You drew some cool insights from these data! Maybe you've seen this, but a couple of our colleagues used word-embedding models to see to what extent Pitchfork reviewers have treated gender and legitimacy (basically the rockism vs. poptimism debate) differently over time. Not sure how/whether it can be connected to your findings …
You drew some cool insights from these data! Maybe you've seen this, but a couple of our colleagues used word-embedding models to see to what extent Pitchfork reviewers have treated gender and legitimacy (basically the rockism vs. poptimism debate) differently over time. Not sure how/whether it can be connected to your findings on 'feeling' - which are often considered less highbrow/legitimate terms in describing music/art. Their summary:
"First, looking at the overall pattern, discourse in reviews of music on Pitchfork has gradually become more legitimate. This means that in reviews, reviewers more often draw from criteria historically reserved for ‘highbrow’ categories such as seriousness, originality or complexity. Second, this pattern of an increasingly legitimating discourse is accompanied with a decreasing masculine discourse, moving gradually towards including more feminine terms. Third, however, these changing discourses often do not happen simultaneously in the same reviews: reviewers seem to make a trade-off between using a legitimating discourse or a gendered discourse, but not often at the same time. When zooming in on specific genre categories as used by Pitchfork, we find, however, that, fourth, these patterns differ based on genre groups. Whereas the overall pattern towards a legitimating and feminine discourse is especially pronounced for the genres pop and electronic, this is not the case for historically male-dominated genres rap/hip-hop, metal and jazz. Whereas reviews of jazz music make use of a more masculine and legitimate discourse, reviews of music within the rap/hip-hop and metal genres make use of a masculine and illegitimate discourse. In comparison to the other genre categories used on Pitchfork, rap/hip-hop, metal and jazz seem particularly resistant to discursive change."
Hi Chris,
You drew some cool insights from these data! Maybe you've seen this, but a couple of our colleagues used word-embedding models to see to what extent Pitchfork reviewers have treated gender and legitimacy (basically the rockism vs. poptimism debate) differently over time. Not sure how/whether it can be connected to your findings on 'feeling' - which are often considered less highbrow/legitimate terms in describing music/art. Their summary:
"First, looking at the overall pattern, discourse in reviews of music on Pitchfork has gradually become more legitimate. This means that in reviews, reviewers more often draw from criteria historically reserved for ‘highbrow’ categories such as seriousness, originality or complexity. Second, this pattern of an increasingly legitimating discourse is accompanied with a decreasing masculine discourse, moving gradually towards including more feminine terms. Third, however, these changing discourses often do not happen simultaneously in the same reviews: reviewers seem to make a trade-off between using a legitimating discourse or a gendered discourse, but not often at the same time. When zooming in on specific genre categories as used by Pitchfork, we find, however, that, fourth, these patterns differ based on genre groups. Whereas the overall pattern towards a legitimating and feminine discourse is especially pronounced for the genres pop and electronic, this is not the case for historically male-dominated genres rap/hip-hop, metal and jazz. Whereas reviews of jazz music make use of a more masculine and legitimate discourse, reviews of music within the rap/hip-hop and metal genres make use of a masculine and illegitimate discourse. In comparison to the other genre categories used on Pitchfork, rap/hip-hop, metal and jazz seem particularly resistant to discursive change."
You can find the article here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42001-022-00182-8