IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5056.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Will Be Idol? The Importance of Social Networks for Winning on Reality Shows

Author

Listed:
  • Heizler (Cohen), Odelia

    (Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo)

  • Kimhi, Ayal

    (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

Abstract

This paper examines, both theoretically and empirically, the effect of social networks and belonging to minority groups (or race) on the probability of winning in reality television shows. We develop a theoretical model that studies viewer behavior by presenting a framework of competition between two contestants from two different groups. The results are examined empirically using unique contestant data from the highly popular reality show "A Star Is Born", the Israeli counterpart of "American Idol". Our main finding is that social networks and belonging to minority groups play key roles in the contestant’s victory, but their effects are nonlinear: the social network effect is U-shaped, whereas that of belonging to a minority group follows an inverted U shape. Beyond the world of reality TV, this paper sheds light on the general behavior of social networks as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Heizler (Cohen), Odelia & Kimhi, Ayal, 2010. "Who Will Be Idol? The Importance of Social Networks for Winning on Reality Shows," IZA Discussion Papers 5056, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5056.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Budzinski, Oliver & Kohlschreiber, Marie & Kuchinke, Björn & Pannicke, Julia, 2019. "Does music quality matter for audience voters in a music contest?," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 122, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    2. Daegon Cho & Seok Ho Lee & Yeawon Yoo & Hyo-Youn Chu, 2019. "Television singing competitions create stars? Empirical evidence from the digital music chart in South Korea," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 43(1), pages 1-20, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    American Idol; social networks; minority groups; contest; voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5056. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.