Power Law in Popular Media
https://medium.com/@michaeltauberg/power-law-in-popular-media-7d7efef3fb7c
This article by Michael Tauberg analyzes the role of the power law in various forms of popular media, ranging from books and newspapers to video games and movies. Tauberg scoured the internet for media data, and graphed each media category’s top successes. Nearly every single time, the graph that emerged was the same power law graph with a long tail that was shown in lecture. In other words, the article states that “success breeds success. It’s a virtuous cycle, a positive feedback loop.” Tauberg went a step further and fit the various media curves to the power law formula and found that the video game publisher curve with an approximately 0.93 fitted exponent was the most concentrated business. On the other hand, the curve for the movie industry had only an approximately 0.18 fitted exponent. This shows that movies do not fit the power law curve as closely and that many movies may do well instead of only a small few.
Tauberg’s power law graphs are rooted in the same basic principles that we learned in lecture. These power laws all arise from correlated decisions across a population. The probability that anything–a song, movie, book, or newspaper article–experiences an increase in popularity is directly proportional to its current popularity. Tauberg’s data shows that this phenomenon, known as preferential attachment, is especially prevalent in the video game industry. There are a few popular video game publishers that tend to become more popular, while the many video game publishers in the “tail” of the graph do not reach nearly the same amount of success. In analyzing the video game publisher curve, I realized that this phenomenon makes logical sense. For many of us, when asked for a video game publisher, the first that comes to mind is Nintendo. Tauberg’s graphs show that indeed Nintendo is the top video game publisher. But, besides Nintendo, how many other video game publishers can the average consumer name? The video game industry is therefore one example of the rich-get-richer dynamic in which the more well-known something is, the more likely it is to be brought up in a conversation, and the more likely you are to end up knowing about them.
With the advent of social media, Tauberg believes that these power law curves will become increasingly common. Furthermore, he believes that the leaders in each form of popular media will only become even more dominant. At the same time, however, the tail of the graph is also increasing, indicating that there is space for a greater diversity of creators. For me, reading this article made me more aware of how much my decision-making, especially regarding media, is so deeply connected to the decisions of those around me. The article made me realize how blurry the line is between what I actually enjoy, and what I enjoy because those around me enjoy it.