An emerging scholarship has interrogated the changing nature of creative work under the influence of digital platforms; evaluating how “platformisation” may not only reshape how creative workers compete, but also how they cooperate for mutual benefit. Yet, this literature is generally Eurocentric, overlooking how the implications and dynamics of digital platforms may play out differently for creative workers in other contexts. This article investigates independent musicians in India; a country with a vast, influential, and distinctive music industry which is poorly understood in Global North scholarship. Through interviews with 41 Indian musicians and industry actors, it argues, firstly, that the dominance of film (especially Bollywood) music in India has constrained the infiltration of Western music platforms; secondly, that this dominance of Bollywood music has generated particular forms of self-exploitation, hyper-competition, and exclusion; and thirdly, that platforms have proven an opportunity- albeit ambivalent- for forms of cooperation among those excluded from opportunities in film music. The article makes two contributions to the sociological literature on creative work, and the role of platforms therein. It underlines the limits to platformisation when confronted with established and dominant institutions, where the latter continue to shape the experience of work and terms of the labour market; something not widely recognised in much of the discourse on the topic, especially in under-researched contexts in the Global South. It also sheds new light on the complex ways in which musicians respond to platforms, which in the Indian context both counteracted and reinforced hierarchical and hypercompetitive industry dynamics.

Mail or correspondence art is an experimental art performance in which invited and/or noninvited participants are asked to send small-scale works through the postal service. During the 1960s-70s, Fluxus, an avant-garde Neo-Dada artists' network, performed several mail art events. Mieko Shlomi, who performed nine mail art events from 1965 to 1975, was a key figure. The Milgram’s small-world experiments might have been scientific counterparts to these art events.

Mail art has sometimes been utilized to raise political awareness and protest oppressive governments, but too often, it was just for fun. Art forms vary from photo collages to visual poetry and artists’ stamps. During the last Japanese general election period, I performed a preliminary political mail art event involving college students who took my sociology class. The students (n=270) were asked to draw a mind map of political issues randomly assigned from a list of ten political problems. A participant was instructed to email and connect with any listed student within a week. In the process, a famous mail artist participated as a mediator of the experiment and intervened in the event. Pre- and post-experiment surveys were conducted to test the effects of mail art activities. Eighty-one of one hundred eighty chains were connected, and just two were completed. The maximum length of chains is eight, with an average of 2.3. Mail art participation has a slight positive effect on political awareness; however, it does not positively affect voting in the election.

This presentation examines the social embeddedness of cultural production through a two-mode network perspective. Building on the duality approach (Breiger, 1974; Basov, Breiger, Hellsten, 2020), it explores contemporary art production from a socio-semantic standpoint, analyzing how the relationships between artists, artworks, and galleries shape the structural properties of the field. Specifically, the study tests hypotheses drawn from three key bodies of literature: (1) research that attributes contemporary art production primarily to power dynamics linked to individual characteristics such as gender, class, and educational credentials; (2) studies emphasizing the role of institutional networks in providing artists with social connections, framing art production as a function of visibility capital; and (3) perspectives that highlight the immaterial and content-driven nature of contemporary art, downplaying the role of artists in favor of the autonomous influence of artistic ideas.

The dataset comprises 1,520 artists and their artworks, along with records of 22,789 galleries where these pieces were exhibited. It was compiled using archival documentation from Chile's Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage, specifically related to COVID-19 economic support policies in 2020. Artist-level variables include gender, public pronouncements, education, and sponsorship. To assess organizational dynamics between artists and galleries, an additional "visibility" variable was estimated following Lizardo’s approach to Two-Mode Relational Similarity (Lizardo, 2024).

Methodologically, the study constructs a two-mode network linking artists to art topics, employing Structural Topic Models (STM) to identify themes from the 1,520 artwork descriptions provided by the artists. Topic estimation incorporates prevalence-level variables to account for document-level conditions affecting artistic content, such as materiality, critical reception, and market valuation. Artists represent the social dimension of the network, while topics capture the semantic structure. To test the proposed hypotheses, Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) are applied to assess relational mechanisms that evaluate the impact of market dynamics on the emergence of new trends and genres in contemporary art.

The findings underscore the importance of a socio-semantic approach to cultural production and highlight the value of the duality framework and computational methods in the study of artistic forms.

This paper provides an in-depth ethnographic examination of the practice of sex work among the Kanjar community in the rural areas of India, through the lens of social networks and cultural capital. Historically, Kanjar women were traditional entertainers during their nomadic or semi-nomadic periods. This study specifically focuses on the contemporary involvement of unmarried Kanjar women in sex work and how their social networks shape and sustain this practice. The research traces the historical trajectory of the Kanjar community, highlighting their pre-colonial role as entertainers, their classification as a criminal tribe during the colonial era, and their post-independence transition to a settled and denotified tribe in India.

