The Phonographic Industry and the Recorded Music Market : A Long Misunderstanding

Abstract

Drawing on research into the Portuguese phonographic industry, this article addresses the crisis which the industry is currently facing, with the aim of showing how the history of the phonographic field has, from the outset, been marked by various doubts and uncertainties emerging from disputes over a number of objects. It also shows that these doubts have always led to the reinvention of the conventions that have shaped the activities of this organisational and commercial field. Based on an analytical perspective that draws on the theoretical contributions of institutionalist economic sociology (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Fligstein, 1996 and 2001) and the economic sociology of conventions (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991 and 1999; Thévenot, 2002), it discusses the dilemmas experienced by the industry, exploring the hypothesis that these have emerged as a result of the different orders of worth mobilised to coordinate activities in the phonographic field.