JAZZ AND POPULAR MUSIC IN ESTONIAN PERIODICALS IN THE 1920s AND 1930
Keywords:
Popular music studies, jazz, Estonian journalism, databases, content analysisAbstract
This article aims to analyse the coverage of jazz and popular music in Estonian periodicals (such as the daily newspaper Päewaleht) in the 1920s and 1930s – a task facilitated by their inclusion in full-text databases (dea.digar.ee). In Section 1, a short overview of jazz and popular music in Estonia in that period is provided. The word “jazz” could be encountered in a variety of journalistic contexts, ranging from essays on modern culture to gossip and advertisements. In Section 2, I will describe how databases such as dea.digar.ee allow the use of quantitative methods of content analysis by means of which the number of occurrences of a musical term (“jazz”, “tango”, or “the Charleston”) in a certain period can be determined. Although not all the miscellaneous mentions of jazz in periodicals are musically insightful, they nevertheless speak aptly for the status that jazz music had as a symbol of “the modern way of life” (Section 3).
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PERIODICALS
Ajaleht (1913), Feuilleton-Beilage der Revalschen Zeitung (1911), Kirjandus. Kunst. Teadus (1922), Muusikaleht (1925), Postimees (1931–1932), Päewaleht (1924–1927, 1931–1932), Raadioleht (1931), Sakala (1929), Tallinna Teataja (1919, 1921).
LITERATURE
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