Why does eurovision exist

Getting ranked first place is worth 12 points, second place worth 10 points, third 8 points, fourth 7, fifth 6, and so forth until reaching 11th place and below, which get zero points. The performance with the highest point total wins. In past years, the rankings have been determined half by popular voting and half by the judging panel from that country.

But this year , rankings and voting are being counted separately, with each counting for up to 12 points. The UK's judges could award you 12 points, for example, and the UK voters award you none. This system seems like a good way to give every country, big or small, an equal voice in Eurovision.

In practice, though, it appears to give a lot of weight to cultural and political biases. They designed a measure to see if certain countries tended to disproportionately award their points to specific other countries, and vice versa. The following chart shows their results. Blue lines indicate countries that tend to award large numbers of points to each other; red lines indicate those that tend to award a disproportionately low number to another country.

The brighter the line, the stronger the connection:. You'll notice that countries tend to cluster in little cliques where a lot of blue lines overlap , confirming the theory that certain countries vote in blocs. The bigger your bloc, the more of a built-in advantage you have. Hence why Nordic countries and post-Soviet states have done pretty well in recent years, while France hasn't won since Why do these blocs exist?

Inside the clusters, you tend see a lot of countries with similar ethnolinguistic backgrounds. The bottom right section, for example, has Russia, along with a lot of Eastern European countries, some central Asian ones, and Israel which has a huge Russian immigrant population.

The Nordic countries tend to vote for each other, as do German-speaking ones. Indeed, their study found strong support for cultural links. Using a measure called "cultural distance," essentially a test of shared cultural values, they found a strong correlation between "low cultural distance" — that is, having a lot of dominant cultural values in common — and voting for each other in Eurovision. For example, Armenia and Turkey have low cultural distance scores, indicating similar cultural values.

But they also tend not to vote for each other in Eurovision. The researchers chalk that up to " historical conflicts" — a polite way of saying that the Armenian genocide, perpetrated by the Turkish government about years ago, still colors the way Armenians and Turks think about each other.

Specifically, they caused clustering to intensify: Countries were more likely to vote for their friends in the years after immediately after the crash than in years before it. They even link this intensified clustering, which the researchers call "polarization," to bailouts and spiking interest rates:.

Studying Eurovision voting, they suggest, might allow political scientists to "quantify how society reacts to political decisions and the [euro] crisis in general, in a similar manner as sovereign bond interest rates measure how the market reacts to the same phenomenon.

It's impossible to really talk about Eurovision without mentioning its role in queer culture. Eurovision is almost certainly the proudest major international competition on the planet. Conchita Wurst, the bearded Austrian drag queen who won 's competition, has referred to it as "the Gay Olympics.

The over-the-top glam and glitz that has long characterized the competition fits in well with the emphasis on camp you see in parts of gay culture — like, say, drag queens. But Eurovision's gay subtext really became text in and In , Israel sent a transgender woman named Dana International to perform a song called "Diva. So while there are sometimes tensions between countries due to non-Eurovision factors, the real point of Eurovision is togetherness.

Because of its gigantic international audience, many countries take the Eurovision Song Contest really, really seriously, sending their biggest stars or most talented new artists. There was a dancing gorilla once.

And a band who struck anime power poses during their introduction. Even without a Contest in , the memes have kept coming. Would it have won? Sarah Dobbs SarahDobbs. Sarah is a freelance writer and editor. She loves horror movies, unusual storytelling techniques, and smoking jackets. Ask her about the Saw movies. Go on, ask. Ireland is the most successful country with a record 7 victories , while Sweden comes a close second with 6 wins.

France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom all come in third place with 5 victories each. The Netherlands were the last country to win the contest in One of the biggest reasons for the Eurovision obsession is that the legendary song contest is a celebration of diversity.

Eurovision has made it their mission to push boundaries and welcome people from all walks of life, no matter their race, sexuality, age, gender or culture.

In , trans singer Dana International won the crown for Israel and in , Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst was declared the winner. Dozens of non-European countries all over the world broadcast the show to millions of fans. Some non-European countries even regularly compete in the contest, like Israel, Armenia, Cyprus and Morocco.

Speaking of rules, Eurovision has got some interesting ones. For starters, all performers must be aged 16 or over. No song can last longer than three minutes, and no more than 6 people can take part in a performance. While all vocals must be live, all music must be pre-recorded. Quality — or at least creativity — does tend to win out at Eurovision. OK, so how does this contest work? First, all the countries have a national contest where they vote on which song will represent at Eurovision.

They are joined by the 10 countries that get the most votes in each semifinal. The same goes with the juries, but with 10 points going to the performer in first place.

And what does the performer with the most points win? This trophy. Oh, and their country gets to host the competition next year. No prize money? No contract? No vague promises of superstardom?

The winners do get their 15 minutes of fame and some success on the charts, but beyond ABBA and Celine, Eurovision winners almost never have long-term success. Again, Eurovision long ago moved away from the sort of music that leaves a lasting cultural impact. Even now, a good chunk of the acts are homogenous power ballads that can blur together when performed in succession.