Songmeanings.com as an arena for the contestation over meaning: A case study of "Radioactive"

When we regard music as a tool to convey meaning, it is rather ambiguous how precisely and directly a meaning can be conveyed merely through timbres in music. How the elements, such as melody, rhythm and harmony, that create music is received and interpreted by the audience vary greatly. On the other hand, using lyrics in song genres relatively enhances music's power of communicating meaning. Through lyrics, songs can be decoded and analyzed. However, even when the songwriter desires to restrict meaning through specific readings, they may fail to evade arbitrary interpretation. The historical and cultural context within which songs as messages/texts are released and the social status, cultural experiences and ideological preferences of the receivers are all determinants in this process. Furthermore, non-musical factors including the social status of the artist and their statements also influence how music is received. SongMeanings.com is a platform in which lyrics of various artists are shared and its users interpret and discuss these lyrics. Moreover, the users rate the interpretations they like or dislike and participate in how the song should be "read" by replying each other. By this way, they lead to some reading styles become prominent or marginalized. In this study, in terms of the website SongMeanings.com as an arena used for the contestation over meaning of music, how the song "Radioactive" is signified, interpreted and discussed by the users is examined based on various concepts.