, Chen, & Cohen (2012) conducted a study with 655 adolescents on the role the media

plays on their perceptions of sex. Of the 655, 287 of them did not receive a media literacy course

while the others did. The course consisted of five 45 minute lessons taught by teenage peers over

five days. This lessons covered topics such as how sex is used to sell products, teenage

pregnancy and how young people can choose when they feel comfortable having sex. Through

questionnaires, they found that people who did not receive the media literacy course could not

tell when the media was manipulating their thoughts about sex.

Music Videos’ Effects on Perceptions of Sexuality

Music videos are appealing to most young adults and, typically, they contain sexual

imagery, as found by Hansen and Hansen (1990). They found that the more sexual content

displayed in a music video, the more appealing participants found it to be. Exposure to sexual

content may play a role in adolescents and young adults’ perception of sex. Young adults who

are exposed to sexually explicit music videos reported increased negative sexual cognitions, such

that men should be dominate and women should be submissive, and increased sexual risk, such

as unprotected sex (Wright & Rubin, 2017). Zhang, Miller, and Harrison (2008) found that

frequent exposure to music videos was positively correlated with the belief that casual,

noncommittal and unsafe sex are the norm and that men and women should behave differently.

Furthermore, college women who were simply asked about music videos and their thoughts of

objectification of women were more likely to be accepting of it than women who were later told
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to watch music videos high or low sexual content. This potentially shows that women have

subconsciously accepted their sexual roles in a society that tells them to be submissive to men’s

sexualities (Kistler & Lee, 2010). It has also been shown that women who viewed videos that

heavily objectified women started to objectify themselves and struggled with a memory task later

on, suggesting that self-objectification uses a lot of mental resources (Aubrey and Gerding,

2015).

It is unclear if exposure to sexual music videos can alter peoples’ perceptions of sex or if

people seek out media that confirms their views. However, it was found that even a single

exposure to music videos with stereotypical ideas about sex influenced adolescents’ perceptions

of sex and gender. Increased exposure lead to even higher endorsements and a heavily affected

sexual schema (Ward, Hansbrough, and Walker, 2005). Race and gender also play a role in the

music preference of young adults. Depending on the genre, the increased sexual content in music

and music videos lead to people dating and having sex at younger ages and for young adults to

have more sexual partners (Wright and Qureshi, 2015).

Current Study

In line with previous studies, this current study will be focusing on sexual content within

music videos. This study focuses on 5 genres that are usually studies. These are rock, pop, hip-

hop, r&b, and country music (Wright and Rubin, 2017; Kistler and Lee, 2010; Ward et al., 2005;

Wright and Qureshi, 2015). However, previous studies have looked at music videos on MTV,

surveys completed by students to determine popularity of music videos or by asking participants

what music videos they watched. This study determined popular videos using Vevo.com. This

study also looked at the whole video as one unit and rated each sexual gesture within the unit as

a new one. This study will be testing sexual depictions in music videos to see if they have the
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 8

potential to influence the sexual scripts of those that watch them and what type of influence,

therefore, the hypothesis of this study are:

Hypothesis 1: The music videos chosen will heavily display sexualized depictions of men and

women.

Hypothesis 2: These depictions will follow gender displays and roles thus potentially having a

negative impact on viewers’ sexual schemas.

This study will utilize the results to understand how depictions of sexuality in popular

music videos affects inner working models about sex and development of sexual identity based

well-established theories.

Methods

This study will be examining sexual content in music videos that are currently trending

on Vevo.com, a popular video hosting service. This service was chosen because its main purpose

is to host official music videos for artists. Other services host a variety of videos so trending

videos is not only focused on music videos. The top five videos from rock, pop, hip-hop, r&b,

and country music will be analyzed in order to get a diverse and representative sample. Overall,

there will be 25 music videos. Since the trending now can change at any moment, it was noted

what the trending videos were at 11pm on April 10th, 2018. A full list of the music videos

watched is provided in Appendix A.

