In this dissertation I use the production of culture perspective as a lens to analyze the emergence of craft beer in the US. In doing so, I examine how the six facets of the production of culture perspective have both constrained and stimulated the production of craft beer in the US. The six facets of the production of culture perspective are: law and regulation, industry structure, organizational structure, markets, technology, and occupational careers. These six facets, in concert, allowed the craft beer movement to emerge in the 1970s. In order to demonstrate the effects each facet has on the production of craft beer I employ a content analysis of All About Beer, an industry trade publication that reports on the craft beer culture. Additionally, I analyze the structure of the brewing industry through secondary data regarding technology, production, and industry concentration. In my analysis I demonstrate how the POC explains the production of cultural goods. I also highlight the limitations of the perspective and suggest future avenues of research. / Ph. D.

This manuscript tells the stories of the Latin/o and general music industries in the United States from 1898 to 2000. It argues that performers transformed the local identities of aural industries based in place and melody into global industries of visual identities designed for space and celebrity. Both the Latin/o and general music industries shifted back and forth along a local-sound-to-global-sight spectrum more than once, from sounds of music rooted in specific places to sights of musicians uprooted across universal spaces between 1898 and 2000. This claim is supported by a textual analysis of archival materials, such as trade press articles, audio recordings, still photographs and motion pictures. While the general music industry's identity changed, the Latin/o industry's identity stayed the same, and vice-versa. Specifically, when the general industry identified with transnational performers and images between 1926 and 1963, the Latin/o industry retained its identification with the sounds of music rooted in specific places. From 1964 to 1979, as the Latin/o industry moved from one end of the spectrum to the other, only to return to its initial position, it was the general industry that maintained its identification with the midpoint of the spectrum. During the 1980s, the general industry zigzagged from the midpoint to the global-visual end and back again, while the Latin/o industry remained at the local-sonic end of the spectrum. In the 1990s, the Latin/o industry's local and sonic identity continued, and the general industry moved from the midpoint to the global-visual end of the spectrum with the Latin boom. The general industry's identity changed during each interval except 1964-1979, the only period in which the Latin/o industry's identity fluctuated. From Aural Places to Visual Spaces: the Latin/o and General Music Industries should be of interest to anyone invested in the relations between creativity and commerce, substance and style, or geography and genre.

This study examines the rise in popularity of the French comics series "Astérix le Gaulois" through a production-of-culture lens in an effort to uncover how industry evolution and organization, protectionist legislation, marketing, advertising, branding, and consecration by the media worked interdependently to catapult Astérix, the series' protagonist, into stardom by the middle of the 1960s. In so doing, this study forcefully argues that elements external to the text itself greatly facilitated, and in some ways determined, the series' quick and dramatic rise in popularity in France by 1966. The predominance of American and Belgian comics into the 1950s and the moral turn towards all things "100 % français" enabled the success of Pilote, the French-language, French-themed magazine launched in 1959 and in which "Astérix" first appeared. By the early 1960s, Pilote's faithful readership helped make the publication of "Astérix" in album format a resounding success. Simultaneous radio exposure and extensive product merchandising further promoted "Astérix" to a new, vast, and diverse comics market comprised of children and adults alike. Media consecration marked the final step in Astérix's meteoric rise in popularity in France. Institutionalization of the comics series by the national press during the 1960s transformed Astérix into an emblem of national importance, created celebrities out of the series' co-creators, and even helped legitimize bande dessinée, or comics, as a French cultural form worthy of "serious" consideration. / Master of Arts

This research intends to address potential factors concerning Sweden’s poor distribution of e-books (electronic books) by using theories such as digitization, media economy, and the theoretical framework of the production of culture perspective. To examine what these factors are and how they affect the development of the e-book in Sweden, we will answer the following research questions: 1. What potential factors could have influenced the e-book development? and 2. How may these factors affect the development of e-books in Sweden? The chosen method was the case study approach, with the contribution of qualitative interviews and multiple data sources. The research conducted five interviews with actors within the Swedish book industry that were recruited by e-mail and through snowball sampling. The interviewees provided the research with qualitative answers, as well as additional data sources, such as reports, sales statistics, and legal documents. The secondary data enlarged the knowledge concerning the phenomenon of e-books, thus made it more manageable to examine. The result of the case study identified four potential factors that actors believe could be the reason concerning the e-books' lack of success in Sweden: cultural values, technological development, the libraries' role, the lack of commercial actors, and sales tax. In conclusion, the study show that several factors may have affected the development of e-books in Sweden. However, the research cannot distinguish one sole factor that explains its poor distribution.

