hirsch - processing fads and fashion

8/13/2019 Hirsch - Processing Fads and Fashion

1/7

26 O N R E C O R D

from organization theory to study the interrelation between music produe,r on and the promotion of pop via the mass media-a concern that hasproved to be of increasingly empirical importance in understanding conrernporary pop mUSIc

Peterson and Berger's highly influential study argues that pop productionis a cyclical process governed by organizational determinants which derivefrom the competition between the major record companies and their smallerrivals. Their study is interesting for its attempt to link organizational andtextual issues, since they conclude that musical diversity is related to thebreadth of marketplace competition-and vice versa. This view has beenchallenged by some critics, and the debate is taken up elsewhere in thiscolleerion, by Barbara Bradby.

\Y/a lis and Maim explore the international perspective through the Concept of cultural irnper ia.isrn." The debate about this approach is a key onein modern pop studies, 1 and Wallis and Maim's study contributes to this inbeing both empirically founded (upon the Music Industry in Small Countries research project) and open-minded in its judgment on the possibleeffects of the internationalization of pop. Their concluding comments anticipate the burgeoning world music (or world beat) movement that hassurfaced throughout the West in recent years. Once again, even in international perspective, the centrality of the mass media is stressed as a faerorin understanding the workings of roday's music industry.

N O T E S

I Dave Laing, The Music Industry and the 'Cultural Imperialism Thesis,' " Media. CultureSoder, 8, No.3 (july 1986,.

From: Fr i t h S. & Goodwin, A. (1990).the wri t ten word. New York:E Paul M. HirschP R O C E S S I N G F D S

N D F S H I O N SAn Or g a n i z a t io n S e t An a ly s i s 0

Cul tura l In d u s t r y Sys t ems1 9 7 2

o .. 0 .. 0 .. 0

D E F I N I T IO N S N D C O N C E P T U L F R M E W O R K

C ultur al products may be defined tentatively as nonmaterial goodsdireered at a public of consumers, for whom they generally servean aesthetic or expressive, rather than a clearly utilitarian, function. Insofaras one of its goals is to create and satisfy consumer demand for new fadsand fashions, every consumer industry is engaged to some extent in theproduction of cultural goods, and an)' consumer good can thus be placedalong the implied continuum between cultural and utilitarian products. Thetwo poles, however, should be intuitively distinct. Movies, plays, books,art prints, phonograph records, and pro football games are prcdorninanrlvcultural products; each is nonmaterial in the sense that it embodies a live,one-of-a-kind performance and/or contains a unique set of ideas. Foods anddetergents, on the other hand, serve more obvious utilitarian needs. Theterm cultu ral organizatio n ref ers here only to projit-Jeekilly, inlJ.r prodt/cin;culttrra pro ducts for natrona] distribut ion, Noncommercial or strictly localorganizations, such as university presses and athletic reams. respectively,are thus excluded from consideration. A fundamental difference betweenentrepreneurial organizations and nonprofit agencies is summarized byTomer: fiIn the non-profit sector the end-product is most frequently a live performance a concert, a recital. a play. [f [or purposes of ccouornic analysis we consider a 1

On record: Rock, pop,Pantheon Books.


2/7

=

28 ... O N R E C O R D

live performance co be a commodity, we are immediately struck by the fact that,unlike most commod ities offered for sale in our society, this commodity is norstandardized. It is nor macbine made. It is a handicrafred item Contras t tbeoutput of the non-profit performing arts with that of the record manufacturer.He. too, sells what appears to be a performance. But it is nor. It is a replica ofa performance, a mass-produced embodiment of a performance The bookpublisber , in effecr, does the same. The original manuscr ipt of the poem or novelreprcscnts the author's work of art, the individual, the prototype. The book inwhich it is subsequent! y embodied is a [manuf acture d] replica of the original.Its form of production is fully in keeping wirh the level of rechnology in tbesurrounding society.'Our frame of reference is the cultural industry system, comprised of all

