Task 9: Network Assignment
I immediately noticed the largest nodes in the middle of the the data set. These nodes were larger due to the greater amount of connections between these and the other nodes. I at first thought they would all be the same size for every participant as we each chose ten curated songs, but then I saw smaller nodes from participants which inferred the songs they selected were less popular and Palladio seems to generate data from secondary nodes as well not only primary connections. Likewise I noticed a few tracks such as Track 3: Percussion (Senegal), Track 18: Fifth Symphony, Track 1: Brandenburg Concerto, and Track 7: Johnny B. Goode. Were the largest nodes which means most participants chose these responses as their selections for their curated collection. Most of these songs are centred on the western world, based in Germany and America demonstrating the far reaching impact of western media on all users. It could also show an inherent bias in participants who are English speaks consuming western media, would a similar curation take place if the participants were from a university and demographic based in South Asia or Africa?
The visualization is not the most clear in capturing the reasoning behind these choices, if the system could highlight the connections between the nodes when selected then the user could follow each connection and build up their own analysis. If the data was able to provide even more information such as the number of connections to each track and the background of each participant then there could be greater deductive inference as to why certain tracks were selected and by what margin they were chose more often.
Furthermore, several clear outliers appeared Track 4: Pygmy Girls’ Initiation Song seemed to only have two connections and Track 22: Panpipes I selected as one of my selections but I appeared to be only one of four participants to make this selection. An interesting outlier was Track 27: String Quartet No. 13 in B Flat, although written by Beethoven and a relatively well-known song by western audiences it was only selected twice, for my own reasoning it was due to the somber tone but I believe others may have also not wanted to end their composition or have moments of somberness in their message to the cosmos.
The individual facets for my group was the first group and I could not see a pattern forming as many of us individually chose pieces that no one else in our facet group selected. All five of us only selected Track:7 Johnny B. Goode, and four other pieces which four of us had in common the rest were usually only selected by one or maximum two participants. I noticed my own connections were the most isolated with selected three pieces that no one else in my facet focus group had selected. These facet groups are missing demographic information, musical preferences and the motivations for each selection. I believe these groupings were created not to have the most common nodes but rather the least overlap due to the lack of connections and nodes.
Palladio provides a quick insight into the greatest connections and weakest ones at a glance, but for further analysis it is missing key information to provide deeper understanding.
