Chart-Toppers and Heart-Stoppers: Navigating the Pulse of Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart
Presentation Type
Research Study
Release Option
Metadata Only
Description
This study seeks to discover if genre popularity has varied and/or changed over time when examining Billboard’s Hot 100 song chart. This content analysis examines the top 10 songs featured on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart from 2010 to 2019 in order to determine if a change in genre preference during the decade is present. In total, 100 different songs were coded based on several categories using Billboard’s website, Google’s search engine feature, and the music-streaming platform, Spotify. Some of the coded categories include the artists’ name, year the song was released, received ranking, song length, genre, and more. The gatekeeping theory presented by Kurt Lewin is especially useful when completing a content analysis on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. In this study, Billboard acts as the gate to music consumers; providing a set list of songs to the public based on their process of statistical gathering and personal judgement. The results of this study reveal a slight shift in music genre preferences overtime, though the same few genres consistently received top rankings and rotated with one another.
Faculty Mentor
Jeffrey Riley
Department of Primary Presenter's Major
Department of Communication Arts
Symposium Year
2024
Chart-Toppers and Heart-Stoppers: Navigating the Pulse of Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart
