Cultural analysis of differences of preference in popular music: The example of Turkish pop

The preferences in our daily life are closely related to our cultural experience as well as our instant feelings and thoughts. Thus, our music listening practices and the music genres we prefer do not occur randomly. Many cultural factors such as family, education, social environment and media play an active role in our music preferences. Thus, the music we choose becomes an identity indicator that reflects our cultural world. In this context, popular music, which is discussed in terms of its functional and semantic aspects as well as its prevalence in the public sphere, is an area open to evaluation in order to reveal the relationship between culture and music. This study focuses on revealing and analyzing the cultural background of music preferences in Turkish oral popular music. The theoretical background of the study is built on the theories written in the fields of culture, popular culture, popular music and taste in music. Apart from this, with surveys and personal interviews; It was investigated whether cultural factors such as family, education, media and social environment affect Turkish oral popular music preferences. The data obtained were analyzed with the SPSS program and interpreted by utilizing the theoretical infrastructure of the study. Therefore, in this thesis, the relationship between musical preferences and tastes and cultural experiences in the context of Turkish oral popular music has been discussed. Keywords: Turkish pop, popular music, culture and music, music taste, music preference