The study delves into the transformation of Kanjar women from traditional entertainers to modern-day sex workers, exploring how social networks facilitate the transmission and perpetuation of cultural capital associated with this occupation. It also examines the influence of technological advancements and media exposure on the practice of sex work among the Kanjars, emphasizing the role of social networks in adapting to these changes. The research reveals the emergence of new forms of entertainment occupations, such as dance bar girls and performers at parties in Middle Eastern countries. The paper concludes that the cultural sanction of the occupation, the right to property for unmarried women engaged in occupations related to traditional entertainment, and their autonomy in decision-making are reinforced by their social networks, providing these women with a sense of security. This ethnographic study focuses on the role of community networks in preserving and promoting the culture and traditions of the Kanjars by making necessary adaptations in their occupation. It challenges the prevailing assumptions of governmental and NGO policies, as well as popular media representations, which often erroneously presume a need for their rehabilitation.

We examine ratings of 642 occupations by a national online sample of U.S respondents in 2019 (Freeland et al. 2020). We analyze the respondents’ ratings of occupations on three dimensions of cultural meaning—evaluation (good versus bad), potency (powerful versus powerless), and activity (lively versus quiet). We take deviations of respondents’ individual ratings from population means, focusing on deviations from consensus rather than consensus itself. Drawing on Brieger's (1974) work on duality, we examine two projections of the initial rectangular matrix of correlated deviations. Our two projections represent (1) the cultural communities that people form when they differ from consensus in similar ways, and (2) the clusters of occupations that move in similar ways across those subcultures. Correlations among the residuals at the person level are indicators of shared subcultural differences from the mainstream—different ways of meaning-making about what is valuable and worthy about occupational work. At the occupation level, the structure represents schemas for which occupations share common elements and move together when those elements are evaluated differently. We use dyad models to investigate what metrics of occupation similarity predict similarity in deviations from consensus. We find that similarity in affective meaning (evaluation, potency and activity), material requirements, rewards, and work characteristics all predict clustering at the occupation level. Demographic composition of occupations is less important. We find that older respondents, White respondents, and higher income respondents tend to discriminate more between occupations on evaluation and potency. Respondents who are more similar in age have more similar patterns of deviations. However, occupation-level variables are in general much stronger predictors of residual structure than respondent-level variables.

We examine the relational and cultural dynamics of transnational ensembles engaged in collective deliberations about the future through a network and textual analysis of public interest scenario projects since the 1990s. As cultural technologies for exploring multiple plausible futures, scenario methods have been used to facilitate discussions on entrenched public problems, including the future of democracy, armed conflict, urbanization, energy use, migration, food security, and climate change. Scenario projects include diverse stakeholders from multiple sectors and regions, fostering varied perspectives on futures, with certain actors participating in multiple projects. We argue that this generates a dual relation between networks and futures: scenario projects construct futures by means of relations, and relations by means of futures. Drawing from an original database of 238 scenario projects worldwide from 1990-2017, we present a bipartite network mapping of shared organizational participation in scenario projects across three time periods. We trace the historical emergence and global expansion of diverse coalitions of initiators, facilitators, funders, and partners (including consultancies, research organizations, governments, corporations, multilateral organizations, social movements, and civil society groups). We then consider how these coalitions coalesce around problem areas and proposed interventions through a computational text analysis of scenario project reports. We use word embeddings to explore how particular narrative operators (e.g., “participation,” “governance,” “sustainability” or “growth”) are associated with discursive stances toward capitalism and democracy. Finally, we combine the network and computational analyses to determine to what extent scenario projects that share organizations also share discursive stances in their imagined futures. We argue that these global relational dynamics have a “field-building” effect, shaping relationships in an emerging foresight field, while also contributing to the ambivalence about capitalism and democracy embedded in transnational foresight work.

Side-directed behavior (a term coined by primatologist Frans De Waal), or SDB, refers to an action undertaken by an actor ostensibly towards one alter, but more significantly directed semiotically towards a third party (McLean and Song 2023). A male chimpanzee ritually embraces all the females in the troop, to challenge the dominance of another male. A student bullies a schoolmate, but more to gain status with the cool kids than to express animosity towards the victim. An email between colleagues includes a cc to the department manager—arguably the alter of primary concern, despite not being explicitly addressed. A patron supplies a favor to another man’s client, chiefly as a signal of respect to his peer patron. The world of politics is replete with strategic behavior such as diverse forms of virtue signaling that involve performing for audiences, often with the goal of forming alliances—although the extent to which those audiences cum allies are explicitly designated and/or delineated is variable and often unclear. One important consequence for social network analysis is that transactions within networks need not constitute the most significant relationships being sought. Understanding the network ‘of primary concern,’ for both participants and analysts alike, becomes an interpretive process. Acknowledging that such subtle behavior is widespread can seriously complicate the coding and interpretation of network data.

Unfortunately, SDB can happen so pervasively, so subtly—for example, the alter may or may not be aware (or be made aware) of ‘what is actually going on’—and at such a variety of scales (among individuals, among organizational units, among nations) that measuring it precisely and assessing its importance in network tie formation can be very difficult. Actors may possess varying amounts of skill in denying that their actions had any ulterior motive. Yet understanding how to practice SDB, as well as how to interpret it, is highly consequential for skilled social actors, especially in ‘caged’ social settings.