<p>During the evolution of the music industry, developments in the media environment have required music firms to adapt in order to survive. Changes in broadcast radio programming during the 1950s; the Compact Cassette during the 1970s; and the deregulation of media ownership during the 1990s are all examples of changes which have heavily affected the music industry. This study explores similar contemporary dynamics, examines how decision makers in the music industry perceive and make sense of the developments, and reveals how they revise their business strategies, based on their mental models of the media environment.</p><p>A qualitative system dynamics model is developed in order to support the reasoning brought forward by the study. The model is empirically grounded, but is also based on previous music industry research and a theoretical platform constituted by concepts from evolutionary economics and sociology of culture. The empirical data primarily consist of 36 personal interviews with decision makers in the American, British and Swedish music industrial ecosystems. The study argues that the model which is proposed, more effectively explains contemporary music industry dynamics than music industry models presented by previous research initiatives.</p><p>Supported by the model, the study is able to show how “new” media outlets make old music business models obsolete and challenge the industry’s traditional power structures. It is no longer possible to expose music at one outlet (usually broadcast radio) in the hope that it will lead to sales of the same music at another (e.g. a compact disc).</p><p>The study shows that many music industry decision makers still have not embraced the new logic, and have not yet challenged their traditional mental models of the media environment. Rather, they remain focused on preserving the pivotal role held by the CD and other physical distribution technologies.</p><p>Further, the study shows that while many music firms remain attached to the old models, other firms, primarily music publishers, have accepted the transformation, and have reluctantly recognised the realities of a virtualised environment.</p>

During the evolution of the music industry, developments in the media environment have required music firms to adapt in order to survive. Changes in broadcast radio programming during the 1950s; the Compact Cassette during the 1970s; and the deregulation of media ownership during the 1990s are all examples of changes which have heavily affected the music industry. This study explores similar contemporary dynamics, examines how decision makers in the music industry perceive and make sense of the developments, and reveals how they revise their business strategies, based on their mental models of the media environment. A qualitative system dynamics model is developed in order to support the reasoning brought forward by the study. The model is empirically grounded, but is also based on previous music industry research and a theoretical platform constituted by concepts from evolutionary economics and sociology of culture. The empirical data primarily consist of 36 personal interviews with decision makers in the American, British and Swedish music industrial ecosystems. The study argues that the model which is proposed, more effectively explains contemporary music industry dynamics than music industry models presented by previous research initiatives. Supported by the model, the study is able to show how “new” media outlets make old music business models obsolete and challenge the industry’s traditional power structures. It is no longer possible to expose music at one outlet (usually broadcast radio) in the hope that it will lead to sales of the same music at another (e.g. a compact disc). The study shows that many music industry decision makers still have not embraced the new logic, and have not yet challenged their traditional mental models of the media environment. Rather, they remain focused on preserving the pivotal role held by the CD and other physical distribution technologies. Further, the study shows that while many music firms remain attached to the old models, other firms, primarily music publishers, have accepted the transformation, and have reluctantly recognised the realities of a virtualised environment.

Since their breakthrough in the mid 1990's, web sites have become one of the most important channels for communication at Swedish universities. Drawing upon the analytical framework of "the production of culture perspective", the thesis investigates how the form and content of Swedish university web sites are influenced by the production milieu in which they are produced. Based on quantitative content analysis of the home pages of university web sites, the thesis documents changes in the form and content, such as links, headings, and body matter becoming more focused on marketing, as well as an increasing need for different kinds of navigation aids on the web sites. In addition to this, the thesis presents the results of fifteen in-depth interviews with informants working at various levels of the web organizations at Swedish universities. Using the production of culture perspective, together with previous research on media production in general, and literature on more specific areas, such as organization theory and communication, and media and technology, this presentation is followed by a discussion and analysis of structural, production related, factors, and their influence on the form and content of the web sites. The overall conclusion of the thesis is that the production of university web sites - their form and content - is about much more than available technology, web development processes, and different programming languages, to mention but a few examples. It is also about organizational routines, about the ways decisions are made, about policies for web publishing within the overall organization, about different stakeholders being put against each other, and it is about strategic choices about what to publish on the web and not. Furthermore, the thesis shows that structural factors function as constraints, as well as facilitators of web site production. For example, the width of web pages increases in correspondence with the increasing number of larger, high-resolution, displays used by the user; local policies and strategies decides the content to be focused; and a consistent form and layout of the university web sites are inhibited by the organizational structures and lines of command.

