Product Description

In this remarkable study, Robert R. Faulkner shows that the Hollywood film industry, like most work communities, is dominated by a highly productive and visible elite who exercise major influence on the control of available resources, career chances, and access to opportunity. Faulkner traces a network of connections that bind together filmmakers (employers) and composers (employees) and reveals how work is allocated among composers and the division of labor within the Hollywood film community, using statistical analysis and highly revealing personal interviews. One of the very first empirical studies in the "new economic sociology," Music on Demand shows the dynamics of markets constituted by the interaction between buyers and artistic talent (the producers and directors of feature films) and the sellers of artistic talent (the composers of film scores). Faulkner's interviews with those composers considered to be elite and those on the industry's periphery reveal how they perceive their careers, how they define commercial artistic success, and how they establish, or try to establish, those vital connections with filmmakers. Now available in paperback, this pioneering study will be of compelling interest to researchers in culture studies as well as readers interested in learning more about this little-known world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2219725 in Books
• Published on: 1982-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 281 pages

Review
"A fascinating account of career and network mechanics, superbly documented.... Faulkner has done a wonderful job of bringing into visible social traces this invisible profession." - Harrison White, Giddings Professor of Sociology, Columbia University "Music on Demand is a very impressive piece of multi-method research.... The book promises to be an important contribution to the developing field of economic sociology." - Paul DeMaggio, Yale University "A classic in economic sociology and the organization of markets as networks." - Wayne E. Baker, professor of organizational behavior, University of Michigan Business School

About the Author
Robert R. Faulkner is professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California and is the author of Hollywood Studio Musicians: Their Work and Careers in the Recording Industry. He is the recipient of the American Sociological Association's Max Weber Award for Distinguished Scholarship.