organizations engaged ill the process of filtering new products and ideas asthey flow from "creative" personnel in the technical subsystem to the managerial, institutional, and societal levels of organizarion.? Each industry systern is seen as a single, concrete, and stable network of identifiable andinteracting components. Th e concept of organization levels, proposed initially to analyze transactions within the boundaries of a single, large-scaleorganization, is easily applied to the analysis of interorganizational systems.Artist ami mass audience are linked by an ordered sequence of events:before it can elicit any audience response, an art object first must succeedin (a) competition against others for selection and promotion by an entrepreneur ial organization, and then in (b) receiving mass media coverage insuch forms as book reviews, radio station airplay, and film criticism. It mustbe ordered by retail outlets for display or exhibition to consumers and,ideally, its author or performer will appear on television talk shows and bewritten up as an imeresting news story. Drawing on a functionalist modelof organizational control and Facilitation of innovations proposed by Boskoff, we view the mass media in their gatekeeping role as a primary "institutional regulator of innovation."

A number of concepts and assumptions implicit in this paper are takenfrom the developing field of inrcrorganizarional relations and elaborated onmore fully by Thompson. ' Studies in this emerging tradition typically viewall phenomena from the standpoint of the organization under analvsis. Theyseldom inquire into the functions performed by the organization for thesocial system but ask rather, as temporary partisans, how the goals of theorganization may be constrained by society. The organization is assumedto act under norms of rationality, and the subject of analysis becomes irsforms of adaptation to constraints imposed by its technology and "taskenvironment." The term "organization-set" has been proposed by Evans asanalogous to the role-set concept developed by Merton ' for analyzing rolerelatio nships:

Insrcad of taking a particular status as the unit of analysis, as Merton does in hisrolc-scr analysis, I take an organization , or a class of organizations. and trace

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N O F T H E M U S I C B U S I N E S 29

its interactions with the network of organizations in its environment, i.e., withelements of its organization-set. As a partial social system, a focal organizationdepends on input organizations for various types of resources: personnel, materiel, capital, legality, and legitimacy The focal organization in turn producesa product or a service for a mark et, an audience, a client system, ere."

After examining transactions between the focal organization and elementsof irs task environment, I will describe three adaptive strategies developedby cultural organizations to minimize uncertainty. Finallv, variations withineach industry will be reviewed.

I N P U T A N D O U T P U T O R G A N I Z A T I O N S E T S

The publishing house, movie studio, and record company each investsentrepreneurial capital in the creations and services of affiliated organizarions and individuals at its input (produce selection) and output (marketing)boundaries. Each affects volume sales by linking individual creators andproducer organizations with receptive consumers and mass med ia garekeepers. New material is sought constantly because of the rapid turnover ofbooks, films, and recordings.

Cultural organizations constitute the managerial subsystems of the industry systems in which they must operate. From a universe of innovationsproposed by "artists" in the "creative"


3/7

130 O N R E C O R D

duction sector is impeded by ignorance of relations between cause andeffect. 10 A highly placed spoke sman for the recording industry has statedthe problem as follows:

We have made records that appeared to have all rhe necessary ingredienrs-;artist, song, arrangemenrs, promotion, etc.-to guarantee they wind up as bestsellers Yet rhey fell flaton their faces On the oth er hand we have producedrecords fcrr which only a modest success was anticipated that became runawaybest sellers. _.. There are alargenumber of companies inour industry employinga large number of talented performers and creative producers who combine theirralenrs, their ingenuity' and their creativity ro produce a record that each is surewill captivate the American public. The fact that only a small proportion of theoutput achieves hit status is not only true of our industry There are noformulas for producing a hit record.. just as there are no par answers forproducing hit plays, or sell-our movies or best-selling books.II Stinchcombe's association of craft administration with a minimiza tion of

fixed overhead costs is supported in the case of cultural organizations.Here we find, for example, artists (i.e., authors, singers, actors) contractedon a roy lty basis and offered no tenure beyond the expiration of the contract. Remuneration (less advance payment on royalties) is contingent onthe number of books, records, or theater tickets sold fter the artist's productis released into the marketplace. In addirion, movie-production companiesminimize overhead by hiring on a per-picture basis and renting sets andcostumes as needed, I> and publishers and record companies frequentlysubcontracr out standardized printing and record-pressing jobs.

