Popular Music, Cognition, Affects and Interpellation. A Socio-semiotic Approach

Abstract

In recent years, the field of humanities has renewed its interest in the affective dimension of social phenomena, in what has been called the affective turn. Among these phenomena, the production and reception of popular music is undoubtedly a particular field of interest. Music has an impact on the affective sphere and, at the same time, emotions and feelings are a recurring topic in many songs. Therefore, theoretical models that reinstate the importance of the affective domain are especially interesting when it comes to popular music studies. However, it is worth mentioning that some of these proposals, in their eagerness to ponder the affects, end up reproducing a dualistic logic that separates what they conceive as corporal, affective and non-representational from what they understand as mental, cognitive and discursive. Instead, we propose an approach that understands the affective dimension as part of any cognitive process, and we maintain that a socio-discursive perspective provides valuable tools for understanding that dimension in popular music, including the ability that they have to challenge certain audiences, and contribute to the construction of identities.