Sifting through reseach is kinda like sifting through rare records. There's a plethora of information available that can be wildly helpful and interesting to a mass of people but it's tucked away in University libraries where most people won't bother to look. It takes about 20-30 years for most research to infiltrate and influence society.
The main problem with most research is that its so boring to read. I'd much rather pull a punk record out of its cover and put it on a turntable than read a research article.
It's more entertaining to learn about politics and history while listening to the
Dead Kennedy's than it is to read about it while sitting in a vault of papers with no windows reading page upon page of dreary, boring, dead words.
The topics to research are abundantly fascinating to me but my enthusiasm wanes when I try to understand what I'm reading. I go completely bonkers when it comes to understanding those confusing little diagrams and graphs. I swear to God, it's not written in English. It's almost like reading the instructions that come with your cell phone, how many people are that patient?
But here's the deal, knowledge is power. Music is power. We owe it to ourselves to seek it out and improve ourselves with it. We owe it to each other.
So, I'm helping my friend Sharareh write her doctoral dissertation. (That's when you practically have to write a whole book based on tons of research so you can get a PhD).
You think I have an problem reading research, Sharareh's first language is Farsi!
Part of how I'm helping her is by compiling and summarizing data (sounds fun huh?) I have a magical, white, three-ring binder at the bottom shelf of my bookcase titled "Research Articles." I got it out, dusted it off, sneezed, then looked for studies that might help my friend with her dissertation.
I found so many cool things that I just want to share the titles with everyone. If you're anything like me, when you try to actually read the research, your eyes begin to roll up into your head and your tounge starts hanging out.
Reading the titles, on the other hand, is kinda fun. It gives you a feel for the type of information that is available for you if you'll just look. If you're really fascinated by a particular subject, you might find the motivation to read and yawn and eventually figure it out. Heck, maybe you'll write a song about it? As you look at the titles below, please pause to consider why this research is done in the first place. Who pays for it? What do they use it for? Hmmmm.
**Effect of Exposure to Photographs of Thin Models on Self-Consciousness in Female College Students
**An Imagery-Processing View of the Role of Pictures in Print Advertisements
**Effects of Repeating Varied Ad Executions on Brand Name Memory
**Encoding and Retrieval of Ad Affect in Memory
**Predicting the Effectiveness of Different Strategies of Advertising Variation: A Test of the Repetition-Variation Hypotheses
**The Effects of an Advertising Retrieval Cue on Young Children's Memory and Brand Evaluations
**An Analysis of Learned Helplessness: II. The Processing of Success
**Influence of Aerobic Exercise on Depression
**Self-Control Techniques of Famous Novelists (from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis)
**Depression and Mental Control: The Resurgence of Unwanted Negative Thoughts
**If It's What's Inside That Counts, Why not Count it? I : Self-Recording of Feelings and Treatment by "Self-Implosion"
Don't some of the titles intrigue you? Do they leave you begging for more? What would you like to find out through research if you could? How would you use reserach to improve your community?
P.S. Subscribe to this blog if you want to find out more about politics, punk rock, media influence and how all this stuff is tied together.
P.P.S. If you struggle with weight or body image problems, I have created some recordings based on the research above to help you change your self-image from negative to positive and release excess weight. You can find out more at
Donate Your Weight.com,
Amazon.com or
iTunes.
