The following is a graphical presentation of a multi-year field study of the market for musical acts in Bigtown (a large city in the Northeastern United States). Building on the cultural industry and art worlds theories of Paul Hirsch (1972) and Howard Becker (1982), I have explored how gatekeepers in a local cultural industry use their social ties to make sense of and operate within a market characterized by risk and uncertainty. Like these scholars, I see cultural industries as networks of collaboration and competition among actors and organizations engaged in the production, selection and consumption of cultural products (e.g., movies, books, music and art).

Booking the Bazaar: Mapping multi-level networks in a local cultural market