“A Protest, a Punishment, and a Pop Song: Hearing the Soundtracks of Polarization in 2020,” 10/25 Colloquium with Georgia College & State University Associate Professor of Music Dana Gorzelany-Mostak

Using the dual lens of political communication and digital studies to unpack a widely viewed and modified video from a summer 2020 protest in Portland, Georgia College & State University Associate Professor of Music Dana Gorzelany-Mostak will zoom in on the role that sound plays in driving political polarization on online platforms. The talk will take place on October 25 at 3:30pm in Jesse Hall 410, and anyone interested in attending virtually can do so here (YouTube) or here (Facebook, log in req’d).

Abstract

During a summer 2020 protest in Portland, bystanders captured the moment when a Molotov cocktail set a protester’s feet on fire. President Donald Trump retweeted footage of the incident with Kenny Loggins’ song “Footloose” as the soundtrack, and the video was viewed 3.4 million times over the next 48 hours. The strange pairing inspired others across Twitter (now X) to add their own “soundtracks” to the protestor’s moment of terror. As the robust exchange of songs, GIFs, images, and one-liners unfolded, virtual spectators bore witness to (and reveled in) the protester’s punishment. But who was this protester and what did he represent to the digital mob who celebrated his retribution? With research on political communication and internet trolling culture as a contextual frame, this talk traces the chain of musical responses inspired by Trump’s tweet and investigates how humor is cultivated through acts of musical substitution. The concept of “racial transposition” (HoSang and Lowndes, 2019) and theories on punishment shed light on the phenomenon of digital lynching and reveal the role sound can play in driving political polarization across online platforms.

Dana Gorzelany-Mostak is an Associate Professor of Music at Georgia College & State University. Her research on popular music and electoral politics appears in Music & Politics, the Journal of the Society for American Music, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, and American Music. Gorzelany-Mostak is the founder of Trax on the Trail, a website and research project that tracks and catalogues the soundscapes of American presidential campaigns. She has provided her expert opinion for news outlets such as the BBC, Politico, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Variety, Pacific Standard, Inverse, and The Boston Herald. Her 2023 book, Tracks on the Trail: Popular Music, Race, and the US Presidency (University of Michigan Press), analyzes the official and unofficial musical activity surrounding 21st-century presidential campaigns and sheds light on how the racialization of sound intersects with other markers of difference, thus shaping the public discourse surrounding candidates, popular music, and the meanings attached to race in the 21st century.