Culture
Marijuana And Tobacco Appear In Almost Half Of Popular Music Videos, Study Shows
Marijuana and tobacco were featured in nearly half of the most popular hip-hop and R&B music videos from 2013 to 2017, new research finds.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine on Monday, takes a critical look at the prevalence of regulated products appearing in hit music videos. The team of researchers found that 40 to 50 percent of the videos reviewed depicted smoking or vaping tobacco or cannabis.
“While there is no doubt that hip-hop artists have made many positive contributions to social change—speaking out on issues like police violence against minorities—there’s also a history of showing regulated substances in hip-hop and other popular music,” Kristin Knutzen, lead author of the study, said in a press release.
“These depictions may affect fans’ attitudes toward smoking and increase the likelihood of smoking—particularly among young people.”
For the analysis, researchers examined the Billboard Top 50 charts for R&B and hip-hop from 2013 to 2017. Of the 1,250 songs covered in those charts, 769 had accompanying music videos that were included in the review.
“The proportion of songs with accompanying music videos that contained combustible use, electronic use, or smoke or vapor equaled 44 percent in 2014, 40 percent in 2015, 50 percent in 2016, and 47 percent in 2017. (For a total of 39.5 billion views).”
Besides the significant prevalence of marijuana and tobacco depictions in these videos, researchers also observed that the more views a given music video received, the more likely it was that they featured tobacco or cannabis products.
In other words, people seem to be more likely to watch and share music videos that show marijuana or tobacco consumption.
Forty-two percent of the songs that received 8,700 to 19 million views showed marijuana or tobacco products. For videos that received 112 million to four billion views, though, 50 percent featured these products.
When it comes to tobacco products, one interesting trend is the lack of manufactured cigarettes that appeared in these videos. Only 8 percent of the songs reviewed showed manufactured, as opposed to rolled, cigarettes.
But depictions of brands seem to be on the rise. Brand placement showing combustable (i.e. smokable) cannabis or tobacco products appeared in appeared in 0 percent of the top music videos in 2013, compared to 10 percent in 2017. Depictions of electronic vaping products rose from 25 percent in 2013 to 88 percent in 2017.
The researchers expressed concern with the rise of smoking or vaping depictions in popular videos.
“When young people, especially adolescents, see their favorite artists using tobacco products in music videos, they can begin to view them as normal in hip-hop culture, and they can begin to see themselves using them,” study co-author Samir Soneji said in a press release. “They also could view them as less harmful than they are. That’s a very real public health threat.”
While few studies to date have examined the relationship between the appearance of cannabis products in popular culture and youth consumption habits, the medium has seen renewed interest recently. A study published earlier this year, for example, also showed a dramatic increase in references to marijuana in popular songs.
Marijuana References In Popular Music Are On the Rise, Study Finds
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.
