title: Dog movie stars and dog breed popularity: a case study in media influence on choice.
abstract: Fashions and fads are important phenomena that influence many individual choices. They are ubiquitous in human societies, and have recently been used as a source of data to test models of cultural dynamics. Although a few statistical regularities have been observed in fashion cycles, their empirical characterization is still incomplete. Here we consider the impact of mass media on popular culture, showing that the release of movies featuring dogs is often associated with an increase in the popularity of featured breeds, for up to 10 years after movie release. We also find that a movie's impact on breed popularity correlates with the estimated number of viewers during the movie's opening weekend--a proxy of the movie's reach among the general public. Movies' influence on breed popularity was strongest in the early 20th century, and has declined since. We reach these conclusions through a new, widely applicable method to measure the cultural impact of events, capable of disentangling the event's effect from ongoing cultural trends.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America; Centre for the Study of Cultural Evolution, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghirlanda
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Study of Cultural Evolution, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Acerbi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Harold
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Herzog
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004285:Dogs / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D008402:Mass Media; D009040:Motion Pictures