Buh - whu?!

[shipperx]

From HuffPo:

Pandora Can Predict How You Vote

Listen to Bob Marley on Pandora recently? Then Pandora assumes you're a Democrat.

Using an algorithm influenced by election results and the musical preferences of individual users, Pandora will introduce a new advertising service next week that enables political organizations to target listeners based on its sense of their political leanings, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Mary J. Blige and Bob Marley listeners should expect to hear Democratic advertisements, while those who jam out to Yanni and Dolly Parton would be best targeted by Republican campaigns. Bruce Springsteen and Jay Z listeners could go either way.

Specific genres can also give insight into users' political leanings. Country, Gospel and New Age listeners lean toward Republicans, while fans of jazz, reggae, R&B and electronic music are more commonly found in counties favoring Democrats, the company said.

Jack Krawczyk, Pandora's director of product management, told The Wall Street Journal he believes Pandora's predictions are between 75 percent and 80 percent accurate. Y'all know there are plenty of Brad Paisley fans rootin' for Hillary in 2016.

For more on Pandora and political ads, head over to WSJ.com.

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ME:

So, I wonder what a playlist of Cary Brothers, Kings of Leon, A Perfect Circle, Lifehouse, Porcupine Tree, Staind, Steven Wilson, Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, Mumford and Sons, Three Days Grace,  One Republic, Sick Puppies, Goyte, The Civil Wars, Airborne Toxic Event, Bear Lake, Puscifer, Alternate Routes, Theory of a Deadman, Trapt,  Lana Del Ray,  and Pink,  indicates...?

(I'm guessing some sort of bipolar disorder as part are relentlessly depressing, the other relentlessly upbeat while the rest are either wholeheartedly sappy or entirely cynical (with Puscifer and A Perfect Circle being downright blasphemous on occasion).

Comments

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's probably accurate for each parties extremes. Thing is though, they'd probably vote for said parties whether they heard ads or not.

The middle, which makes up the majority of the vote (though Repubs don't seem to realize this), can't be nailed down so easily. I suppose it's little different than anything else, though. If you listen to a country radio station, I'd think you'd hear more Republican ads, but that could be due to the location of the market than content.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

Actually, reliable partisan Democrats have poor turnout rates for primaries and off-year elections; they vote mostly in presidential elections. Republicans vote more steadily. I think it's because Democrats skew young and Republicans skew old. That hasn't always been the case but it's clear in the last two decades of data.

Also, cultural correlates don't often correlate with extreme partisanship. Extreme partisanship usually has underlying specific motivations like ideology or financial interest that can overcome cultural cues. For example, black Republicans and gun collecting Democrats don't get that way by cultural drift; they have some reason to go against type. It's the casual partisans that are easy to pick out with demographic and consumer data.