Pew Research Results Regarding Two Separate Forms of Music: Hip Hop & Rap?

A report from the Pew Research Center titled Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class has a lot to consider.  Here's what the full report [pdf, p. 6] says about black and white responses to questions about hip hop and rap:

On the Cultural Front: Rap Takes the Rap

On the popular culture front, the survey finds that while a plurality of blacks think the portrayal of blacks in movies and on television has improved in the past decade, a plurality also believes that these onscreen images remain, on balance, more hurtful than helpful to society’s image of African Americans.

However, blacks are far more troubled by the influence that rap and hip hop have on society than by the portrayal of blacks in movies and television. Blacks and whites by similarly lopsided margins say that these two relatively new music forms are having a bad influence on society – mainly because of offensive language, negative stereotyping of women, and glorification of violence. There are gender differences on these questions, and they play out in different ways among whites and blacks. Among whites, men are more likely than women to see hip hop and rap as a bad influence. Among blacks, the reverse is true – women are more likely than men to see a bad influence.

Here's how the chart breaks things down:

                  All        Men        Women
% saying         %         %            %

Hip Hop is a bad influence:

Whites           64        68        59

Blacks            61        59        62

Rap is a bad influence:

Whites           74        79        70

Blacks            71        67        74

The questions on which these findings were based can be found on pages 85 to 87 of the full report.

The first questions were on hip hop:

In general, is HIP HOP music having a good influence, a bad influence, or not much influence at all on society today?

How often do you personally listen to hip hop music?

What’s the MAIN REASON you think HIP HOP music is having a bad influence on society?

These three questions are then followed by three questions substituting RAP for HIP HOP.

Normally in a survey of this sort such questions would be asked without any kind of explanation from the researchers [which would throw things off] or from those being surveyed [they aren't allowed free form responses].  Given that there is absolutely no consensus on the difference between rap and hip hop, except within the linguistic rules of distinct subcultures, these questions add a problematic level of confusion.

Very unscientific maneuver, in case you're wondering, and one that will confuse the heck out of most journalists.

I've got a phone message in and hope to find out more soon.

Via Miraflor.

Comments

[Slav]

These fundings and the methodology sure befuddle this journalist -- and I walk the divide between mainstream and niche journalism daily.

I think I know the difference between Hip-Hop and rap (former is a culture, latter a type of music), but it's hard to distinguish the two since they're so interrelated. I consider rap the journalism or media of Hip-Hop culture, but I'm not sure if that's how others (read: Pew and the mainstream society) perceive it.

Overall, though, these findings shouldn't surprise anyone.