A descriptive analysis of internet information regarding music therapy

The purpose of the two studies reported here was to investigate and describe information available about music therapy that is likely to be found on the Internet. The top 20 Internet search engines were surveyed using the term "Music Therapy." Information concerning the first 25 sites listed per engine was collected. The following categories of information were described: the frequency of mention across the search engine sites, the type of site, whether the site gave a definition of music therapy, the orientation of that definition, the number of links, orientation of links, and the number of hits shown on the main page. A rank order was then compiled of the 267 sites listed across all searches. Results showed that American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) web page was the most frequent and highest ranked site across the 20 search engine sites. Sites from educational institutions were frequent, as were commercial sites. Most of the highest ranked sites gave traditional definitions (as defined by AMTA) for music therapy and associated links were conventional as well. These procedures were replicated one year later, although the question "What is Music Therapy?" was used as the search term. Results from this second search revealed only 145 sites. Of those, American Music Therapy Association web page was again the most frequent and highest ranked site across the search engines. Sites from educational institutions were frequent, as were commercial sites, however, only half of the highest ranked sites gave traditional definitions for music therapy.