Disconnected, Not Polarized: Four Decades of the Rural-urban Interface in Mainstream Country Music

Abstract

Rural scholars have regularly analyzed media representations of rural communities, but there are a lack of analyses considering whether media representations of the rural-urban interface have transformed over the last 40 years as material connections and political divisions between rural and urban places intensified. This article presents a longitudinal analysis of portrayals of the rural-urban interface in mainstream country music from the 1980s to the 2010s. Examining the lyrics of over 800 weeks of songs that topped the Billboard charts, we find that representations of the material connections between rural and urban places have become less common. Specifically, portrayals of migrants crossing the interface have nearly disappeared from mainstream country. There was also a lack of evidence of growing polarization in mainstream country’s portrayals of rural and urban places. Rural places were generally depicted in idyllic terms in every decade, but urban places were also increasingly represented positively. These results indicate that the rural-urban interface portrayed by mainstream country does not align with previous research concerning the interface. In contrast to studies that highlight growing material connections and political divisions between rural and urban places, the interface depicted by mainstream country has become increasingly disconnected materially without becoming polarized politically.