International Society for Jazz Research

Jazz in kommerziellen Jugendzeitschriften der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Darstellung und Interpretation einer Aussagenanalyse

The private organization of the newspaper industry in West Germany transformed the press into a product, which follows the rules of a free market system, as they function in a capitalistic society. In the expanding leisure-entertainment-and music market, the position young people hold as consumers is of great importance. In 1976, there were seven youth magazines which primarily reported about the music scene. More than half of all West German youth read them. The magazine "Bravo" maintains a monopoly in this branch of the press, with a circulation of 1.2 million.

1. The sociological and social functions of entertainment within the so-called "street press": diversion from daily life, construction of a dream world, creating envy and muting it, personification and personalisation of social circumstances.
2. the fact that so far none of the many analyses of commercial youth magazines dealt solely with popular music, differentiated, nor categorized it.
3. the resulting question about the quantity and quality of Jazz in youth magazines. The hypothesis for the research is, that Jazz in commercial youth magazines, under present economic and sociological conditions, falls in fine with the entire entertainment branch. The methodical procedure, using a quantitative and qualitative statement analysis, leads to the development and application of a categorical system, and it further leads to a correlative statistical computation.

1. Jazz music does not even reach a 10 % level about popular music in the entire reporting; on the other hand, Pop and Rock music together have more than 50 %.
2. Magazines which deal with commercial hit songs, neglect Rock music and ignore Jazz. Magazines specializing in Rock music, take into account a sliver of Jazz and Jazz-related music. The majority of young people in West Germany is not confronted with Jazz in their own media.
3. The resulting analysis showed that commercial hit singers and Rock musicians are blown up like envied or problem-weighted stars, without any relations to music or society. On the contrary, "Jazzy" articles provide information and evaluations of individual musical expression and social conditions. Taken on the whole, an objective journalistic reporting about the variety of Jazz does not exist.