Uncovering collective listening habits and music genres in bipartite networks

In this paper, we analyze web-downloaded data on people sharing their music library, that we use as their individual musical signatures (IMS). The system is represented by a bipartite network, nodes being the music groups and the listeners. Music groups audience size behaves like a power law, but the individual music library size is an exponential with deviations at small values. In order to extract structures from the network, we focus on correlation matrices, that we filter by removing the least correlated links. This percolation idea-based method reveals the emergence of social communities and music genres, that are visualised by a branching representation. Evidence of collective listening habits that do not fit the neat usual genres defined by the music industry indicates an alternative way of classifying listeners/music groups. The structure of the network is also studied by a more refined method, based upon a random walk exploration of its properties. Finally, a personal identification - community imitation model (PICI) for growing bipartite networks is outlined, following Potts ingredients. Simulation results do reproduce quite well the empirical data.Comment: submitted to PR

Influential Listeners: An Experiment on Persuasion Bias in Social Networks

This paper presents an experimental investigation of persuasion bias, a form of bounded rationality whereby agents communicating through a social network are unable to account for possible repetitions in the information they receive. The results indicate that network structure plays a significant role in determining social influence. However, the most influential agents are not those with more outgoing links, as predicted by the persuasion bias hypothesis, but those with more incoming links. We show that a boundedly rational updating rule that takes into account not only agents' outdegree, but also their indegree, provides a better explanation of the experimental data. In this framework, consensus beliefs tend to be swayed towards the opinions of influential listeners. We then present an effort-weighted updating model as a more general characterization of information aggregation in social networks.

Network structure of phonographic market with characteristic similarities between musicians

We investigate relations between best selling artists in last decade on phonographic market and from perspective of listeners by using the Social Network Analyzes. Starting network is obtained from the matrix of correlations between the world's best selling artists by considering the synchronous time evolution of weekly record sales. This method reveals the structure of phonographic market, but we claim that it has no impact on people who see relationship between artists and music genres. We compare 'sale' (based on correlation of record sales) or 'popularity' (based on data mining of the record charts) networks with 'similarity' (obtained mainly from survey within music experts opinion) and find no significant relations. We postulate that non-laminar phenomena on this specific market introduce turbulence to how people view relations of artists.Comment: 15

Smart radio and audio apps: the politics and paradoxes of listening to (anti-) social media

The recent crop of vocal social media applications tends to appeal to users in terms of getting their voices heard loud and clear. Indeed, it is striking how often verbs like ‘shout’ and ‘boast’ and ‘brag’ are associated with microcasting platforms with such noisy names as Shoutcast, Audioboom, Hubbub, Yappie, Boast and ShoutOmatic. In other words, these audio social media are often promoted in rather unsociable terms, appealing less to the promise of a new communicative exchange than to the fantasy that we will each can be at the centre of attention of an infinite audience. Meanwhile, many of the new forms of online radio sell their services to listeners as offering ‘bespoke’ or ‘responsive’ programming (or ‘audiofeeds’), building up a personal listening experience that meets their individual needs and predilictions. The role of listening in this new media ecology is characterised, then, by similarly contradictory trends. Listening is increasingly personalised, privatised, masterable and measurable, but also newly shareable, networked and, potentially, public. The promotional framing of these new media suggests a key contradiction at play in these new forms of radio and audio, speaking to a neo-liberal desire for a decentralization of broadcasting to the point where every individual has a voice, but where the idea of the audience is invoked as a mass network of anonymous and yet thoroughly privatised listeners. Focusing on the promotion and affordances of these various new radio- and radio-like applications for sharing speech online, this article seeks to interrogate what is at stake in these contradictions in terms of the ongoing politics, experience and ethics of listening in a mediated world

Stay Awhile and Listen: User Interactions in a Crowdsourced Platform Offering Emotional Support

Internet and online-based social systems are rising as the dominant mode of communication in society. However, the public or semi-private environment under which most online communications operate under do not make them suitable channels for speaking with others about personal or emotional problems. This has led to the emergence of online platforms for emotional support offering free, anonymous, and confidential conversations with live listeners. Yet very little is known about the way these platforms are utilized, and if their features and design foster strong user engagement. This paper explores the utilization and the interaction features of hundreds of thousands of users on 7 Cups of Tea, a leading online platform offering online emotional support. It dissects the level of activity of hundreds of thousands of users, the patterns by which they engage in conversation with each other, and uses machine learning methods to find factors promoting engagement. The study may be the first to measure activities and interactions in a large-scale online social system that fosters peer-to-peer emotional support

Delivering a Public Service? The BBC Asian Network and British Asian audiences.

This thesis examines how minority ethnic producers employed by the BBC Asian Network, the BBC’s only ethnic specific digital radio station, construct a distinctive audience for the broadcaster. The study looks at the challenges, barriers and conflicts that have emerged as a consequence of BBC strategic attempts to make the radio station relevant for younger British Asian listeners. This research sets out to fill a gap regarding the experiences of ethnic staff working within a public service remit. This type of study is necessary because evidence suggests the number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff working in the media remain small and this impacts the views articulated in the media. The study combines a production studies approach with a grounded theory framework for the analysis of thirty in-depth interviews with editors, producers and presenters working at the BBC Asian Network. Three different audience strategies are examined from the perspective of staff working at the station: 2006 young strategy, 2009 friend of the family and 2016, young digital native. What is also exposed through the in-depth interviews is the existence of an internal divide between two groups of minority ethic staff; the older traditional British Asian staff members who are concerned about the dilution of ‘Asian’ identity, and the younger group, comprised of third or fourth generation British Asians, who are likely to be integrated and better placed to promote a broad vision of British Asian identity. The interviews illustrate that a rigid gatekeeping system limits the dissemination of original journalism about the British Asian communities because the wider BBC ignores or marginalises the expertise and stories pitched by minority ethnic journalists working at the BBC Asian Network. Therefore, this thesis evaluates how the BBC as a public service broadcaster, articulates and manages issues pertaining to race and ethnicity within the organisation. The study is significant and timely, because the BBC as a public service broadcaster, is under increased pressure since the Charter Renewal in 2016, to demonstrate that it is taking diversity seriously, and meet its own self-imposed diversity initiatives; in terms of the recruitment of staff from minority backgrounds, both on-air and behind the scenes, and improve the representation of minority groups in content. This study explores the BBC’s endeavours to attract minority listeners through music, news and programme content on the contemporary BBC Asian Network. The study focuses upon a period of time between 2006 and 2018

Globalization and Modernity: Revocation of Space and Time between Broadcaster BPRS ERA FM UNJ to Edufren

This paper will examine globalization and modernity from the perspective of Anthony Giddens, where there are conditions indicated by the separation of time and space as well as the revocation of space and time, in which the globalization of the mark with the revocation time and space, like the relationship that exists between the broadcaster and Edufren (designation for listeners ERA FM). Revocation of time and space occur in conditions that do not localized through the relationship that exists through the frequency bands and social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, thereby eventually giving birth to reflexivity individuals and institutions as well as risks in globalization. It is reflective of ERA FM listeners by describing his self-expression through a network of listeners social. Where is trying to be someone that is modern. Meanwhile, the reflective institutions as well as the revocation of space and time through the good or bad news are delivered by radio. Thus, motivating institutions to make better and prevent the risks of globalization. Thus, the individual or institution is doing discursive consciousness to defend themselves on the wave of globalization