An Investigation of the relationship between collective identities and Kinds of musical consumption: a case study of Lor students of Yasouj University

A kind of study shift from the mere focus on the modes of production to the modes of consumption, especially the cultural consumption occurred after 1970s, and by the same token a kind of explanatory turn happened from concentration on what are known as “hard variables” such as class to what are known as “soft variables” such as identity. Accordingly, music consumption, as one of the most important kinds of cultural consumption and explaining it based on collective identity came into focus. However, both realities of musical consumption mode and its explanation according to cultural factors have received little attention from the contemporary sociologists in Iran society.
Considering the mentioned limitations, the present study was done using quantity and survey method (description-explanatory) along with the researcher made questionnaire concerning the kind and the amount of musical consumption (dependent variable) and three modes of important modes of collective identity including ethnic, national and global ones (dependent variable). Lor students of Yasouj University were selected as the participants for some reasons: first by interacting with their families and in the city environment using Lori accent with their friends and relatives, they had access to ethnic talk. Second, they had access to national talk through their presence in the university, interaction with non-Lor friends, taking part in the classes and studying cultural texts with national and beyond ethnic content. Third, with the least skill in English and using new communication technologies like internet and new smart phones, they could have more access to global talk. Thus, for investigating the current study selecting students with Lori ethnic identity background who could also had access to national and global talks looked the most appropriate and logical strategy. According to Morgan table, 380 subjects were identified for the sample and this amount increased to 400 to increase the validity. To access the sample, the cluster random sampling method was also employed.
Discussion of results & The Friedman mean difference test results revealed that two kinds of pop music and western classic music had the most and the least musical consumptions respectively. Furthermore, the correlational test of different variables of the study showed that the relationship between ethnic identity and local, pop, and religious musical consumption is positive and significant while it is insignificant with western and traditional music. The correlation between national identity and western and pop musical consumption was significant and negative, while this correlation with religious musical consumption was significant and positive. The correlation between global identity and western, pop musical consumption was positive while this relationship with traditional, religious and local musical consumption was negative and significant. Finally, based on the findings it could be claimed that the degree of commitment and attachment to any type of collective identities shape the individual's musical consumption taste and leads him/ her towards consuming a particular musical type. In other words, people don’t select their musical consumption passively but this is an active process based on the identity assets of people. According to multiple regression test results all three kinds of collective identity played a role in the kind and the amount of musical consumption but in specifying one or more musical consumption mode and in different directions. Thus, it can be said that identity role in musical consumptions acts in two ways. First as a positive stimulator encourage people towards a specific musical consumption pattern and second as an inhibitor inhibit them from a specific musical consumption. Lastly, it was clarified that in investigating different musical consumption modes different factors should be taken into account and identical variables are not able to specify the variance and the diversity of musical consumption of different individuals.