In accordance with Wallis (2010), the videos will be coded for overt sexual behavior

such hand gestures, body movements, face expressions, and clothing. Specifically, the coding

scheme will include hair touching, touching oneself, averting one’s eyes, finger to or in the

mouth, suggestive dancing, sultry look, and provocative clothing. Hair touching, touching

oneself, finger in or two the mouth are self-explanatory. Averting eyes was coded if the person
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shifted their gaze whether from the camera or from someone they were looking at. Suggestive

dancing included anything that was intended to replicate sexual activity or focused on breasts,

buttocks, or the crotch. Provocative clothing was anything that showed off the body whether it

was full nudity, a tight dress, or a bikini. Each new outfit was a different coded variable.

When someone did these actions, their gender, ethnicity, and role in the video were also

recorded on the coding sheet. The role was categorized by lead, actor, or background. Lead was

considered to be the artists who sing or play the song. Actor were people who helped move the

story along. Background were extras. If there was a lot of people in the scene (more than 5), than

background extras who were focused on were noted. A tally was taken for each time there was a

sexual interaction between two or more people in the music video such as kissing. If there were

people dancing on each other, that counted for both suggestive dancing and sexual interaction.

Finally, a tally was taken to get an idea of how many people were in each video based on gender

and ethnicity. An example of a coding sheet is shown in Appendix B.

Each video was watched two or three times. The first view was to get a feel for the music

video and take notes for obvious sexual gestures and provocative clothing. The second viewing

was to note the less obvious gestures and anything that may have been missed the first time. This

included pausing the video or rewinding when needed. The third viewing was to get the general

demographics of the video for how many people were in the video. This means the video may

not have been watched in full if there weren’t any new people being introduced. An example of

this coding sheet is seen in Appendix C.

Results

Data
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There were 377 instances of overt sexual behavior. Of all the videos, 20 out of 25 videos

contained overt sexual behavior. Specifically, two country, two hip-hop and one rock videos did

not contain any overt sexual behavior. Therefore, pop and r&b contained the most sexualized

content. Pop had the most sexually gestures, accounting for 30.5% of all overall sexual gestures.

R&b had 27.85%, hip-hop had 20.69%, country had for 11.94% and rock accounted for 9.02% of

sexual gestures. There were 36 instances of sexual interactions, all of which featured a

heterosexual relationship.

Overall, there were 220 men and 187 prominently featured throughout all 25 music

videos. The pop genre had eight total lead singers, six being women. R&b had nine total lead

singers, three being women. Rock had 16 lead singers, all of which were men. Hip-hop had ten

lead singers, all of which were men. Country had five lead singers, one of which was a women.

Therefore, of 48 lead total lead singers, 10 were women. All videos featuring a woman as the

lead included sexual behavior from the lead and from the background characters and actors, if

applicable. Most sexual acts came from the leads, 58.62%, and it was about equal between

background and lead actors for the remaining sexual actors.

Of these instances of overt sexual behavior, 82.49% of these were done by women.

Suggestive dancing, provocative clothing, and touching oneself were the most popular for

women, in that order. For men, suggestive dancing, sultry look, and provocative dancing were

the most popular. In terms of race, most of the leads were white, 26. The second most leads were

black, 19, and third was Latinx, three. In total, there were 195 white people, 173 black people, 24

Latinx people, and 15 Asian people.

Content Analysis
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In songs that were sexual by nature, women in the videos were sexualized but the gender

of the lead singer determined whether or not they were sexualized in the foreground or the

background. For example, “Me So Bad” by Tinashe, a woman, featured 5 women in total and

they were all wearing revealing clothing such as short skirts and bra tops. The dancing was

suggestive throughout the whole video. One r&b video, “Love Lies” featured Normani, who had

lingerie on, and Khalid, who had a suit on. Another video only featured Camila Cabello, one of

three Latinx singers on the trending page, and the video featured her in 5 different provocative

outfits and showed overt sexual behavior, especially touching oneself and sultry look.

