Effects of Genre Tag Complexity on Popular Music Perception and Enjoyment

The popular online streaming platform Spotify added over 1400 genre tags in the last two years. Despite that numerous artists and composition competitions claim to seek projects that “transcend the traditional notion of genre,” the industry has only added more complex and mystifying genre labels. This dichotomy between artists and industry ignores the effects these labels have on consumers. Do more complex genre tags enhance the listening experience for the average consumer by providing additional information about what they are about to hear? The current research seeks to examine the effects of the granularity of genre tags on popular music perception by identifying whether more nuanced subgenre genre tags increase enjoyment and understanding of popular music excerpts. Participants heard four 20-second excerpts of popular music from four broad genre categories—including pop, country, rap/hip-hop, rock—as defined in Gjerdingen & Perrott, 2008 and Mace et al., 2011. Excerpts were presented simultaneously with two or three corresponding broad genre category tags or nuanced subgenre category tags in a randomized order. Participants used Likert-type scales to rate how well the genre tags matched the excerpt with which they were presented, how much they enjoyed the excerpt, and were asked to self-label each excerpt with a genre tag. Results showed that ratings were significantly higher for the broad genre categories than the subgenre categories for both enjoyment and matching, (F(1, 2109.67) = 19.07, p \u3c .001; F(1, 2109.38) = 56.47, p \u3c .001), respectively. Further, participants did not self-label any of the excerpts with genre categories that were not previously attached to the respective stimuli. These results have practical implications for how music producers market popular music since broad genre categories appear to be adequate for conveying expectations for popular music

Four Myths About Why Women Aren't Getting the Top Jobs in Universities

Don't blame lack of ambition, or malign the headhunters. Universities themselves are keeping a lid on female promotio

The rise and rise of executive pay

Sue Shepherd reflects on what lies behind the increase in the salaries of vice chancellors and other executive team members over recent years and what this tells us about trends in management of universities today

undercurrent by Rita Wong

Review of Rita Wong\u27s undercurrent

Towards the Sustainable City: The Impact of Land Use – Transport Interactions. A Comparison of the impact of the initial and final coefficients on location choice on transport strategies and land use scenarios.

Over the last decade the concept of integrated transport strategies for urban areas and a means of evaluating them have been developed and widely accepted into practice by major studies of cities such as London (May and Gardner, 1990), Birmingham (Wenban-Smith et al, 1990) and Edinburgh (May, Roberts and Mason, 1992). The development of integrated transport strategies (May, 1991) has been based on the identification of synergy between transport policy instruments (May and Roberts, 1995). These concepts led indirectly, particularly through experience in Birmingham, to the introduction by the Department of Transport of the Package Approach for urban transport funding (May, 1994a) and more directly to the development of the Common Appraisal Framework for assessing Package Approach bids (MVA et al, 1994). It is now generally accepted that transport strategies designed to meet the objectives of economic efficiency and sustainability will require a combination of measures to manage the existing infrastructure more effectively, to provide selective enhancements to that infrastructure and to impose appropriate pricing mechanisms on both public and private transport. In a recent study, funded by EPSRC, we have developed a methodology for identifying optimal specifications for such strategies, and have shown that their performance is particularly sensitive to the contribution of pricing measures such as fares and road pricing (May, Bonsall, Bristow and Fowkes, 1995). However, while we are now able to formulate optimal transport strategies, very few studies have been able to demonstrate that transport policy measures alone will achieve a sustainable situation in which fuel consumption and emissions are maintained at or below current levels (May and Roberts, 1995). In most cases, land use changes will need to be co-ordinated with transport measures if sustainability is to be achieved, and recommendations for appropriate land use measures are beginning to emerge (DoE, DoT, 1993; DoE, 1994). An initial assessment of the potential for co-ordinating transport and land use strategies was carried out using the results of the Edinburgh study (Still, 1992), and showed that the preferred transport strategy would be up to 10% more effective in achieving sustainability when combined with a concentrated land use strategy. However, that study assumed no feedback from transport measures to land use effects. Literature reviews and interviews have demonstrated that the impact of transport on land use is perceived as a serious gap in policy understanding. Interviews also revealed that land use-transport models are treated with some scepticism, because there is insufficient understanding of the relationships within them and because the existing models are perceived as unduly complex (Still, 1996). As a result of this lack of understanding, there is a danger that impacts of transport on land use might have counter-productive effects on the land use - transport strategy. For example, road pricing, which may be a key element in a sustainable transport strategy (May, 1994b), may reduce accessibility by private car, and hence lead to outmigration of business, thus producing a less sustainable land use pattern. Conversely it could enhance the city centre environment, and hence encourage certain firms to relocate to the centre. These twin impacts of transport policy on accessibility and on environmental quality are the key elements in predicting the resulting location decisions of individuals and firms, and need to be better understood if sustainable land use - transport strategies are to be developed. The principal objectives of the project are : (i) to increase our understanding of the impact of accessibility and environmental quality on individuals’ and firms’ location decisions; (ii) to use the findings of (i) to enhance a newly developed strategic transport and land use interaction model; (iii) to use the enhanced model to assess the implications for urban sustainability of the impact of transport policy on location choice; (iv) to use the enhanced model to assess the relative performance of different combinations of transport and land use strategy

Meeting the minimum standards of the Palermo Protocol: The case of South Africa

Magister Legum - LLMThis research is aimed at evaluating the adequacy and effectiveness of the legal framework dealing with human trafficking in South Africa. To achieve this purpose, a comprehensive overview of the punishment, prevention of human trafficking in South Africa was looked into as well as victim protection. An overview of the history of slavery and an analysis of the modern conceptualisation of human trafficking indicate that human trafficking is a highly complex concept, and that there are various approaches to the understanding of the concept of human trafficking. There are various definitions of trafficking found in international instruments of which the most important has been identified as that contained in the Palermo Protocol. The definitions vary also because trafficking is closely related to the phenomena of migration, slavery and smuggling of humans. The study further identifies some significant root causes of trafficking The research concedes that although common-law crimes, statutes and transitional legislation can be utilized to challenge some trafficking elements, these offences are not comprehensive enough to amply deal with the crime’s complexities and provide only a fragmented approach to combating the crime. The study shows that South Africa has adopted specific legislation, namely the Trafficking Act. The research further establishes also that international, regional and sub-regional instruments on trafficking and related aspects of trafficking provide guidelines for developing effective strategies to deal with trafficking within the region. The counter-trafficking strategies as found in treaties, protocols, declarations and resolutions, which focus specifically on combating trafficking and those with a human-rights focus, obliges States to prosecute traffickers, protect those who are vulnerable to trafficking as well as those already trafficked and establish measures for prevention. This research further highlighted the importance of preventing human trafficking which starts with government but non- governmental organisations play a vital role in this element as well

Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields by Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Steven Rubin

Review of Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Steven Rubin\u27s Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Field

The Wolf is Back by Robert Priest

Review of Robert Priest\u27s The Wolf is Back