
Partisanship at Eurovision is becoming more blatant - YouAreGreat
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2018/05/daily-chart-7
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isodev
After all, EU countries don't exist in isolation and we are heavily influenced
by our neighbours (economically, culturally, politically). It only makes sense
that this influence makes its way into Eurovision. I think the "partisanship"
between countries is part of the spectacle.

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ldjb
I'm not sure what the EU has to do with anything or why EU countries should be
different from any of the other competing countries.

I suppose the "partisanship" can be interesting to observe, but considering
all the hard work each of the acts have to do I feel it's a shame that they
are judged mainly on geographical and political factors rather than on their
musical ability and performance.

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repolfx
Despite the name Eurovision is nothing to do with the EU. That's why Israel,
Ukraine and Russia sometimes compete.

Actual eligibility is defined by a relic of the early television broadcasting
industry, the "European Broadcasting Area" the borders of which correspond to,
I think, early telegraph networks.

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ldjb
Exactly. Eurovision is not related to the European Union. Technically, it
doesn't even have anything to do with Europe; Australia have been competing in
recent years.

Eligibility simply requires the country to have a broadcaster that is a member
of the European Broadcasting Union.

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the_mitsuhiko
I think half the fun of watching it is the collusion.

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nabla9
That's exactly the point of Eurovision. Eurovision is harmless entertainment
where people can participate and play the game any way they want. You can make
political or cultural points by voting, or create fads and feuds, show
solidarity etc.

A Finnish horror rock band wearing masks won because people found it funny to
rebel against typical second rate pop from second rate stars.

Bearded man in drag won because people realized that they could trigger
homophobes.

Ukraine won 2004, the same year as there was the Orange revolution in Ukraine.

Ukraine won again 2016. Maybe it had something to do with the War in Donbass.

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dagurp
Or maybe these were the best songs

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furiens
The effects of partisanship are hugely outweighed by the fact that each
country gives points to 10 others, not just one. An extreme case of both the
10 and 12 points going to non-deserving neighbours still leaves 36 points to
go elsewhere.

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ldjb
Except that for countries with lots of neighbours, they're likely to
consistently receive 10 or 12 points.

Sure, other countries will also receive points, but far fewer, and therefore
they are at a disadvantage.

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cJ0th
I wonder if the "big 5" would score higher if they weren't qualified for the
finals by default. That way their songs would get a lot more exposure and
become more familiar to the voters. Usually, people like best what they know.

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ldjb
In my experience, most people only watch the final, so I'm not sure that would
make a major difference. And of course, considering how poorly the Big Five
perform, it's likely they won't even make it into the final!

It would be interesting to see the results of such an experiment, though.

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montrose
I love it when people doing bad things get busted by statistical traces they
didn't even realize they were leaving. There is a lot more room for this kind
of detective work.

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mcv
These results are not remotely surprising to anyone. It's been long known that
closely related countries tend to vote for each other.

And it's not really a matter of people doing bad things, it's simply the
general public voting for what they like. It doesn't have to be political at
all; maybe people just tend to like songs that are culturally close them.

Look at the graph: Ukraine and Russia vote for each other a lot, despite their
political friction.

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notahacker
The other thing is that the "general public" isn't a homogenous bloc.

Political friction might make some members of the 2 million strong ethnic
Ukrainian diaspora in Russia _more_ inclined to make gestures of support for
Ukraine in television song contests, for example. That public vote from within
Russia doesn't get cancelled out if a much larger segment of the Russian
public finds songs alluding to Stalinist annexation of the Crimea and
repression of the Crimean Tartars actively objectionable.

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perlgeek
> There has been no such glory for the so-called “Big Five”, who qualify for
> the final automatically: Germany, Britain, France, Spain and Italy. These
> countries have rarely collaborated with anyone.

I think I remember some "collaborations" between Turkey and Germany, mostly
because of the migration and holiday connections between the two countries.

Not sure if that's statistically significant though.

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Tomte
Yes, Germany always gives 12 points to Turkey, because Turks are the biggest
minority.

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tormeh
Why is there a link between Britain and Germany?

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sexydefinesher
The nordic brotherhood is strong

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aleken
Good luck tonight! I know I will most likely collude.

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zakk
Non-paywalled link: [http://archive.is/ojbuw](http://archive.is/ojbuw)

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deallocator
Can anyone post a link that's not behind a paywall?

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icebraining
Here's the original paper, which is in an open access journal:
[http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/21/1/1.html](http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/21/1/1.html)

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Krasnol
Looks like paywalls become more blatant

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ekianjo
Decentralize the vote to the public and you destroy the risk of collusion.
This is endemic in centralized systems.

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ghba66
Decentralize the vote to the public if you want to see botnets voting. No
thanks.

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mcv
Voting is done by phone or SMS and costs a couple of cents. As far as I know,
it's totally legal to vote more, but that means you pay more.

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tormeh
I think this should be changed. I cannot imagine that this pay-to-win mechanic
has any positive effects.

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John_KZ
Usually it's more than a few cents (i think 0.5 to 2 euros). This is actually
a great way to vote and fund the contest at the same time. There's little
financial incentive to cheat (it's not like a lottery) so if you spend more
money, on average, you care more. Also the amount each individual spends in
generally very small (ie a handful of votes) so it's about as democratic as
this can get without involving some kind of state-id based authentication.

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braythwayt
Would you say the same thing about actual elections? Should billionairres be
allowed to buy millions of votes because they care more? Should nations buy
votes as a from of propaganda?

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nothrabannosir
The stakes for Eurovision are about as low as a doorstop. If someone cares
about it as much as they do about national elections, well quite frankly they
deserve the opportunity to buy the vote :) there’s worse things people can
obsess about.

It’s a game, it’s a show. Technically, so are politics, but so far Eurovision
has not cost any human lives, nor have pensions evaporated. To my knowledge.

Then again, judging by the reaction of some people, that might change soon :)