The organization of cultural industries' technical subsystems along craftlines is a function of (a) demand uncertainty and (b) a cheap technology.Demand uncertainty is caused by shifts in consumer taste preferences andpatronage; legal and normative constraints on vertical integration; and widespread variability in the criteria employed by mass media gatekeepers inselecting cultural items to be awarded coverage. I A cheap technology enables numerous cultural organizations to compete in producing a surplusof books, records, and low-budget films on relatively small capital investments. Mass media exposure and volume sales of a single item generallycover earlier losses and yield additional returns. Sponsoring organizationstend to judge the success of each new book or record on the basis of irsperformance in the marketplace during the first six weeks of its release.Movies require a far more substantial investment but follow a similarpattern.These sources of variance best account for the craft administration ofproduction at the input boundary of the cultural organization. It is interesting to note that in an earlier, more stable environment, that is, lessheterogeneous marketS and fewer constraints on vertical integration, theproduction of both films and popular records was adminisrered more bu-

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N O F T H E M U S I C BUSINESS' 3

reaucratically: lower-level personnel were delegated less responsibility,overhead were less often minimized, and the status of artists resembledmore closely the salaried employee's than the freelance professional's. lS

At their output boundaries, cultural organizations confront high levelsof uncertainty concerning the commercial prospects of goods shipped OUtto national networks of promoters and distributors. Strarificarion withineach industry is based partly on each firm's ability to control the distributionof marginally different iated products. Competitive advantage lies with firmsbest able to link available input to reliable and established distributionchannels.

The mass distribution of cui rural items requires more bure ucr trc organizational arrangements than rhe administration of production-for ex-ample, a higher proportion of salaried clerks to process information, greatercontinuity of personnel and ease of supervision, less delegation of responsibility, and higher fixed overhead. " Whereas the building contractorproduces custom goods to meet the specifications of a clearly defined clientset, cultural organizations release a wide variety of items that must be 11publicized and made attractive to thousands of consumers in order to suc 1ceed. Larger organizations generally maintain their own sales forces, which 1may contract with smaller firms to distribute their output as well as the 1parent company's.

The more highly bureaucratized distribution sector of cultural industriesis characterized by more economic concentration than the craft-administered production sector, where lower costs pose fewer barriers to entry.Although heavy expenditures required for product promotion and marketing may be reduced by contracting with independent sales organizationson a commission basis, this practice is engaged in primarily by smaller,weaker, and poorly capitalized firms.

Contracting with autonomous sales organizations places rhe entrepreneurial firm in a position of dependence on outsiders, with the attendantrisk of having cultural products that are regarded highly by the sponsoringorganization assigned a low priority by its distributor. In the absence ofmedia coverage and/or advertising by the sponsoring organization, retailoutlets generally fail to stock new books or records.

A functional equivalent of direct adver tisin g for culrural organiz arioris isprovided by the selective coverage afforded new styles and titles in books,recordings, and movies by the mass media. Cultural products provide copyand programming for newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television programs; in exchange, they receive free publicity. The presenceor absence of coverage, rather than its favorable or unfavorable interpretation, is the important variable here. Public awareness of the existence andavailability of a new cultural product often is contingent on feature storiesin newspapers and national magazines, review columns, and broadcast talk :1

iI
http:///reader/full/books.IIhttp:///reader/full/books.IIhttp:///reader/full/books.II