“Powerglide” by Rae Sremmurd ft. Juicy J, all men, featured the lead singers relatively clothed,

Swae Lee was shirtless but wearing a jacket, and the women in the background wore leggings

and bra tops while dancing around the lead singers.

For songs that were not sexual by nature, as in a song about getting through the hard

times, the women were still sexualized to some extent. A rock video by Godsmack had only two

women in it and both were in tight clothing with cleavage showing despite the fact that they nor

anyone in the video did not do anything sexual. On some occasions, women were even used

more so like props. A hip hop video by Rich The Kid featured two women that were only

wearing a bra and underwear, dancing suggestively, and even shown doing sexual acts with a

puppet. They were never in the foreground of the video. When women were in the lead, they still

displayed sexual gestures. “No Excuses” by Meghan Trainer featured only her, in mostly neutral

clothing with no suggestive dancing. Yet when the camera focused on her face, she would show

a sultry look, touch her hair, and look away from the camera. However, in videos that were led

by men and did not feature any women, all but one video had no instances of sexual gestures.

The one video that did was for a country video and the lyrics were very sexual therefore, the
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music video depicted some of what he was singing about. Still, he was not sexualizing himself

and sang about what he wanted from women.

In terms of race, black men were rarely sexualized but black women were heavily sexualized.

When black men were sexualized, they shown in dominate ways while women were shown as

props, as shown in “Powerglide.” Another hip-hip video, “Walk It Talk It” by Migos featured

only black people. The lead singers themselves were shown in low cut shirts surrounded by

women. There “band” consisted of actors playing instruments and all but one were men. In the

background, they had both men and women dancing suggestively but the men were in suits while

women were in revealing and tight clothing.

Discussion & Concluding Thoughts

The results indicated that women are more sexualized than men. This confirms part of

hypothesis 1, which stated that men and women would be heavily sexualized, and hypothesis 2,

which stated that the depictions would be done in gendered ways. This was proven to be true

since women accounted for over 80% of the overt sexual behaviors. Even when women were in

the lead role or the song did not contain sexually suggestive lyrics, women still showed

submissive sexual behavior by looking away from the camera or touching their hair. This was

true across all genres. This relates to previous literature that states the media often utilizes gender

displays and that women are typically presented in submissive ways (Ward et al, 2005; Zhang et

al., 2008; Wright and Rubi, 2017). Men were occasionally sexualized but it was done so in a

different way. Some men were not wearing shirts but it is questionable whether that it sexual

since men are typically sexualized for being topless; moreover their lack of clothing was not

accompanied by other sexual gestures. When it was, it was an aggressive sexual behavior such as

pelvic thrusting that shows men in dominant sexual positions. Therefore, women and men were
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sexualized, but women were more so than men. However, since men accounted for less than 20%

of sexual behaviors yet they accounted for 79.17% of lead roles, they were not depicted in sexual

ways. All five videos that did not contain overt sexual behavior were for songs by men.

Other interesting findings show that women in the background, often black women, were

likely the ones to be sexualized, regardless of the gender of the lead singer. They were wearing

little to no clothing and dancing suggestively. Ethnicity may also play a role in the sexualization

of women. Even when black women or Latinx women were in the forefront, they still showed

heavy displays of overt sexual behavior. There was a very small amount of Latinx or Asian

women in the videos so there was a lack of representations for these ethnicities as a whole.

As stated before, these videos were trending at the moment which means they were

popular and viewed by many. It is important to understand the nature of these videos in order to

understand what people are being exposed to. These videos may suggest that women are to be

seen as sex objects which may influence how people act to women in their day to day lives. It

can be argued that, in some instances, especially if the woman was the lead singer, women may

just be expressing their sexuality in a way that they feel comfortable. It is hard to understand

their true motives since audiences prefer sexually explicit videos (Hansen and Hanse, 1990) but

they still show women in sexually submissive and heteronormative roles.

