Cycles in Symbol Production Research: Foundations, Applications, and Future Directions

Ross, Peter G.

doi:10.1080/03007760500158973

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In a review article, Peter Ross (2005, p. 486) considers how future studies might account for the metrics of market concentration and musical diversity in 21st century musical marketplaces, given the ‘all-time high’ market share commanded by the major labels and the increasing prominence of indies owing to new modes of distribution. He suggests that new studies of the relationships between concentration and diversity should account for the increasingly global nature of popular music production and consumption.…”

Section: Corporate Concentration and Musical Diversity: An Inverse Rementioning

confidence: 99%

Concentration, diversity, and consequences: Privileging independent over major record labels

Mall¹

2018

Pop. Mus.

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The field of popular music studies has long been interested in the relationships between record labels and the music they make available to consumers. At the micro level, research on record labels provides insight into the tensions between art and commerce and those between individuals and institutions. At the macro level, this research illuminates changes in socio-economic trends, music industry structures and structural inequalities. A meta-analysis of this literature reveals an ‘indie prejudice’: a preference for (and even a bias in favour of) independent labels coupled with a dismissive approach to the study of major labels and musical mainstreams that impacts our ability, as a scholarly field, to speak with authority about the largest segments of the commercial record industries. What larger implications for our scholarship might confronting this prejudice reveal? What master narratives have structured popular music studies’ preference of independent over major record labels? In this article, I argue that the art/commerce dichotomy has remained influential, although it can have unintended and dangerous side effects if it becomes a guiding assumption.

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Section: Corporate Concentration and Musical Diversity: An Inverse Rementioning

confidence: 99%

Concentration, diversity, and consequences: Privileging independent over major record labels

Mall¹

2018

Pop. Mus.

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“…Scholars working from the economic-based "production of culture perspective" claim the music produced in a given period is contingent on market concentration, which usually increases in slow economies, as small music producers fail and large companies acquire oligarchical control over the culture industry. According to the theory, less competition tends to homogenize both the products and performers that reach audiences because smaller producers are unable to infuse creative innovation and artist diversity into the marketplace when production slows in times of economic stagnation and recession (Peterson & Anand, 2004;Ross, 2005). For example, Dowd and his colleges explored Ͼ20,000 weekly Billboard pop hits between 1940 and 1990 and found in concentrated production markets, Blacks and women were less commercially successful (Dowd, 2004a(Dowd, , 2004bDowd & Blyler, 2002;Dowd, Liddle, & Blyler, 2005).…”

Section: Socioeconomic Trends and Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the culture of production perspective, women performers have more career opportunity in the less concentrated production markets that are more likely to occur during times of economic prosperity (Dowd, 2004a(Dowd, , 2004bDowd & Blyler, 2002;Dowd et al, 2005;Peterson & Anand, 2004;Ross, 2005). However, social psychologists predict that audiences seek out comforting media figures in difficult social and economic times.…”

Section: Artist's Sex and Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Gone country: An investigation of Billboard country songs of the year across social and economic conditions in the United States.

Eastman

Pettijohn²

2015

Psychology of Popular Media Culture

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Researchers have found that within the unfolding trends in pop culture, both pop music and the artists who perform pop songs vary predictably according to socioeconomic conditions. Popular songs are longer, slower, more lyrically meaningful, and in more somber sounding keys during difficult social and economic times. Furthermore, male and more mature-looking pop music performers are more successful during difficult economic times. In the current study, we assess the musical and lyrical properties along with the sex and age of the artists who recorded the 63 songs to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Annual Country Charts between 1946 and 2008. In contrast to findings on pop songs, country songs of the year are lyrically more positive, musically upbeat, and use more happy-sounding major chords during difficult socioeconomic times. While older country musicians are more popular in difficult socioeconomic times, unlike pop performers, the country artists of the year are more likely to be females when the social and economic environment is threatening. We hypothesize these differences exist because unlike the middle-class audiences who consume sadder popular songs because they match their affective mood in times of recession and social threat, the more marginalized working-class listeners of country music use happier sounding songs from comforting female figures, like the wives and mothers portrayed in country songs, as a catharsis in difficult socioeconomic times.

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“…Peterson (1976). This research perspective, though, is founded on the idea that cultural texts are ultimately shaped by the contexts in which they are produced and not by the people who work in these contexts (Peterson, 1982; Peterson and Anand, 2004; Ross, 2005; Sanders, 1982). Indeed, ‘the distinctive characteristic of the production-of-culture perspective’ is its focus on the ‘infrastructure’ that surrounds cultural production (Peterson, 1976: 14).…”

Section: An Example Of the Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Art WordsandArt Worlds: The Methodological Importance of Language Use in Howard S. Becker’s Sociology of Art and Cultural Production

Cluley

2012

Cultural Sociology

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This article reviews Howard S. Becker's work on cultural production. It suggests that Becker's influential framework for analysing cultural production, the art world, leaves us with one important but unanswered question: the question of methodology. Exploring this question by a close reading of Becker's writings and noting recent uses of the art world framework in combination with social psychological methods, the article explains why language use, or art words, offers us a powerful way to study the collective action of cultural production in art worlds.

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Cycles in Symbol Production Research: Foundations, Applications, and Future Directions

Cited by 9 publications

References 9 publications

Concentration, diversity, and consequences: Privileging independent over major record labels

Concentration, diversity, and consequences: Privileging independent over major record labels

Gone country: An investigation of Billboard country songs of the year across social and economic conditions in the United States.

Art WordsandArt Worlds: The Methodological Importance of Language Use in Howard S. Becker’s Sociology of Art and Cultural Production

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