You are here: Home :: Area CULI :: Linguistics and literature

Derek Gatherer

Voting in Eurovision: Shared tastes or cultural epidemic?

Apparent vote-exchange ("logrolling") in the Eurovision Song Contest has been variously interpreted as a manifestation of political attitudes within Europe, a reflection of regional tastes in pop music, or a social (memetic) epidemic. This paper provides data supporting the third of these three options, also demonstrating that the cultural contagion has now nearly reached saturation. As well as logrolling, ethnic diasporas and the "semi-final effect" are also shown to influence the result of the contest. Reform of the voting system to produce a contest which better rewards musical excellence, without suppressing the mass participation element, is therefore a complex problem.

Empirical Text and Culture Research, RAM-Verlag

Volume: 3, 08/2007
Pages: 72-84

Show full article (external site)

Show all available items of this journal

 

Area CULI