In a study published in Science in 2006 (“Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market”), Princeton sociologist Matthew Salganik and his coauthors revealed how the opinions of others influence the popularity of a song. That’s not surprising, you might say, but the surprise was the extent to which popularity was actually controlled by a factor that had nothing to do with musical content. The identical song could be a hit or a failure simply depending on whether listeners saw that other people had downloaded it. Continue reading →
We’re lemmings when it comes to music
In a study published in Science in 2006 (“Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market”), Princeton sociologist Matthew Salganik and his coauthors revealed how the opinions of others influence the popularity of a song. That’s not surprising, you might say, but the surprise was the extent to which popularity was actually controlled by a factor that had nothing to do with musical content. The identical song could be a hit or a failure simply depending on whether listeners saw that other people had downloaded it. Continue reading →