Music has a rich history with the progressive movement. Technology and psychological research now offer us the ability to make it even more effective at changing the hearts and minds of people. By creating a feedback loop that selects for the ability to inspire hope and incite action, we can begin to discover which components are most effective at motivating people, then go on to create even better messages.
The History and Science of Music
Music has been used to promote social change and has been a part of many progressive causes throughout history. The ideas expressed in songs can raise awareness on issues and change what people think about themselves and the world around them. Once a song gets into a person’s head, it creates a narrative than can become part of who they are. Even in today’s world, where we’re offered an endless supply of information, people will listen to a single song over and over on their iPod or find themselves humming it all day long. That kind of "stickiness" doesn’t occur with campaign commercials or flyers. As the advertising industry knows, if a person hears something often enough, they start to believe it. Through similar repetition, the lyrics in songs can become an effective vehicle for communicating messages that motivate the listener.
Another way music can advance the cause of social change is through its physiological, emotional, and behavioral effects on the listener. Numerous scientific studies have shown that music affects human behavior and activates important areas of the brain, such as those involved with reward and motivation. Exposing people to different types of music changes the way they think, feel, and act. As a striking example, consider that more than 50% of Americans report they listen to music to improve their mood. (Undoubtedly with fewer side effects than Prozac.) Another indicator of music's importance is that young people report listening to music for an average of 21 hours per week. (What are the messages we could communicate during those three hours per day?) Music is also the medium that high school students would most like to take with them "if they were stranded on a desert island"— by a two to one ratio over television. These all speak to the power of music in relation to the human animal.
The important question is: how can we most effectively use that power for the greatest good?
Selecting for Effectiveness
We should use the scientific method to discover which songs do the best job of instilling positive emotion and inciting positive action in people. We know that individual songs and individual artists have made positive contributions to the world, but technology now allows us to leverage the work of thousands of artists and tens of thousands of songs.
One way to discover the songs which best motivate and inspire would be a project similar to BushIn30Seconds.org. People would nominate or submit songs, then listen to songs and rate them using validated psychological tools and randomized voting. They also would get access to free streaming radio. The idea is, if 9 out of 10 people say that a certain song gives them a sense of hope and a desire to take action, well, we need to get that song into the hands and heads of as many activists as possible. There are millions of songs out there, but relatively few of them have the kind of effect that we're looking for. By creating a system which measures the effectiveness of existing songs, we can find out what works and systematically focus the creative energies of artists in a direction which will have the most beneficial impact. It’s about creating a feedback loop which operates independently of retail sales.
(This framework can also be extended to other media, such as blogs, news stories, and videos. Basically, that which we measure, we can improve upon. So, what words, sounds, images, and videos most effectively inspire people to take positive action? Find those items. Analyze them. Promote them. Create a steady stream of new ones. It's about using the scientific method to make the process more deliberate and self-refining.)
Leveraging Psychology for the Greatest Good
By using music, technology, and research from positive sychology, we can change the day-to-day and second-by-second thoughts, feelings, and actions of people. There are a number of psychological concepts relevant to song lyrics, including optimism, character strengths & virtues, promotion/prevention focus, self-determination theory, self-efficacy, and others. When songs include psychologically strategic phrasing and viewpoints, they can change people’s beliefs about themselves and their potential for positive contribution. They can help encourage people to become autonomous leaders who plan and implement decentralized actions. People are searching for meaning and happiness in their lives. We can help them find it through socially productive means.
Over the past decade, we have engineered our activist organizations to be radically more effective with the adoption of internet technologies. However, even the most technically advanced organization will be less effective if the individual members feel depressed, helpless, or simply less than excited and fully energized. Recently, our political climate has been dominated by strategic messages of threat and fear. We can overcome those destructive and disempowering messages by integrating effective psychological principles into the institutions of progressive activism. Experiencing positive emotions on a regular basis develops reserves which offer resistance to setbacks, "outrage fatigue," and adversity. If we nourish our activists with the psychological nutriments necessary for optimal growth over the long term, they will blossom individually and the progressive movement as a whole will bear fruit as never before.
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Progressive Political Activism
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21st Century Renaissance