Official News Discussion

[Drake498]

Yes, like brad said its been 7 years... wow!! thats pretty long, and i agree that 40% isn't bad at all

[theit77]

For those of you who don't want to read the following statistical jargon, here's the jist: Somewhere between 30% and 50% of French teenagers still consider Alizée trendy.




"Alizée was mentioned yesterday on the TF1 show, "Attention à la marche!". The question was: "Out of 100 teens, how many think that Alizée is still trendy?" Answer: 40%.""


The first thing to confirm is if the show actually performed a survey. If they actually did question 100 french teenagers, then we can continue with the analysis. If the number is just an estimate... well, then it's just the show's estimate.

The population that the statistic is measuring is all teenagers in France. To confidently analyze the data, the survey must have been an SRS or Simple Random Sample and the population size must have been at least 10 times the sample size. The number of French teenagers is certainly greater than 100(10) or 1000. But an SRS is less certain. To get a Simple Random Sample, the survey would have had to randomly survey 100 teenagers out the entire population of French teenagers. This is essentially impossible to do without getting all teenagers' social security numbers, randomly choosing 100, and then forcing those 100 to answer the question. So, without a certain SRS, we can use a confidence interval, but we cannot be certain of its accuracy.

Calculation of a confidence interval: (p-hat)±z*(((p-hat)(1-(p-hat))/n)^(1/2) Where (p-hat) is the statistic of 0.4, n is 100, and z* is determined by the desired confidence interval: InvNorm((1-.95)/2)

Crunching the numbers, we find there is a 95% confidence interval of (0.30398, 0.49602). This means that we are 95% confident that the true percentage of French teenagers who still consider Alizée trendy is somewhere between 30.398% and 49.602%. A 90% confidence interval would yeild (0.31942, 0.48058), and a 99% confidence interval would yeild (0.27381, 0.52619).

[RMJ]

I think the text was supposed to say 40 out of 100 aka 40%.

I don't really think it's sample size that 100.

[theit77]

makes sense

[Rev]

Originally Posted by CFHollister

Question:
Do you think we should view this 40% figure as: 1) a positive sign that Alizée has mainted this level of popularity despite her long break, 2) pessimistically that it is only 40%, or 3) do you think the small sample (which may not be representantive) doesn't really give us enough useful information to make a judgement?

I asked myself the question (before I read the answer) and thought the number would be in the 15% range, so 40% strikes me as a very positive sign. I don't know the mind of the French people, but if 40% think she is trendy then she has an opening.

She has been away long enought that she will have to seduce the audiance all over again. However, 40% is a very big door of opportunity in my thinking, and we all know her potential for being a good seductress.

[dano2769]

40% is definitely solid given how long Lili has been out of the mainstream.

[CFHollister]

Originally Posted by theit77

For those of you who don't want to read the following statistical jargon, here's the jist: Somewhere between 30% and 50% of French teenagers still consider Alizée trendy.

"Alizée was mentioned yesterday on the TF1 show, "Attention à la marche!". The question was: "Out of 100 teens, how many think that Alizée is still trendy?" Answer: 40%.""

The first thing to confirm is if the show actually performed a survey. If they actually did question 100 french teenagers, then we can continue with the analysis. If the number is just an estimate... well, then it's just the show's estimate.

The population that the statistic is measuring is all teenagers in France. To confidently analyze the data, the survey must have been an SRS or Simple Random Sample and the population size must have been at least 10 times the sample size. The number of French teenagers is certainly greater than 100(10) or 1000. But an SRS is less certain. To get a Simple Random Sample, the survey would have had to randomly survey 100 teenagers out the entire population of French teenagers. This is essentially impossible to do without getting all teenagers' social security numbers, randomly choosing 100, and then forcing those 100 to answer the question. So, without a certain SRS, we can use a confidence interval, but we cannot be certain of its accuracy.

Calculation of a confidence interval: (p-hat)±z*(((p-hat)(1-(p-hat))/n)^(1/2) Where (p-hat) is the statistic of 0.4, n is 100, and z* is determined by the desired confidence interval: InvNorm((1-.95)/2)

Crunching the numbers, we find there is a 95% confidence interval of (0.30398, 0.49602). This means that we are 95% confident that the true percentage of French teenagers who still consider Alizée trendy is somewhere between 30.398% and 49.602%. A 90% confidence interval would yeild (0.31942, 0.48058), and a 99% confidence interval would yeild (0.27381, 0.52619).

I really respect people that can understand statistics. It's so important yet its just one of those things I can't get to stick with me. I could remember what I needed long enough for the test.

As to answering my own question, I think the significance of the figure depends a lot on the sample and the sampling methods used. If they had any semblance of decent random sampling, then I think 40% after such a break is pretty darn good. If not, then it doesn't really tell us anything useful. As has been already mentioned, the significance of the result also depends on what is meant by "trendy" and how the respondants interpretted the term/question.

PS-Thanks to whoever stickied the thread. The actual news thread is rightfully locked so that it doesn't become a place where anyone's rumors are thrown around and the same questions get asked over and over. I would just ask for everyone to not allow this thread to turn into that sort of thing either

[Rev]

Originally Posted by Rev

She has been away long enought that she will have to seduce the audiance all over again. However, 40% is a very big door of opportunity in my thinking, and we all know her potential for being a good seductress.

It really comes down to her ability to reinvent herself. Her idol, Madonna, has survived with a combination of raw talent, catchy tunes and lyrics, and the wisdom to reinvent herself from time to time.

Moi-Lolita presented all of these. Here was this image the girls identified with, combined with great lyrics, catchy music, and Alizee's talent with song and movement combined with the amazing essence of who she is. Alizee needs to again capture the hearts of her audiance with some type of compellng story. If she can, she'll fly back. If not, it may be a struggle.

[fsquared]

One contrast that should be taken into account is that Madonna was quite the scandal-maker, from the start, and got ahead by pushing the envelope, starting with the rebellious girl in Borderline, then the Like a Virgin video, the Marilyn thing for Material Girl, teen pregnancy in Papa Don't Preach, then it was the black Jesus figure in Like a Prayer that got her Pepsi ad campaign cancelled, the Gaultier costumes on that tour, the Justify My Love video (banned from MTV, presumably on purpose), Erotica, the Sex book, etc.etc. (and that was just in the first decade).

Alizée's image, if one considers the avatars here, is mostly angel wings and butterflies. I wonder how drastic a break with that image might have to be in terms of reinvention. I personally hope it's not like Christina Aguilera's Stripped/Dirrty makeover.

[rcs]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

40% sounds great, but it's the word 'trendy' that I wonder about. Is this about style and appearance or her music? Will it translate into new CD sales? It would be interesting to know what age groups will be buying Alizée's CD's the most.

I'm sure Alizee's sales will be very wide spread as far as age is concerned. There's a wide span of ages just on this website alone that listen to her...