3 Die Rolle von internationalen Buchmessen in der Buchbranche

Interaction Rituals at Content Trade Fairs: A Microfoundation of Cultural Markets

“…There have been some discussions, also in pre-pandemic times, as to whether bodily copresence is a prerequisite of IR (see for example Knorr Cetina and Bruegger 2002; DiMaggio et al 2019). Geographers have argued that computer-mediated communication even outperforms face-to-face communication in some business contexts (Bathelt and Turi 2011) and many trade fair operators successfully organized their business events online in 2020 (see Ebner-Zarl 2020 on the Frankfurter Buchmesse). Nevertheless, we believe that virtual meetings will never have the same ritual strength as face-to-face encounters and therefore might erode social cohesion in the long run (see Collins 2004, 53–64).…”