Trend accommodation in heteronomous fields: How established artists respond to changing conventions

Abstract

When conventions change, how do cultural producers respond to new trends in heteronomous fields? Established artists in heteronomous fields will be supplanted by newer styles created by new entrants to the field. Market-oriented artists must bend to changing conventions rather than keep to the kinds of cohesive trajectories that shape restricted field careers. Regardless of whether established cultural producers like or appreciate changing conventions in their field, they must respond to emergent movements, norms, ideas, and styles in their own work. Using interviews with 40 commercially successful songwriters, I find that when faced with a new trend, songwriters who stay in the field accommodate new trends through strategic, habitual practices. By adapting to new aesthetic features of trends through “research” or mimicry and by adopting new, trendy artists into collaborative creative groups, established artists can successfully incorporate new trends into their creative labor. These practices allow artists to continue producing relevant creative work despite misalignment between new conventions and their own preferences. Attending to the ways that artists incorporate new aesthetic features and new collaborators into their work contributes an understanding of the everyday practices that lead to trend accommodation.