Abstract

This Independent Study analyzes the way that music has been used in United States presidential campaigns in the twenty-first century. Within my research – which is encapsulated by a written portion, data analysis, and website – I aim to unpack three key election years and understand how each of the party-endorsed candidates use music in their campaigns for office, while also creating a new database for presidential campaign music. I apply close-reading concepts while analyzing candidates under a populist lens. The data analysis portion of this Independent Study comprised of watching and logging over 2,000 videos on C-SPAN of the 2000, 2008, and 2016 Elections and logging instances of music. With this data, I created three maps in ArcGIS that reflected each presidential campaign year and noted genre differences. These maps and the written portion of the Independent Study were then synthesized into a website, which can be viewed at this link: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/43a97bdadf6a4b7bb310a66cfa188621. A written supplemental on the development of my website is available in chapter 4. In my conclusion, I argue that emerging technologies will only further shape how we interact with music and use it to leverage positions of power.

Advisor

Hayward, Jennifer

Department

English; Global Media and Digital Studies

Disciplines

American Politics | Journalism Studies | Other Film and Media Studies

Keywords

American politics, populism, campaign music, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, George Bush, John McCain, streaming services, genre studies, American presidential election

Publication Date

2025

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2025 Julia Garrison