Physicists Uncover TV Show Biases

Tsalg writes "Interesting to see what scientists can uncover from watching one of the silliest TV shows in Europe, where singers represent countries in a contest, and then countries vote for.. for what exactly? Well it was reported in a Nature article where the show was used as a barometer of European nations' feelings about their neighbours, that Britain is in harmony with Europe, Nordic countries fancy each others' stars, and France is out on a limb."

Comments

Every year, the same bullshit

[BoxedFlame]

Look, the reason you vote for culturally similar countries, is that you share taste in music with them. Obviously these former russian nations actually think they're sending something good. I for one think it's crap and I think the contributions from my neighboring countries are superior. Not because I somehow "like" these people, the music is just closer to my preferred style. There are some exceptions though, like the year Turkey won for example.

Re:Lalah

[R2.0]

"I makes me wonder exactly why we continue this ridiculous tradition"

Umm, because previously European matters of national pride (read "pissing contests") were settled (or not) with guns and bombs.

Stick with the dumb TV contests - fewer refugees that way, and it will allow Europeans to hold on to their self image as peaceful, war hating types.

possible misconceptions

[JanneM]

Yes, there is a good deal of "friendly" voting going on. The reason may at least partly be taste, though. Neighbouring countries tend to be very close, culturally and lingustically, people tend to meve between them a lot and can usually see each others television and radio broadcasts. So they will tend to have more similar taste in music than countries far apart. I would not be surprised if that is one part (not all, obviously) of the "bloc voting".

As for your second point, why would the amount of money contributed to the EU correlate in any way with the popularity of the songs? Looking above, you'd expect the opposite, actually. A country is a large contributor because it's, well, a large country. And a large country tend (other things being equal) to be more insular and less influenced by the cultures around it. The songs will tend not to appeal as widely among its neighbours or other european countries as the smaller, more exposed, countries.

And yes, musically it's rather like a slow-motion trainwreck, but that's part of the appeal :)