Selling a dream? Information asymmetry and integrity within promotional literature for popular music courses
Abstract
Providers of higher education have a legal responsibility to provide accurate information to students. In an increasingly marketized sector, however, promotional imperatives place pressure on providers to ‘sell’ degrees to students. Given the indeterminate nature of popular music careers, not to mention the ‘intangible product’ that is Higher Education, the implicit or explicit indication of an assurance of career success upon completion of the degree could be regarded as being overstated. This article brings to bear a qualitative linguistic analysis of the terms and constructed meanings implied within promotional literature across a range of performance-based popular music degrees. It suggests that language in this context functions in a performative sense and can perpetuate questionable conceptions of popular music careers and the efficacy of degree courses. The article concludes with suggestions of improvements that might be made across the sector in the promotion of popular music degree courses.Citation
Hall, R. (2019) Selling a dream? Information asymmetry and integrity within promotional literature for popular music courses, Journal of Popular Music Education, 3(2), pp. 225-243.Publisher
Intellect BooksJournal
Journal of Popular Music EducationAdditional Links
https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-popular-music-educationType
Journal articleLanguage
enEISSN
2397-673Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1386/jpme.3.2.225_1
Scopus Count
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/