The ego function of protest songs: An application of Gregg's theory of protest rhetoric

This essay applies Richard Gregg's theory of protest rhetoric to 705 American social movement songs from 1800 to 1985 to discover how songs enable protestors to identify against others and thus to locate themselves positively in the social hierarchy. Songs are ideal messages for ego‐enhancement because they are movement‐centered, concerned with social relationships, and highly self‐directed. Terms denoting innocent victimage and wicked victimizer dominate the selected songs, and the vision of reality is negative, dangerous, threatening, and unfair. Relatively few songs emphasize the unity, virtue, wisdom, or bravery of protestors. The self‐image contained in songs does not appear to express a strongly positive identity or locate the oppressed very high in the symbolic or social hierarchy. This self‐image would seem to fulfill three ego functions essential for the early phases of social movements: raising consciousness, allaying guilt, and reclaiming or proclaiming one's ego. However, a different self‐imag...