Re-Patterning Patterned Cooperation in Art Worlds

• In Event: 3184 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 12. Music, Art, and Performance

Abstract

Becker’s Art Worlds theory provides a theoretical perspective that values the contributions of many workers in a given arts industry, but the theory does not account for the agency of artists in changing their strategies and patterns of cooperation when the context of cultural production shifts. This study begins to develop a theory of artist agency using the case of country music songwriters and recording artists, a group that have had to adapt their approach to creating songs in order to maintain a career in a precarious and competitive industry undergoing significant change. Relying on a novel data set of the 1198 most successful country songs co-written by 932 songwriters from 2000-2015, I examine the shifting context of collaboration between professional songwriters and recording artists during the proliferation of the digital music industry. I find evidence that songwriters and recording artists collaborate more frequently in more recent periods than in past periods, a major shift from traditional occupational roles in this genre of music. This research is part of a larger multimethod project that also uses social network analysis of the 932 co-writers and their collaborative ties during this period and interviews with 45+ of the professional songwriters and recording artist songwriters about their past and current career strategy to obtain a comprehensive, triangulated look at the connections between individual artist/worker agency in one creative industry.

Author

• Rachel Elizabeth Skaggs, Vanderbilt University