Previous literature shows that consumers have the potential to be influenced by media,

especially if they lack experience or these actions are done by those they idolize (Bandura,

2001; Hoffner, 1996; Cohen, 2001). It is possible that these videos mimic the gender displays of

society that they further condition the consumers to believe in gender roles (Goffman, 1976).

These videos have the potential to affect the way they view sex and it is important to make sure

young adults have a healthy perspective of sex. This could be done by teaching media literacy
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and including media in sex education classes so they can understand that these are fictional and

not realistic depictions of women, men, and sex (Brown, 2006; Austin et al. 2012).

While this study was thorough and representative of genres, it only looked at a small

amount of music videos. Other studies looked at dance and rap music (Wright and Rubin, 2017;

Ward et al. 2005). The study also featured one coder while all previous studies mentioned in the

literature review utilized more than one coder. It is possible that while watching the video and

coding, some gestures were missed. It would also be beneficial to code for neutral and non-

sexual behaviors to see if most of the gestures were sexual or not. Future studies should feature

more coders and more videos.

This study focused on trending music videos from Vevo.com which offers a modern

perspective to how consumers are currently viewing music videos. Since this content is so easy

to seek out, it is important to understand the types of depictions of sexuality that are being

communicated to consumers and the potential consequences of these messages. It will likely be

impossible to stop artists from producing sexually explicit videos or to hinder consumers from

being exposed to them but it would be beneficial to alter how consumers view these videos to

prevent their perceptions of sex from being falsified and gendered.

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Appendix A

All Music Videos Analyzed

Top 5 Pop Music Videos

Taylor Swift – Delicate
Halsey ft. Big Sean & Stefflon Don – Alone
Camila Cabello – Never Be The Same
Meghan Trainor – No Excuses
Baby Ariel ft. Daniel Skye - Say It

Top 5 Hip Hop Music Videos

Migos – Walk It Talk It
Drake – God’s Plan
Rich The Kid – Plug walk
Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla Sign – Psycho
Rae Sremmurd ft. Juicy J - Powerglide

Top 5 R&B Music Videos

Chris Brown – Tempo
Khalid & Normani – Love Lies
SZA – Broken Clocks
Tinashe ft. French Montana & Ty Dolla Sign – Me So Bad
John Legend ft. Bloodpop – A Good Night

Top 5 Rock Music Videos

Godsmack – Bulletproof
Marilyn Manson – Tattooed In Reverse
Judas Priest – Spectre
Burn The Priest – Inherit the Earth
Jack White – Over and Over and Over

Top 5 Country Music Videos

Luke Bryan – Most People Are Good
Chris Young – Hangin’ On
Willie Nelson – Something You Get Through
Wheeler Walker Jr. – If My Dick Is Up, Why Am I Down?
Kylie Minogue – Stop Me From Falling
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 19

Appendix B

Coding Sheet for “Alone” by Halsey featuring Big Sean and Stefflon Don

Gender Role Race

Male Female Lead BG Actor White Black Spanish Asian

Hair Touching 1 1 1
Touching Oneself 2 2 2
Averting Eyes 3 3 2 1

Finger in/to mouth 1 1 1

Suggestive Dancing 2 2 1 1
Sultry Look 7 7 6 1
Provocative Clothing 1 5 4 2 3 3

Sexual interactions - 5
MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 20

Appendix C

Demographics Coding Sheet for “Walk It Talk It” by Migos featuring Drake

Walk It Talk
Men
Background Actor Lead
White White White
Black 10 Black 4 Black 4
Latinx Latinx Latinx
Asian Asian Asian

Women 15
Background Actor Lead
White White White
Black 12 Black 3 Black
Latinx Latinx Latinx
Asian Asian Asian