The Cultural Intermediaries Reader

"A rich selection of readings that expose the shadowy underworld of critics, bloggers, tweeters and stylists who have become essential guides to the good life of cultural consumption... a long overdue examination of how cultural intermediaries work, and how their work supports the new capitalist economy." - Sharon Zukin, Brooklyn College and City University "An array of talented contributors, skilfully brought together by the editors, show how the concept of cultural intermediaries can cast light on cultural production, and on media, culture and society." - David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds Cultural intermediaries are the taste makers defining what counts as good taste and cool culture in today′s marketplace. Working at the intersection of culture and economy, they perform critical operations in the production and promotion of consumption, constructing legitimacy and adding value through the qualification of goods. Too often, these are processes that remain invisible to the consumer′s eye and in scholarly debates about creative industries. The Cultural Intermediaries Reader offers the first, comprehensive introduction to this exciting field of research, providing the conceptual and practical tools needed to analyse these market actors. The book: Surveys the theoretical terrain through accessible, in-depth primers to key approaches (Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Callon and the new economic sociology). Equips readers with a practical guide to methodology that highlights the central features and challenges of conducting cultural intermediary research. Challenges stereotypes and narrow views of cultural work through a diverse range of case studies, including creative directors of advertising and branding campaigns, music critics, lifestyle chefs, assistants in book shops and fashion outlets, personal trainers, bartenders and more. Brings the field to life through a wealth of ethnographic data from research in the US, UK and around the world, in original chapters written by some of the leading scholars in the field. Invites readers to engage with proposed new directions for research, and comparative analyses of cultural intermediaries’ historical development, material practices, and cultural and economic impacts. The book will be an essential point of reference for scholars and students in sociology, critical management, cultural studies, and media studies with an interest in cultural economy, creative labour, and the past, present and future intersections between production and consumption.

Focusing on an epoch of spectacular demographic, political, economic, and cultural changes for European Jewry, Cultural Intermediaries chronicles the lives and thinking of ten Jewish intellectuals of the Renaissance, nine of them from Italy and one a Portuguese exile who settled in the Ottoman empire after a long sojourn in Italy. David B. Ruderman, Giuseppe Veltri, and the other contributors to this volume detail how, in the relative openness of cultural exchange encountered in such intellectual centers as Florence, Mantua, Pisa, Naples, Ferrara, and Salonika, these Jewish savants sought to enlarge their cultural horizons, to correlate the teachings of their own tradition with those outside it, and to rethink the meaning of their religious and ethnic identities within the intellectual and religious categories common to European civilization as a whole. The engaging intellectual profiles created especially for this volume by scholars from Israel, North America, and Europe represent an important rereading and reinterpretation of early modern Jewish culture and society and its broader European intellectual contexts.

This book interrogates the existing theories of convergence culture and audience engagement within the media and communication disciplines by providing grounded examples of social media use as a social mobilization tool within the media industries. As digital influencers garner large audiences across platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, they sway opinions and tastes towards often-commercial interests. However, this everyday social media practice also presents an opportunity for socially and morally motivated intermediaries to impact on public issues. Cultural Intermediaries: Audience Participation in Media Organisations is intended to provide an explicit overview of how one notable media organization, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), incorporates participation into its production methodology, while maintaining its role as a public service media organisation. The book provides several cases studies of successful audience participation across socially motivated projects. Finally, the book provides an updated framework to understand how cultural intermediation can facilitate authentic audience participation in media organisations.

Art and business are often described as worlds apart, even diametric opposites. And yet, these realms are close cousins in creative industries where firms bring cultural goods to market, attaching price tags to music, paintings, theater, literature, film, and fashion. Building on theories of value construction and cultural production, Culture and Commerce details the processes by which artistic worth is decoded, translated, and converted to economic value. Mukti Khaire introduces readers to three industry players: creators, producers (who bring to market and distribute cultural goods), and intermediaries (who critique and rave about them). Case studies of firms from Chanel and Penguin to tastemakers like the Pritzker Prize and The Sundance Institute illuminate how these professionals construct a vital value chain. Highlighting the role of "pioneer entrepreneurs"—who carve out space for radical, new product categories—Khaire illustrates how creative professionals influence our sense of value, shifting consumer behavior and our culture in deep, surprising ways.

This book explores the roles cultural intermediaries play in East Asian cinema. Based on extensive original research, and viewing cinema from the social science perspective which emphasizes the social processes entailed in the cultural production, circulation, and consumption of films and the social relations they involve, rather than studying films as texts, the book examines issues such as the differences between individual and collective intermediaries, the diverse resources and services that they mediate, their social background and targeted audiences, and the political implications of their work. One important conclusion is that cultural intermediaries have been central to creating the whole "idea" of East Asian cinema.

This book showcases recent work about reading and books in sociology and the humanities across the globe. From different standpoints and within the broad perspectives within the cultural sociology of reading, the eighteen chapters examine a range of reading practices, genres, types of texts, and reading spaces. They cover the Anglophone area of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia; the transnational, multilingual space constituted by the readership of the Colombian novel One Hundred Years of Solitude; nineteenth-century Chile; twentieth-century Czech Republic; twentieth century Swahili readings in East Africa; contemporary Iran; and China during the cultural revolution and the post-Mao period. The chapters contribute to current debates about the valuation of literature and the role of cultural intermediaries; the iconic properties of textual objects and of the practice of reading itself; how reading supports personal, social and political reflection; bookstores as spaces for sociability and the interplay of high and commercial cultures; the political uses of reading for nation-building and propaganda, and the dangers and gratifications of reading under repression. In line with the cultural sociology of reading’s focus on meaning, materiality and emotion, this book explores the existential, ethical and political consequences of reading in specific locations and historical moments.

Cultural sociology - or the sociology of culture - has grown from a minority interest in the 1970s to become one of the largest and most vibrant areas within sociology globally. In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology, a global range of experts explore the theory, methodology and innovations that make up this ever-expanding field. The Handbook's 40 original chapters have been organised into five thematic sections: Theoretical Paradigms Major Methodological Perspectives Domains of Inquiry Cultural Sociology in Contexts Cultural Sociology and Other Analytical Approaches Both comprehensive and current, The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology will be an essential reference tool for both advanced students and scholars across sociology, cultural studies and media studies.

Based on a four-year research project which highlights the important role of community organisations as intermediaries between community and culture, this book analyses the role played by cultural intermediaries who seek to mitigate the worst effects of social exclusion through engaging communities with different forms of cultural consumption and production. The authors challenge policymakers who see cultural intermediation as an inexpensive fix to social problems and explore the difficulty for intermediaries to rapidly adapt their activity to the changing public-sector landscape and offer alternative frameworks for future practice.