Critical Review 1: Cohen 1993

In her article Ethnography and Popular Music Studies, Sara Cohen differentiates the study of popular music from ethnography, while defining each of the terms with broad examples.  She paints popular music studies as predominantly text-based, arguing that they could benefit from incorporating ethnographic considerations like "the individual" and social relationships.  She goes on to show differences between the two by explaining how ethnographic studies include a more bottom-up, culturally-focused dive into a subject that is based on individual interviews and fieldwork. 

Discussion Question:  What impact does an ethnographer's presence in the field have on his or her subjects' representations of the reality of the scene that is being studied?