Beskrivelse
During Danish COVID19 lockdowns, singalong TV shows on national TV came to attract viewers in the number of millions, leading scholars to interpret this behavior as way of expressing trust in the governmental handling of the pandemic and establishing a sense of community and cooperation among citizens (Højlund, Vandsø & Breinbjerg 2021; Jacobsen, Kühle & Reintoft 2021). Empirical investigations of “participants” in TV mediated communal singing indicate that, rather than crisis coping, the role of TV singing curing lockdown was a way of generating crisis awareness – i.e. a way of signaling mutual compliance and solidarity (Sørensen et al. 2021; Baunvig et al., forthcoming).However, communal singing also served a very different – yet much less noted and debated – purpose during Danish lockdown: That of expressing mistrust in the authorities. The protest group Men In Black initiated vigorous demonstrations in the streets of Copenhagen, shouting and singing battle songs expressing mistrust in the authorities. These two phenomena thus exemplify communal singing in response to the same societal context (the pandemic) but with opposite objectives (one performing trust, the other mistrust).
Based on findings from our recent empirical research of Danish communal singing, this article will attempt a comparison of the two cases with the purpose of describing this dual social function of communal singing. Considering the general tendency in musical scholarship towards an overly optimistic view of music’s prosocial effects (Kertz-Welzel 2016; Boeskov 2018) – a tendency typical also specifically of the public discourse on Danish singing culture (Borčak & Marstal 2022) – the article will be a contribution to a more balanced view of the role of music and singing in forging both musical communities of descent and of dissent (Shelemay 2011).
| Periode | 17 nov. 2023 |
|---|---|
| Begivenhedstitel | Sonic Citizenship |
| Begivenhedstype | Seminar |
| Placering | Aarhus, DanmarkVis på kort |