What Does It Mean to Span Cultural Boundaries? Variety and Atypicality in Cultural Consumption

Abstract

Citation for published item:rnnnD wF F nd qoldergD eF nd uov¡ sD fF @PHITA 9ht does it men to spn ulturl oundriesc riety nd typility in ulturl onsumptionF9D emerin soiologil reviewFD VI @PAF ppF PISEPRIF Further information on publisher's website: httpXGGdxFdoiForgGIHFIIUUGHHHQIPPRITTQPUVU Publisher's copyright statement: rnnnD wF F nd qoldergD eF nd uov¡ sD fF @PHITA 9ht does it men to spn ulturl oundriesc riety nd typility in ulturl onsumptionF9D emerin soiologil reviewFD VI @PAF ppF PISEPRIF gopyright PHIT emerin oiologil essoitionF eprinted y permission of eqi ulitionsF Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractWe propose a synthesis of two lines of sociological research on boundary spanning in cultural production and consumption. One, research on cultural omnivorousness, analyzes choice by heterogeneous audiences facing an array of crisp cultural offerings. The other, research on categories in markets, analyzes reactions by homogeneous audiences to objects that vary in the degree to which they conform to categorical codes. We develop a model of heterogeneous audiences evaluating objects that vary in typicality. This allows consideration of orientations on two dimensions of cultural preference: variety and typicality. We propose a novel analytical framework to map consumption behavior in these two dimensions. We argue that one audience type, those who value variety and typicality, are especially resistant to objects that span boundaries. We test this argument in an analysis of two large-scale datasets of reviews of films and restaurants.

Deconstructing the Outsider Puzzle: The Legitimation Journey of Novelty

“…A challenger's access to critical resources will Overall, these findings have interesting implications regarding what conditions and audience structure stifle or foster innovation. In particular, they suggest that variance in audience composition and orientation over time may help explain why one observes so much variability across settings in terms of their propensity to experiment and innovate (Cattani et al 2014;Goldberg et al 2016). Our model even allows for the case in which a superior innovation is eventually rejected.…”

“…This can be partly explained by the fact that the urgency of the problem made disciplinary minds less 'territorial,' resulting in an unusual openness to new ideas. This observation is particularly salient, as the vast majority of organizational scholarship treats audiences as monolithic entities whose members are resistant to deviant offers -especially so when categorical systems are agreed uponthus paying only limited (or no) attention to change dynamics within the audience structure that may alter the field's permeability to such offers (for exceptions see Cattani et al 2014;Pontikes 2012;Jensen and Kim 2014;Goldberg, Hannan, and Kovács 2016). Even when audiences are receptive to deviant offers, this research attributes this disposition to the reputational resources deployed by the challenger.…”

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Do low-brow tastes demonstrate stronger categorical differentiation? An analysis of fiction readership in Russia

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