Socializing Rejection and Failure in Artistic Occupational Communities

Skaggs, Rachel

doi:10.1177/0730888418796546

Cited by 25 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…I will end with this article’s broader contributions to the sociology of failure. Failure is a central component of the social world (Malpas and Wickham ), and recent scholarship in the sociology of work has shown how people grapple with failure in their work experiences (Frenette ; Sharone ; Skaggs ). This article demonstrates that small, subtle failures are commonplace in the chemical sciences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For organizational sociologists of the late 1970s, understanding what failure meant for the firms they studied was central to developing theory about firm survival (Hannan and Freeman ; Pfeffer and Salancik ). More recently, sociologists of work have drawn attention to the experiential aspects of market failure, studying how white‐collar job seekers unable to find work make sense of their situations (Sharone ), the centrality of rejection in creative industries (Skaggs ), or the failure that many interns face in their efforts to secure less‐precarious employment (Frenette ). By investigating failure, scholars of work have highlighted how institutional structures shape the often‐negative experiences of workers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Dimensions of Success and Failure in Research Collaboration

Sacco

2020

Sociological Forum

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Failure is a common experience in society, and analyses of failure have been important for developing social theory. This article analyzes how chemical scientists experience failure in both credited and uncredited research collaborations. Credited work produces the outputs that are evaluated by administrators and analyzed by social scientists. Thus, "credit" is closely tied with visibility in science. But chemical scientists often engage in uncredited collaboration as well. Uncredited collaborations are not opportunities to receive formal credit for one's work, but chemical scientists still engage in uncredited work in order to meet the metrics by which they are evaluated. Analyzing 106 interviews with chemical scientists, this article builds a framework for understanding success in collaboration. The two dimensions of this framework that shape experience of success and failure are (1) whether a collaboration produced outputs and (2) whether expectations are met. Collaborative expectations often go unmet, but these disappointments rarely undermine collaborations from producing credited outputs. Novice scientists often have positive experiences in uncredited collaboration despite not receiving credit for their work. Success and failure are experienced differently in credited and uncredited collaboration. Institutional pressures often create circumstances for failure in collaborations while also keeping scientists invested in unsuccessful collaborations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Dimensions of Success and Failure in Research Collaboration

Sacco

2020

Sociological Forum

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“…Gatekeeping is typically separate from the creative process, as gatekeepers' interactions with creators are more often as filters for legitimating creative work (Parker and Corte 2017) or as mediating brokers between creators and fans (Foster, Borgatti, and Jones 2011). Learning to appropriately interact with gatekeepers is one of the primary kinds of socialization needed to effectively navigate an artistic occupational community (Skaggs 2019), but having an outside gatekeeper in the creative space can shut down some of a group's creative energy (Parker and Hackett 2012). There is no doubt that pressure from gatekeepers affects some artists' creative output, but research on gatekeeping understands the role of creator and gatekeeper to be separate and hierarchal rather than situating the gatekeeper as direct collaborator or peer in the creative process.…”

Section: Small-group Dynamics and Face-workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harmonizing Small-Group Cohesion and Status in Creative Collaborations: How Songwriters Facilitate and Manipulate the Cowriting Process

Skaggs

2019

Soc Psychol Q

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Because of economically induced changes in record label contracts, recording artists are now required to cowrite their songs. Despite this obligation, many recording artists are unskilled as writers. For their professional songwriter teammates, using face-work to save the recording artist from the embarrassment of being an unskilled songwriter can be at odds with status maintenance in the larger social community if the collaboration results in a bad song. Interviews with 39 country songwriters revealed two key strategies for orienting the songwriting process toward writing a song that will allow for status maintenance among peers while still attending to group cohesion. Of the two strategies for achieving this goal, most common was a process of commercially oriented “bespoke facilitation” to match songs’ lyrical content to artists’ personal branding goals. In a second strategy, referred to as a “manipulation dance,” songwriters prewrite songs or portions of songs to guide the creative process toward content that will contribute to their status among industry peers. Both strategies rely on songwriters using face-work to be perceived as a “good hang” to keep the recording artist happy while still ensuring that the song is well crafted and will help to build and maintain their status. This study contributes to understanding how an individual working in a collaborative group might orient efforts toward maintaining status in a wider community while attending to group cohesion when the group has mismatched goals, skills, or tastes.

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“…Creators offer an important evaluation of peers and their works. Their standing stems from the fact that they are well acquainted with the creative process and can appreciate advances in their field (see Becker, 1982; Skaggs, 2018). Hence, when creators offer awards to their compatriots (e.g., Grammys), that legitimation sometimes has notable impact on the careers of award recipients (Anheier, Gerhards, & Romo, 1995; Skaggs, 2018).…”

Section: Fields Of Cultural Production and Retrospective Consecrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrospective Consecration Beyond the Mainstream: The Creation of a Progressive Rock Canon

Dowd

Ryan

Schmutz

et al. 2019

American Behavioral Scientist

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Based on a sample of 28,360 albums identified by an online community devoted to progressive rock, this article examines factors that shape the retrospective consecration of music that operates beyond the mainstream. Drawing on previous work on fields of cultural production, genre trajectories, and creative careers, the article produces findings that both replicate and innovate. As in previous research, critical acclaim greatly enhances the likelihood of consecration; however, it is not mainstream critics but underground critics whose opinions are most influential and most consistent with popular appeal among the progressive rock audience. Likewise, although performers from the “first wave” of progressive rock and from the United Kingdom have an advantage in getting consecrated, a more recent wave of performers in the online era see higher odds of consecration and there is neither a significant advantage for U.S.-based performers nor a significant disadvantage for performers from the margins. Findings suggest that the relationship between different types of legitimation varies across fields and that in progressive rock—a field with a high degree of aesthetic solidarity—some sources of acclaim often thought of as being in competition are actually compatible.

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Socializing Rejection and Failure in Artistic Occupational Communities

Cited by 25 publications

References 33 publications

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Dimensions of Success and Failure in Research Collaboration

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Dimensions of Success and Failure in Research Collaboration

Harmonizing Small-Group Cohesion and Status in Creative Collaborations: How Songwriters Facilitate and Manipulate the Cowriting Process

Retrospective Consecration Beyond the Mainstream: The Creation of a Progressive Rock Canon

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