4/7

1 3 2 .. O N RECORDshows, and, for recordings, radio station airplay. While the total number ofproducts 0 be awarded media coverage may be predicred in the aggregate,the estimation of which ones will be selected from the potential universe isproblematic.The organizational segregation of the producers of cultural items fromtheir disseminators places definite resrrictions on the forms of power thatcultural organizations may exercise over mass media gatekeepers to effectthe selection of particular items for coverage. Widely shared social normsmandate the independence of book review edirors, radio station personnel,film critics, and other arbiters of coverage from the special needs and commercial interestS of cultural organizations. ? Thus, auronomous gatekeeperspresent the producer organization with the "conrrol" problem of favorablyinfluencing the probability that a given new release will be selected forexposure to consumers.For publishing houses and record firms, especially, it would be uneconomical to engage in direct, large-scale advertising campaigns to bring morethan a few releases to public attention.

Record companies are dependent on radio to introduce new artists as wellas to inuoduce new records of all artists and to get them exposed to the public[We1 cannot expose their performances because it's just on grooves and thepublic will not know what they sound like. (Q.) "Would it be fair to say thatradio accounts for 7), or 90 percent of the promotion of new releases)" A.) Ithink your figures are probably accurate, yes. I

For book publishers, record companies, and, to a lesser extent, movie studios, then, the crucial target audience for promotional campaigns consistsof autonomous gatekeepers, or "surrogate consumers" such as disc jockeys,film critics, and book reviewers, employed by mass media organizations toserve as fashion experts and opinion leaders for their respective constituencies.The mass media constitute the institutional subsystem of the culturalindustry system. The diffusion 0/particulI fads and fashiollJ is either lockedor facilitated at this strategic he kpoilzt. Cultural innovations are seen asoriginating in the technical subsystem. A sample selected for sponsorshipby cultural organizations in the managerial subsystem is introduced into themarketplace. This output is filtered by mass media gatekeepers serving as"institutional regulators of innovation." Organizations in the managerialsubsystem are highly responsive to feedback from institutional regulators:styles afforded coverage are imitated and reproduced on a large scale untilthe fad has "run its course."19We see the consumer's role in this process as essentially one of rank-ordering cultural styles and items "preselecred" for consideration by roleoccupants in the managerial and institutional subsystems. Feedback from

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N O F T H E M U S I C BUSINESS 133

consumers, in the form of sales figures and box office receipts, cues producers and disseminators of cultural innovations as to which experimentsmay be imitated profitably and which should probably be dropped. Thisprocess is analogous to the preselection of electoral candidates by politicalparties, followed by voter feedback at the ballot box. The orderly sequenceof events and the possibility of only two outcomes at each checkpointresemble a Markov process.

This model assumes a surplus of available "raw material" at the outset(e.g., write rs, singers, politici ans) and pinpoin ts a number of strategic checkpoints at which the oversupply is filtered out. It is "value added" in thesense that no product can enter the societal subsystem (e.g., retail outlets)until it has been processed favorably through each of the preceding levelsof organization, respectively.

O R G A N I Z A T IO N A L R E S P O N S E TOT A S K - E N V I R O N M E N T U N C E R T A I N T IE S

My analysis suggests that organizations at the managerial l evel of culturalindustry systems are confronted by 1) constraints on output distributionimposed by mass media gatekeepers and 2) contingencies in recruitingcreative "raw materials" for organizational sponsorship. To minimize dependence on these elements of their task environments, publishing houses,record companies, and movie studios have developed three proactive strategies: (1) the allocation of numerous personnel to boundary-spanning roles;(2) overproduction and differential promotion of new items; and 3) cooptation of mass media gatekeepers.

ro l i f r I t j 0 J o f C 0 IJ t a ct AI e nEntrepreneurial organizations in cultural industries require competent

intelligence agents and rep resent ative s to actively monitor developmentsat their input and output boundaries. Inability to locate and successfullymarket new cultural items leads to organizational failure: new manuscriptsmust be located, new singers recorded, and new movies produced.Boundary-spanning units have therefore been established, and a large proportion of personnel allocated to serve as "contact men," " with titles sue has talent scout, promoter, press coordinator, and vice-president in chargeofpublic relati ons. The centrality of information on boundary developmentsto managers and executives in cultural organizations is suggested in theseindustries' trade papers: coverage of artist relations and selections by massmedia gatekeepers far exceeds that of matters managed more easily in a

