The purpose of this paper is to suggest research avenues for music as a product. Considering the amount of dollars and time spent on popular music, research which focuses on popular music can, no doubt, contribute to the advancement of understanding the phenomenon of music listening. A few characteristics of popular music have been studied in this context (e.g., Russell 1986), but the field remains largely unexplored. Psychology of music studies commonly ignore examples of music other than "serious". A shortcoming in the music research literature is its almost total exclusion of popular music. While each area has unique properties for research, the emphasis of this study focuses on the listener/consumer. Research in the psychology of music has three areas of interest, composition, performance, and listening, or music appreciation (Sloboda 1985). Psychologists and music educators are interested in studying the human reactions to music, the former group to understand aesthetic behavior (e.g., Berlyne 1971) and the latter group to influence it (Yingling 1962, Trolio 1976). One buys recorded music to be able to experience the music more than one time and to be in temporal control of the consumption. One usually hears the music through some media vehicle before buying it. Music has a unique characteristic in that it is initially consumed, generally speaking, through the radio and/or television media before it is purchased. The treatment of music as a product has been relatively ignored. Yet, very little has been done in the way of consumer research to explore why people "consume" music. Park and Young 1986), the role of music in classical conditioning experiments (Gorn 1982, Bierley, McSweeney and Vannieuwkerk 1985), and the effect of music as a background on purchase behavior (Milliman 1986, 1982, Smith and Curnow 1966). Marketing studies have explored music's effects in advertising (e.g. There is also a strong secondary market which includes concerts and electronic equipment. Billboard reports that recorded music is the fastest growing segment in the communications industry with projected sales to reach $6.1 billion in 1991 (Lichtman 1987, Mehler 1987). Music is very much a part of our daily lives. The current paper focuses on one particular hedonic product category: music. Hedonic products include those which arouse the emotions, aesthetic products such as literature, visual arts, and drama. It explores the consumption experience not as an information-processing event but via a phenomenological or "experiential view" defined as "a primarily subjective state of consciousness with a variety of symbolic meaning, hedonic responses and esthetic criteria" (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982, p. Hedonic consumption is a relatively new field of study in consumer research that addresses the multisensory, fantasy and emotive aspects of product use (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982). A model for studying music as a product is presented. The study of music is proposed as an avenue for researching what characteristics of the person and the product interact to prompt consumption of hedonic products. To date, most studies have focused on consumer traits that would predict hedonic consumption as opposed to product traits that might elicit hedonic consumption. It offers a complimenting paradigm to the one of traditional information processing, focusing on the "experiential" aspects of the consumption experience which are subjectively based, such as sensation seeking, emotional arousal and fantasizing. Hedonic consumption is a relatively new field of study in consumer research. Srull, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 367-373.Īdvances in Consumer Research VolPages 367-373 Lacher (1989) ,"Hedonic Consumption: Music As a Product", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 16, eds. ABSTRACT - Hedonic consumption is a relatively new field of study in consumer research.
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