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GSBC Brown-Bag-Seminar by Marco Guerzoni (University of Turin, Italy)

“Cultural consumption in the rising music industry: explaining a cultural fad”

(coauthor: Massimiliamo Nuccio, Leuphana University Lueneburg)

Date: Wed 9th May 2012, 12:00 - 13:30
Location: Room 102 (1st Floor, Bachstr. 18, building K)
Time: 12 s.t.
Language: English

Abstract

The talk focuses on the emergence of a new version of a cultural good, which is able to broaden the dimension of the market by gaining quick success in the the audience. This diffusion pattern is a quite rare event, but disruptive for the market and extremely profitable for the producer. Authors label this occurrence disruptive cultural fad and try to understand the determinants of its adoption. The case of a disruptive cultural fad shows similarity to other disruptive product innovations, but its peculiarity should be carefully considered. Indeed in the consumption of cultural goods, the hedonistic component plays a focal role in the purchasing decision. Theories in cultural consumption explain the purchasing choice with various individual covariates. We suggest that this framework might not apply to the case of the disruptive cultural fad and contextually puts forward a different hypothesis to tackle the problem, which builds up on Bourdieu's concept of objectified cultural consumption. The hypotheses of the model are tested on a unique dataset of micro-data of purchasing transactions in Milan in the early 19th century, when the music by Gioachino Rossini emerged as disruptive cultural fad at the dawn of the music industry. Authors argue that distinction is not only triggered by individual characteristics, but also by intrinsic characteristics of a good, which might or might not fulfill the quest of belonging to a given social field.

You are cordially invited to this talk.