. F"L.1,: l

\l


5/7

34 ON RECORDstandardized manner, such as inflation in warehousing, shi pping, and physical production costs.Contact men linking the cultural organization to the artist communitycontract for creati ve raw material on behalfof the organization and superviseits production. Much of their work is performed in the held.Professional agents on the input boundary must be allowed a great dealof discretion in their activities on behalf of the culrural organization. Successful editors, record "producers," and film directors and producers thuspose control problems for the focal organization. In fields characterized byuncertainty over cause-and-effect relations, their talent has been "validated"by the successful marketplace performance of "their discoveries"-providing high visibility and opportunities for mobility outside a single firm. Theirvalue to the cultural organization as recruiters and intel ligence agents isindicated by high salaries, commissions, and prestige within the industrysystem.Cultural organizations deploy additional contact men at their outputboundaries, linking the organization to 1) retail outlets and (2) surrogateconsumers in mass media organizations. The tasks of promoting and distributing new cultural items are analytically distinct, althoughboundary unitscombining both functions may be established. Transactions between retailers and boundary personnel at the wholesale level are easily programmedand supervised. In terms of Thompson's typology of output transactions,the retailer's "degree of nonmember discretion" is limited to a small numberof fixed options concerning such matters as discount schedules and returnprivilegesY In contrast, where organizations are dependent on "surrogateconsumers" for coverage of new products. the latter enjoy a high degreeof discretion: tactics employed by contact men at this boundary entail more"perso influence"; close supervision by the organization is more difficultnaland may be politically inexpediel1t. Further development of Thompson'stypology would facilitate tracing the {low of innovations through organization systems by extending the analysis of transactions "at the end of theline"-that is, between salespeople and consumers or bureaucrats andclients-to encompass boundary transactions at all levels of organizationthrough which new products are processed.A high ratio of promotional personnel to surrogate consumers appearsto be a Structural feature of any industry system in which (a) goods aremarginally differentiated; (b) producers' access to consumer markets is regulated by independent gatekeepers; and (c) large-scale, direct advertisingcampaigns are uneconomical or prohibited by law. Cultural products areadvertised ;ndirecily to independent gatekeepers within the industry systemin order to reduce demand uncertainty over which pro ductS will be selectedfor exposure to consumers. Where independent gatekeepers neither filterinformation nor mediate between producer and consumer, the importance

THE ORGAN I Z A T I ON OF THE MUS I C BUS I N E S S 1 3 5

of contact men at the organization's output boundary is correspondinglydiminished. In industry systems where products are advertised more directlyto consumers, the contact man is superseded by full-page advertisementsand sponsored commercials, purchased outright by the producer organization and directed at the lay consumer.

Oue rp ro d u c t o n and i e r e n t a lPromot ion o f u Lt u r a l I tems

Differential promotion of new items, in conjunction with overproduction, is a second proactive strategy employed by cultural organizations toovercome dependence on mass media gatekeepers. Overproduction is arational organizational response in an environment of low capital investments and demand uncertainty.

Under these conditions it is apparently more efficient to produce many"failures" for each success than to sponsor fewer items and pretest each ona massive scale to inc rease medi a coverage and consumer sales. The numberof books, records, and low-budget films released annually far exceeds coverage capacity and consumer demand for these products. Fewer than 20percent of over 6,000 (45 rpm) "singles" appear in retail record ourlets.:':'Movie theaters exhibit a larger proportion of approximately 400 featurefilms released annually, fewer than half of which, however, are believed torecoup the initial investment. The production of a surplus is facilitatedfurther by contracts negotiated with artists on a royalty basis and other costminimizing features of the craft administration of production.

