This thesis explores the links between handbag dance music and gay male culture. Handbag (colloquial British slang for ‘uplifting,’ ‘girly’ remixes of Top 40 songs and similar club material) is frequently derided within club culture for being predictable, formulaic, and ‘commercial.’ However, the same music is hugely popular within gay male clubs. Significantly, handbag tends to retain clear song structures, as opposed to the more open-ended instrumental ‘tracks’ which are the norm in electronic dance music. Why would a marginalised group adopt such a low-status music as its own? Why does handbag have such low status in the first place? This thesis argues that the field of ‘electronic dance music’ is rife with distinctions between ‘credible’ dance music and ‘commercial trash,’ and that these distinctions are frequently used to downplay song-based genres. The pleasures of handbag can be better understood if we pay attention to the ways that ‘songs’ (rather than instrumental ‘tracks’) have always played an important role in club music. Love in the First Degree questions an emerging orthodoxy in sociology and popular music studies: that issues of identity can only be approached ethnographically. By interrogating the music itself, the thesis explores the ways in which musical conventions can be deployed to arouse desire on the dance floor—and the reasons that these musical strategies are particularly useful in gay male clubs. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 22, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

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Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 45 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-37).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2005. / Principal faculty advisor: Elizabeth Perse, Dept. of Communication. Includes bibliographical references.

For many people music is an important aspect of their daily life. Music preference is a complex subject tied to social identity, personality, leisure activities, religion, family and friends, and so forth. Music is also a form of expression, which is communicated to the public over various mediums and formats. The themes depicted in music media (music in the form of television, radio, and internet sources, both auditory and visually presented) are vast owing to the array of different artists and their individual worldviews that they put on offer for the public. The lyrical content and/or imagery put forward by musicians depicts an array of different themes, which are contextualised by individuals in their personal conception of their favourite music. The meaning that listeners/viewers attach to their music is equally related to their own background and life experience, including their belief system (religion). There has been a controversial increase in the sexualisation and explicitness of music media; however, there is a gap in the intersection between music, sex, and religiosity as a field of study. Understanding the influence of music media requires an understanding of the people who are experiencing this content. Taking a cybernetic approach and the position of the listener who determines the meaning of an utterance, as put forward by cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster, this study is a reflexive contextual enquiry into how people are experiencing and interpreting their music media and whether this media challenges their view on religion (if they consider themselves aligned to a religion). To address this broad research question, a two-part study was conducted. The first part consisted of a quantitative study of 459 students from the University of Johannesburg to obtain a snapshot of a young adult demographic in terms of their music media, sexuality, and religiosity choices. Thereafter, using the results from this first part of the study, a qualitative interview-based study was conducted. Together the quantitative and qualitative studies provide a basis for answering the main research question. The results show that the young adults in the study are thinking beings, not just manipulated by mainstream music media; rather, they decide what is right for them often motivated by their views on religion. Methodologies used in religious studies have been subject to criticism. One specific aspect is the lack of acknowledgment of epistemology within research designs. In addressing this critique, a second- order cybernetic study was conducted. By introducing a cybernetic approach to qualitative religious study, a new approach is thus also presented which is called A Reflexive Recursive Learning Approach to Religious Studies. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)