Rock and roll or rock and fall? Gendered framing of the rock and roll lifestyles of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty in British broadsheets

Abstract

Combining insights from gender, popular music, and celebrity studies, this article addresses to what extent British broadsheets frame Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty differently with regard to their rock and roll lifestyle. Our content analyses of The Guardian and The Independent indicate clear gender differences. First, Doherty's excessive behavior is often framed in positive terms (rock and roll), while the media discuss Winehouse's conduct more negatively (rock and fall). Second, British newspaper journalists admire Doherty's courage to lead such a lifestyle, oftentimes justifying – or even negating – his behavior, arguing he is an independent individual or even a hero. Such adoration is absent when Winehouse's escapades are reported on; most articles treat her as a victim, expressing concern regarding her poor health. As such, our findings show how music journalists use relational complicit practices – admiration/justification/negation of male and victimization of female enactment of hegemonic masculinity – to maintain masculine monopoly over the archetypical rock and roll lifestyle.

Keywords::

• rock and roll
• framing
• hegemonic masculinity
• music journalism
• complicit practices

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their excellent comments and suggestions for improvement to this article.

Notes

^1. Previous studies have demonstrated that broadsheet newspapers do affect other media (such as TV news) – and as such most likely society in general, particularly by agenda-setting (Golan 2006). In addition, media scholars have also signaled an ‘up-spill’ of inter-media agenda-setting in which tabloids influence the topics discussed by broadsheets (Matthews and Brown 2011). However, measuring media effects is beyond the scope of this study.

^2. For an elaborate overview and criticism of the concept, see Demetriou (2001) and Moller (2007).

^3. Our analyses hardly contain any articles written by female (pop or rock) journalists (cf. McLeod 2002). Future studies might examine their differences in relation to the description of artists.

^4. In theory, differences in the use of particular frames that are found statistically not significant might still result from (qualitatively) different complicit mechanisms. In practice, however, such differences are primarily due to small numbers, making it difficult to draw a strong conclusion on how they are used.

^5. Interestingly, none of the articles discusses whether both artists' behavior might set a ‘wrong’ example for their fans (see Sheridan et al.2007).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauwke Berkers

Pauwke Berkers is an assistant professor at the Department of Arts and Culture Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His work addresses how institutions in artistic fields (e.g. journalistic criticism, arts policy, history) deal with gender and ethnic diversity in various Western countries.

Merel Eeckelaer

Merel Eeckelaer studied Media and Journalism at Erasmus University Rotterdam.