We are designing an online, vignette-based experiment to explore certain important dimensions of SDB within small group/small network settings. Notably, we vary the social distance between actors in a triad, and vary the positive, neutral, or negative valency of the framing of alters or relationships within triads, to see how those variations affect observers’ assessments of the salience of the side-directed element of the behavior. We hope to have some preliminary results in time for the conference, but minimally we can discuss the research design and project aspirations. Our overall goal is to examine systematically some of the cultural, and specifically semiotic, processes that underlie network tie formation.

References:

McLean, Paul D. and Eunkyung Song. 2023. “Theorizing Side-directed Behavior.” Pp. 96-117 in Interpretive Sociology and the Semiotic Imagination, edited by Andrea Cossu and Jorge Fontdevila. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Sociological scholarship on taste in cultural items has largely relied on explanations associated with class or genre distinctions, including work on consumption across those boundaries. However, scholarship on popular culture and taste has found increasing cross-class and cross-genre consumption, suggesting that current conceptualizations of taste are insufficient in light of rapidly growing popular culture milieu, increased connectedness through social media, and the shifting demands on popular culture. Capitalizing on advances in computational sociology, I test core cultural theories about taste, class, and genre, using a network of young adult books connected to each other by cooccurrence on recommendation lists on a popular literary social media site. Using data on books on lists of recommendation on literary social media platform GoodReads.com, I construct a projected unipartite network of over 150,000 books connected by cooccurrence on 3,000 lists. In addition to webscraped metadata for the books, I rely on data from 12 literary awards, user-selected micro-genres and algorithmically clustered macro-genres, and viral popularity. I use exponential random growth models (ERGM) to test the role of class, genre, and viral popularity in predicting connections among books. Leveraging ERGM's ability to use endogenous variables, I then consider that taste is not directly measurable using book characteristics and take a more fully relational approach to testing the formation taste. Using networks allows me to analyze the role of the network structure, as taste may be unaffiliated with class, genre, or popularity and may, instead, be an unmeasurable relational process.

The aim of this presentation is to describe the disruptions to personal networks caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns (limitation of face-to-face encounters, development of online relationships, lost and degraded ties, interpersonal conflicts...), and their short- and longer-term effects on cultural practices since the early 2020s.

Numerous studies have analyzed the relationship between social networks and cultural participation. On the one hand, social interactions are powerful drivers of cultural choices and participation to leisure activities (Upright, 2004); and on the other, outings and cultural and sporting activities, particularly outside the home, are in turn determinants of sociability (Lizardo, 2006; Benediktsson, 2012). But these studies were carried out in “ordinary” times, and do not allow us to hypothesize on the impact of a major health crisis that affects both personal relationships and the use of free time. Secondly, they are all based on cross-sectional data, which makes it more difficult to analyze causal relationships between networks and cultural practices.

In this presentation, we therefore draw on data from several ongoing French longitudinal surveys (Mama 2022, N = 2,300; Vico 2020-2025, N = 16,224 in wave 1), to determine the extent to which disruptions to personal networks have accelerated a movement towards privatization, individualization and a retreat into the home of free-time uses, without fundamentally changing the social anchoring of cultural practices and preferences, nor reducing social inequalities in access to cultural goods.

In the highly competitive global film market, directors must adapt more flexibly to the everchanging environment. The creative strategy of film directors, which involves the selection of film styles, scripts and actors, is essential for guiding them towards successful career development. Based on a large-scale dataset collected from IMDb, network science computational tools are used to identify and describe the consistent patterns and individual differences in directors’ creations at different stages of their careers. The intrinsic relationship between these individual differences and their success is further explored. The results show that the directors’ overall creative strategy tends to prioritize exploration over exploitation, and the permutation test confirms the reliability of the new findings. We also find that highly rated directors are significantly influenced by different regional cultures and must adopt unique creative strategies to achieve high ratings. Besides, highly productive directors and highly rated directors show opposite trends in collaboration patterns, highlighting the differences in collaboration patterns among different types of directors. Overall, this study provides a new understanding of the development of directors’ creativity and their behaviors in the pursuit of success.

The study explores how culture and cultural values shape social network structures. The data was collected online from 276 Uzbek students. Using social network analysis, correlational analysis and cross-tabulations, we identified patterns linking cultural orientations to network size, interaction frequency, and social influence.

The findings reveal that peers, education, and media significantly shape students’ social circles. Peer-driven networks encourage establishment of broader, more interactive connections, while those shaped by education or media often lead to more selective, close-knit ties. 31.2% of students influenced by peers formed networks of “10 or more people,” whereas those shaped by education (36.5%) or media (34.1%) reported having no significant network. Students who resonate with cultural norms usually engage more consistently within their networks, confirming the importance of shared values in building cohesive connections.

The study also highlights how culture and networks influence each other. Cultural norms not only determine how relationships form and evolve but they are also transmitted and reinforced through social interactions. This dynamic exchange between cultural identity and social ties shows how networks are built, maintained, and reshaped over time.

Ultimately, social networks are expressions of cultural identity. By showing how shared values and norms shape social ties, this study highlights the importance of incorporating cultural perspectives into social network analysis. Understanding this interplay offers deeper insights into how networks are created, maintained, and evolve within cultural contexts.