Cultural organizations ideally maximize profits by mobilizing promotional resources in support of volume sales for a small number of items.These resources are not divided equally among each firm's new releases.Only a small proportion of all new books and records "sponsored" bycultural organizations arc selected by company policymakers for large-scalepromotion within the industry system. In the record Industry:

The strategy of massive promotion is employed by policymnkers in an attemptto influence the coverage of their product by media over which they exert littleCOntrol They must rely on independently owned trade papers to bring newrecords to the attention of radio programmers and disk jockeys, and upon radioairplay and journalists to reach the consumer market. For this reason, selectedartists are sent to visit key radio stations, and parties arc arranged in citiesthroughout the country to bring together the artisr and t his advanced audience.It seems likely that if policymakers could better predict exposure forparticularreleases, then fewer would be recorded Records arc released 1)with no advance publicity, (2) with minimal fanfare, or ell only after 3 Lirge-scale advance promotional campaign. The extent of a record's promoti on informs


6/7

136 O N R E C O R D

the policymakers'immediate audienceof regionalpromoters andTop 40programmersof rhe irexpectationsfor,andevaluationof,theirproduct. Inthiswaythecompanyrankordersitsownmaterial.Thedifferentialpromoti onofrecordsserves tosensirizeTop40 programmersto thenamesofcertainsongsandartists.Heavily promote drecordsare publicizedlongbefore their releasethroughfullpageadvertisementsinthe tradepress,specialmailings,andpersonalappearancesby therecording'sartists. The programdirectorismadefamiliarwiththe recordlongbeforehe receivesir.It is"expected"to beahit.Inthisway,though radiostationsreceive records graris,anticipationand"demand" forselected releasesarccreated Theb esrindicatorofarecord's pc)(entialfor becomingahitatthisstageisthe amount ofpromotio nit isallocated,"

Most cultural items are allocated minimal amounts for promotion and are expected to fail. Such long shots constitute apool of understudies, from which substitutes may be drawn in the event that either mass media gatekeepers or consumers reject more heavilyplugged items.I see the strategy ofdifferential promotion asan attempt by cultural organizations to"buffer" their technical core from demand uncenainties by smoothing out OUtput transaerions.24

Co-optat ion of [ns t i tu t iOl la l Re gu l a t or sMass media gatekeepers report awide varietyof mechanisms developed

by cultural organizations to influence and manipulate their coverage decisions. These range from indications by the sponsoring organization ofhigh expectations for particular new discoveries (e.g., full-page advertisements in the trade press, panies arranged to introduce the artist torecognized opinion leaders) to personal requests and continuous barragesof indirect advertising, encouraging and cajoling the gatekecper to "cover,"cndorse, and otherwise contribute toward the fulfillmcnt of the organization's prophecy of great success for its new product.

The goals of cultural and mass media organizations come into conflicto\'er two issues. First, public opinion, professional ethics, and, to a lesserextent, job security all requitc that institutional gatckecpers maintain independent standards of judgmcnt and qualityrather than endorse onlythoseitcms which cultural organizations elect to promote. Second, the primarygoal of commercial mass media organizations isco maximize revenue by delivering audiences for sponsored messages rather than to serve aspromotional vehicles for particular cultural items. Hit records, for example,are featured by commercial radio stations primarily to sell advertising:

Q: Do youplaythismusicbecause itisthe mostpop ular'A: Exactlyfor that reason Weuse the entertainment part of our prDgramming,whichismusic,essentially, to anractthelargestpossibleaudience,sothatwhat

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N O F T H E M U S I C BUSINESS 137

elsewehaverosay intermsof advertisingmessage [is}exposedro thelargestnu mber ofpeople possible-and thewayto getthe largestnu mber rotune inisro playthe kindof musictheylike sothat you havea massaudienceat theorher end.

Q: If,let'ssaythat bysomefreak ofnature, ayearfromnowthemost popularmusicwaschambermusic,would youbeplaying that?