This study examines the relationship between movie budgeting and the creative process in Hollywood filmmaking. To understand the effects of this relationship on the creative product, several films are analyzed within the production process where conflicts between the investors and creators are observed. A case study approach is guided by theories of the production of culture, which state that creative products manufactured in the cultural industry must be analyzed in relation to their surrounds society. Findings suggest previous indicators of box office success are becoming primary influences in the filmmaking process. The study also finds that financial standards in Hollywood potentially inhibit innovation among creative participants within a limited Hollywood creative sphere.

My research studies immigrants’ learning experiences as socially organized practices. Informed by the sociocultural approach of learning and institutional ethnography, I treat learning as a material and relational phenomenon. I start by examining how fourteen Chinese immigrants learn to fit into the engineering market in Canada. I then trace the social discourses and relations that shape immigrants’ learning experiences, particularly their changing perceptions and practices and personal and professional investments. I contend that immigrants’ learning is produced through social processes of differentiation that naturalize immigrants as a secondary labour pool, which is dismissible and desirable at the same time. My investigation unfolds around four areas of learning. The first is related to immigrants’ self-marketing practices. I show that core to immigrants’ marketing strategies is to speak to the skill discourse or employers’ skill expectations at the “right” time and place. The skill discourse, I argue, is culturally-charged and class-based. It cloaks a complex of hiring relations where “skill” is discursively constructed and differentially invoked to preserve the privilege and power of the dominant group. The second area is immigrants’ work-related learning. I find that workplace training is part of the corporate agenda to organize work and manage workers. Amid this picture, workers’ opportunity to access corporate sponsorship for professional development is contingent on their membership within the engineering community. To expand their professional space, the immigrants resorted to learning and consolidating their knowledge in codes and standards, which serve as a textual organizer of engineering work. The third area is related to workplace communication. My participants reported an individualistic communication ‘culture’, which celebrates individual excellence and discourages close interpersonal relations. Such a perception, I argue, obscures the gender, race and class relations that privilege white and male power. It also leaves out the organizational relations, such as the project-based deployment of the engineering workforce that perpetuate individualistic communicative practices. My last area of investigation focuses on immigrants’ efforts to acquire Canadian credentials and professional licence. Their heavy learning loads direct my attention to the ideological and administrative licensure practices that valorize Canadian credentials and certificates to the exclusion of others.

My research studies immigrants’ learning experiences as socially organized practices. Informed by the sociocultural approach of learning and institutional ethnography, I treat learning as a material and relational phenomenon. I start by examining how fourteen Chinese immigrants learn to fit into the engineering market in Canada. I then trace the social discourses and relations that shape immigrants’ learning experiences, particularly their changing perceptions and practices and personal and professional investments. I contend that immigrants’ learning is produced through social processes of differentiation that naturalize immigrants as a secondary labour pool, which is dismissible and desirable at the same time. My investigation unfolds around four areas of learning. The first is related to immigrants’ self-marketing practices. I show that core to immigrants’ marketing strategies is to speak to the skill discourse or employers’ skill expectations at the “right” time and place. The skill discourse, I argue, is culturally-charged and class-based. It cloaks a complex of hiring relations where “skill” is discursively constructed and differentially invoked to preserve the privilege and power of the dominant group. The second area is immigrants’ work-related learning. I find that workplace training is part of the corporate agenda to organize work and manage workers. Amid this picture, workers’ opportunity to access corporate sponsorship for professional development is contingent on their membership within the engineering community. To expand their professional space, the immigrants resorted to learning and consolidating their knowledge in codes and standards, which serve as a textual organizer of engineering work. The third area is related to workplace communication. My participants reported an individualistic communication ‘culture’, which celebrates individual excellence and discourages close interpersonal relations. Such a perception, I argue, obscures the gender, race and class relations that privilege white and male power. It also leaves out the organizational relations, such as the project-based deployment of the engineering workforce that perpetuate individualistic communicative practices. My last area of investigation focuses on immigrants’ efforts to acquire Canadian credentials and professional licence. Their heavy learning loads direct my attention to the ideological and administrative licensure practices that valorize Canadian credentials and certificates to the exclusion of others.