With the technological advancement in the contemporary world, the pop culture has become available to everyone and one of the most influential genres regarding romantic relationships. Pop love songs have integrated various streams of information to enhance the emotionally engaging experience for the audience. The pop culture uses chords, melody, dynamics, lyrics, and instrumentation among other components of the song to producing an intriguing and appealing music percept. As a result, the pop culture has established an electric flavor to the lives of the audiences, especially the younger generation. Sex and love are the main themes portrayed by the pop stars such as Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Tylor Swift, Rihanna, and Britney Spears among others. With this light, this paper utilizes the communication theories to investigate how the sad and happy pop love songs influences the romantic relationship between the heterosexual and homosexual couples.
Priming Theory
The love songs in the pop culture have created an ideology that has significantly influenced the heterosexual and homosexual couples to make decision and judgment. The pop culture enriches our minds with a romantic ideology through love songs. For instance, various happy love songs depict that love is forever, and love overcomes all the obstacles. According to Ben-Zeev (2014), the "seductive romantic ideology assumes the uniqueness of the beloved along with a kind of fusion." In this case, people have developed a preconception that ideal love is unconditional, uncompromising, and total. This has contributed to the increase in the homosexual relationships because they have already developed a conception that love is uncompromising and unconditional.
Contrary to the heterosexual couples, the homosexual couple have a romantic ideology that romantic relationship is not limited to love between the opposite sexes. For instance, Kacey Musgrave's song "Follow Your Allow" is one of the songs that is used by the homosexual community to defend their position. In this song, Kacey asserts, "Kiss lots of boys. Or Kiss lots of girls if that's something you're into." This is an illustration that the pop culture is increasingly developing a conception that love is unconditional. According to Kacey, regardless of the social or the political beliefs, people should be in a position to love those they want to love and live their lives.
Similarly, producer Ryan Lewis and Macklemore's song "Same Love" that features one of the renowned lesbian singer Mary Lambert has become one of the influential songs. The chorus of the song says, "I can't change. Even if I Tried. Even if I wanted to." The song advocates for the same-sex equality and hence creating a preconception in the minds of the audience that romantic relationship between the homosexual is an inherent feeling and they do not have control over it. The song captures the minds of many people as it made its way to the Billboard's Top 40 chart in 2013 and was nominated for the Song of the Year Grammy Award in 2014.
Cultivation theory
According to the University of Twente, the cultivation theory implies that media is responsible for influencing viewer's conceptions regarding the social reality. The theory assumes that the long-term exposure to the mass media influences the perception of the social reality for people and the culture as a whole. With this light, the exposure of the pop culture love songs has significantly shaped the social reality concerning the homosexual and heterosexual relationships. As suggested earlier, the technological advancement has made pop culture available to almost everyone from various corner of the world and hence harmonizing different cultures. Subsequently, people are becoming "heavy viewers/listeners" of pop love songs and hence more influenced.
Various pop songs have powerful aspects of featuring different cultures in their videos and hence ability to harmonize different cultures about the romantic relationship. For instance, Sara Bareille's "Brave" is a happy pop song that has people from various background dancing. Therefore, the song utilizes the cultivation theory to influence the perception of people from different cultures regarding the sexuality. The song's chorus suggests, "Let the words fall out. Honestly, I wanna see you be brave." Her friend who struggled to reveal the sexual identity influenced Bareille's idea of this song. The song shows how beautiful and honorable it is to be when someone accepts who he or she is.
On the other hands, there are influential pop love songs that expose the heterosexual couples to the opposite-sex relationship perception. For instance, Beyoncé's "Drunk in Love" features her husband to express the romantic relationship between the happy heterosexual couples. The aggressive lyrics of the songs are a great inspiration to the heterosexual couples because such lyrics increases aggressive action in the society. Various studies have indicated “aggressive song lyrics increases aggressive action whereas exposure to songs with prosocial lyrics is associated with prosocial behavior” (Guéguen & Lamy, 2010). Therefore, the influence of a pop love song on the romantic relationship is determined by the content of its lyrics. For instance, songs with aggressive contents about heterosexual relationship have a greater impact on the heterosexual couples than the homosexual couples.
Framing theory
According to the framing theory, "an issue is characterized in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by audiences" (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). Therefore, the influence of the pop culture on the romantic relationship is determined by how the perception of romance by the musician presenting the song and the interpretation of that social phenomena by the audience. For instance, Tegan and Sara's "Closer" is an indie-rock song that features two sisters celebrating the straight and gay relationships a like. The video frames women who are shimmying and kissing and the instances of pro-gay marriage campaign. The two musicians present their solidarity with both straight and gay community. However, the influence of the song will depend on the interpretation of the audience.
In conclusion, the impact of the pop culture love songs on the romantic relationship between the heterosexual and homosexual relationship is determined by three theories. The priming theories suggest that media allows public discussion of a social phenomenon and hence providing grounds for understanding an issue. The cultivating theory suggests that media is responsible for influencing viewer's conceptions regarding the social reality. The framing theory suggests that influence of the pop culture on the romantic relationship is determined by how the perception of romance by the musician presenting the song and the interpretation of that social phenomena by the audience. In other words, the impact of the pop culture depends on how the media want us to understand the issue and how we understand the issue.
References
Ben-Zeev, A. (2014, February 5). How can romantic love last a lifetime? — Aeon Essays. Retrieved from https://aeon.co/essays/how-can-romantic-love-last-a-lifetime
Guéguen, N., Jacob, C., & Lamy, L. (2010). ‘Love is in the air’: Effects of songs with romantic lyrics on compliance with a courtship request. Psychology of Music, 38(3), 303-307.
Perry, D. K. (2001). Theory and research in mass communication: Contexts and consequences. Routledge.
Scheufele, D. A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of communication, 57(1), 9-20.