A: Absolurely ,andthe yearafter that,ifit'sChinese madrigals, we'llbeplayingrhern.:Goalconflictand valuedissensus arc reflected in frequent disputes amongcultural organizations, mass media gatekeepers, and public representativesconcerning the legitimacy (or legality) of promoters' attempts to acquirepower over the decision autonomy of surrogate consumers.

Cultural organizations strive to control gatekeepers' decision autonomyto the extent that coverage for new items is(a)crucialforbuilding consumerdemand and (b) problematic. Promotional campaigns aimed at co-optinginstitutional gatekeepers are most likely to require proportionately largebudgetsand illegitimate tacticswhen consumers' awareness of the producthinges almost exclusively on coverage by these personnel. As noted earlier,culturalorganizations are less likely to deploy boundary agents or sanctionhigh-pressure tacticsfor items whose saleislesscontingent on gatekeepers'actions.

V R I B I L I T Y W I T H I N C U L T U R L I N D U S T R I E S

Up to this point, Ihave tended to minimize variability among culturalorganizations,cultural products, and the markets atwhichthey arc directed.Mygeneralizations applymainly to the most specul tive and entrepreneurialsegmentsof the publishing, recording, and motion picture industries: thatis,adult trade books, popular records, and low-budget movies.Within eachofthese categories, organizations subscribe, invaryingdegrees, tonormativeaswell as to the more economic goals Ihave assumed thus far. Certainpublishinghouses, record companies, and movie producers command highprestigewithin each industry system for financingculturalproducts of highqualitybut of doubtful commercial value.To the extent they do not conformto economic norms of rationality, these organizations should be consideredseparately from the more dominant pattern of operations described earlier.

Coverage in the form of radio station airplayisfarmore crucialinbuildingconsumer demand for recordings of popular music than for classicalselections. Control over the selection of new pop releases by radio stationprogrammers and disc jockeys ishighl yproblematic. Record companies aredependent on radio airplayas the only effective vehicle of exposure for newpop records. In this setting-where access to consumers hinges almost


7/7

~ f j f j

1 38 O N R E C O R D

exclusivelyon coveragedecisionsbyautonomous gatekeepers-institutionalized side payments ("payola") emerged as acentraltacticin the overallstrategy of co-optation employed by producer organizations roassure desired coverage.Radio airplay for classicalrecords islesscrucial for building consumerdemand; the probability of obtainingcoverage for classical releasesisalsoeasier to estimate. Whereas producers and consumers of pop records areoften unsure about asong'slikely salesappealor musical worth, criteria ofboth musical merit and consumer demand are comparativelyclearin theclassicalfield. Record companies, therefore, allocateproportionately fewerpromotional resources roassurecoverage of classical release sbymassmediagatekeepers, and record companyagents promoting classicalreleases employ more legitimatetacticsto influencecoverage decisions than promotersof pop records employ to co-opt the decision autonomy of institutionalregulators.Thompson has proposed that "when support capacityisconcentrated butdemand dispersed, the weaker organizationwillattempt to handle itsdependence through coopting."Z(, Inmy analysis,cultural organizations represent a class of weaker organizations, dependent on support capacityconcentrated inmassmedia organizations;demand isdispersed among retailoutlets and consumers. While all culturalorganizations attempt roco-optautOnomous consumer surrogates, the intensity of the tactics employedtends rovary with degree of dependence. Thus, culturalorganizations mostdependent on mass media gatekeepers (i.e., companies producing pop records) resorted to the most costlyand illegitimatetactics;the institution ofpayolamaybe seen asan indicationof their weaker power position.

