Gatekeeping: Genres and Fads Flashcards
Institutionalism
political and economic theory that focuses on conformity and legitimacy and how actors responds to uncertainty and goal ambiguity
Describe uncertainty with institutionalism
uncertainty with what media products to promote
Describe goal ambiguity with institutionalism
when a company is unclear what they are trying to do, often from having too many goals
How do public schools demonstrate goal ambiguity?
have numerous goals such as pleasing teacher unions, showing community values, and educating students
According to institutionalism, how do actors behave when facing uncertainty or goal ambiguity?
People will conform to expected scripts because they don’t have any other idea of what to do
we have bounded rationality
Explain institutionalism and fads
institutionalists search for fads and adopt them for firms because everyone else is also
How are information cascades different?
information cascades are about consumers adopting products while this is about producers adopting strategies
Goal ambiguity within the media
Media not only trying to maximize profits but maximize art for its sake
According to the logic of genres and fads, how will gatekeepers evaluate media?
-Gatekeepers evaluate media against genres
-art that comes from less favorable genres wil be evaluated less favorable
What is the pattern for well established genres?
Pattern of immediate rapid rise because stations are reacting autonomously without checking what peers are doing
e.g. Shakira’s La Tortura was already a well-established genre
Pattern for less well estbalished genres
will rise very slowly until it reaches a tipping point, where it explodes in popularity, then slows down again
e.g. Oye mi canto part of reggaeton genre
What does the Bielby and Bielby article “All Hits are Flukes” look at?
-looked at pitches for TV network pilots and how they drew parallels to recent hits, enabling them to get picked up
-shows are pitched as being similar to other popular shows
How did “Home Improvement” link itself to other shows?
-hybrid format of two successful conventions
-doesn’t mention if it’s multi-cam or single cam because multi cam was the convention
Examples of Fads in sitcoms
-anti-sitcom fad with same family trope
-forensic show fads
-comic book movie fads
