Gatherer, Derek (2007) Voting in Eurovision:shared tastes or cultural epidemic? Empirical Text and Culture Research, 3. pp. 72-83. ISSN 1617-8912
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
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.