N O T E S

,AlvinTofiler. The c"lllIrc COIIJUlIItrJ Balt imore Penguin, 1')()5)..Talcott Parsons. Slr",r,,,,, al/(I P) O(eJJ in Modern Sorieties (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 19 )O).\Alvin Boskol'f. "Functional Analysisas a Source of a Theoretical Repertory and Research

Tasks ill the Study of SocialChange," in George K. Zollschan and Walter Hirsch (eds.),Exploretions ill Social C a ~ e (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19(,4).'James D. Thompson. Orga"izatiolls in Aeriol! (New York: McGraw-Hill, 19(,7).,\VilliamM.Evan, 'Toward aTheory of Inter-organizational Relations," Management Science11 (19(,) I,pp.B21 L,O; reprinted inJames D. Thompson (ed.), Approaches to OrgalliuriollalDesigll (PittSburgh:University of PittSburghPress, 1')(,6)." Robert K. Merton, Social Theory aud Soc;al Structure, rev. ed. (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press,J957)."Evan,"Inter-organizational Relations," pp, 177 79., Arthur L Stinchcornbe, "Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production: A Compar,HiveStud!, ," Adlllillist"alir'e Sciellce Quarterl)' 4 (September 195')), pp. \68-87.')Richard Peterson and David Berger, "Entreprcneurship in Organizations: Evidence fromthe Popular Music lndustrv,"Administratil'e Srien Quarterly 16 (March (971), Pl' 97-\07.H "Production" here tefers to the performances or manuscripts created byartistsand talent

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N O F T H E M U S I C BUSINESS' 1 39

scouts for later replication in the form of books, Ii1m-negative prints, and phonographrecords.The physicalmanufacture of these goods issufficiently amenable toCOntrolasto benearly irrelevant tothisdiscussion. IIHenry Brief, Radio and Records: A Pres entatio n by tbe Record l ndmtrv Associalioll 0/Am"';ca

at the 1964 Regrona! MeelillgJ 0/the National /issociat ion 0/Broadcastrrs Srinchcombe, COllJ f ru{I i l l f Soria! Tbeories,Jol Paul M. Hirsch,The Structure oj the Pop,dar MUJic IlIdll.l'/l') IAnn Arbor: Survev ResearchCenter, University of Michigan, 1')(,')1.I') Roger 1. Brown, "The Creative Process in(he Popular Arts," lnt ernatrona] Social Science

jOlintal20, No.4 (1')681, pp, ()l3-24; Peterson and Berger."Entrepreneurship."Ii, Srinr hcombe, "Bureaucratic and Craft Administration."P Publicreactionto the "payola" scandalsinthelate I 95()sdcrnonsrrarc.i aWidespread beliefthatthe disseminaror sof massculture should be independent ofitsproducers. DISC jockeys,

book reviewers,and film criticsare expected [ remainfree from the lnduence or manipulationsof record companies, book publishers, and movie studios.rcspecuvely.This feelingis shared generallyby members of each indusrry system and isembodied aswell inourlegalsystem. IH Clive Davis, "The Truth about Radio: A WNEW Inquirv." mimeograph (New York:

WNEW, 19(7), p. 5.This isa transcript of an interview with the general manager of CBSRecords.19 Boskoff,"FunctionalAnalysis"; Rolf Meyersohn andElihuKatz,"Notes onaNatural Hisrory

of Fads," /vmrr ua n journal 0/Sociology 62 (May 1957), pp. -sol.20 Harold Wilensky,["tel/eeruals n Labor Unions (Glencoe, Ill.. Free Press, 1956).2 JamesD. Thompson, "Organizations andOutput Transactions," :'I" ,nicalljoumalo/Sociology

68 (November 19(,2),Pl' 309-24. Sponsoring organizations that lack access ([)establishedchannelsof distribution, how ever, experience great difiiculry in obtaining orders for theirproducts from retailoutlets and consumers. Thompson's typology of interaction betweenorganization members and nonmembers consists of two dimensions: degree of nonmemberdiscretion,and specificity of organizational control over members in ourpur roles. Ourpurroles are defined as those that arrange for the distribution of an organization's ultimateproduct (or service)to other agents insociety.

11 SidneySchemel and M.WilliamKrasilovsky,Tbi: Busillm 0/Music

hirsch - processing fads and fashion

Documents