Understanding the Alteration and Decline of a Music Scene: Observations from Rave Culture1

The sociological study of scenes—music and otherwise—has flourished in the latter twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries. Most research has documented a scene’s origins or its “evolution” into mainstream culture. Fewer studies have systematically addressed what leads to a scene’s alteration and decline, although many scholars have partially addressed it in authenticity studies anchored in the Frankfurt School’s claims about culture and economics. Are culture industries sufficient in explaining music scene transformation? The present article attempts to explain the cultural transformation of the Philadelphia rave scene and to articulate its relevance for other kinds of social worlds. Using a multimethod ethnographic approach, I show that five forces (generational schism, commercialization, cultural otherness/deviance and self destruction, social control, and genre‐based scene fragmentation) help explain the alteration and decline of the rave scene from its high point in the mid to late 1990s to its diminished and fragmented state presently. In describing these forces, I hope to move beyond culture industry narratives toward a broader explanation of cultural change, one that is lacking not only in music scene studies, but also in literatures on many other kinds of social worlds.     

Popular Hazards and Policy Rhetoric

Popular hazards are common activities that involve some risks of harm, such as driving a car, possessing or shooting a gun, drinking alcohol, or smoking marijuana. In each of these cases, many millions of Americans engage in the activity, but only a small fraction of them harm themselves or other people. Because the activity is so common, the number harmed may be substantial, although more serious harms tend to be much more infrequent than less serious harms. Social policy debates almost always focus on some particular popular hazard, yet we can see rhetorical similarities—parallel arguments—in how advocates frame what are understood to be very different social issues. Thus, discourse about legalizing recreational marijuana use tends to invoke claims that are quite similar to those opposing further gun control. The category of popular hazards allows us to recognize parallels in policy debates about seemingly unrelated social issues. Focusing on the underlying policy issue—balancing popularity and hazardousness—encourages considering alternative ways to construct social policies.     

Middle-Range Future Claims: Constructing the Near-Future Consequences of COVID-19

The extraordinary social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated many claims about the middle-range future—the period beginning in the late summer or early fall of 2020 and projected to last for some months or years. This paper surveys those assertions and seeks to explain the factors that led to them. Exploring questions about future claims can expand the scope of social problems theory.     

OPTIMAL PRICE OF ENTRY INTO A COMPETITION

A continuum of contestants are choosing whether to enter a competition. Each contestant has a type, and of those who enter, the ones with highest types receive prizes. A profit‐maximizing firm controls entry, and charges a price for it. I show that an increase in the value of each prize leads the firm to raise the price while keeping the intensity of entry fixed. Conversely, when the mass of prizes increases, the firm initially keeps the price constant while allowing entry to increase; and later—raises the price. (JEL C72, D82, D83)     

PRIZE SCARCITY AND OVERDISSIPATION IN ALL‐PAY AUCTIONS

We compare bidding behavior in complete information all‐pay auction experiments that vary in the prizes and number of players. We confirm the observation from prior single‐prize experiments that there is overbidding relative to equilibrium predictions. Our primary results are that increasing the number of prizes and players proportionally does not reduce overbidding but increasing the number of prizes with a fixed number of players eliminates overbidding. We conclude that the overbidding phenomenon is related to the scarcity of the prize. We provide new theoretical results on the multi‐prize logit equilibrium, and our experimental results are qualitatively consistent with logit equilibrium predictions. (JEL D72, D91, C91, D44)     

CONTEST DESIGN: AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

This paper experimentally compares the performance of four simultaneous lottery contests: a grand contest, two multiple prize settings (equal and unequal prizes), and a contest which consists of two subcontests. Consistent with the theory, the grand contest generates the highest effort levels among all simultaneous contests. In multi‐prize settings, equal prizes produce lower efforts than unequal prizes. The results also support the argument that joint contests generate higher efforts than an equivalent number of subcontests. Contrary to the theory, there is significant over‐dissipation. This over‐dissipation can be partially explained by strong endowment size effects. Subjects who receive higher endowments tend to over‐dissipate, whereas such over‐dissipation disappears when the endowments are lower. This behavior is consistent with the predictions of a quantal response equilibrium. We also find that less risk‐averse subjects over‐dissipate more. (JEL C72, C91, D72)     

Sequential contests with synergy and budget constraints

We study a sequential Tullock contest with two stages and two identical prizes. The players compete for one prize in each stage and each player may win either one or two prizes. The players have either decreasing or increasing marginal values for the prizes, which are commonly known, and there is a constraint on the total effort that each player can exert in both stages. We analyze the players’ allocations of efforts along both stages when the budget constraints (effort constraints) are either restrictive, nonrestrictive or partially restrictive. In particular, we show that when the players are either symmetric or asymmetric and the budget constraints are restrictive, independent of the players’ values for the prizes, each player allocates his effort equally along both stages of the contest.     

The pric(z)e of hard work: Different incentive effects of non-monetary and monetary prizes

Do non-monetary or monetary prizes induce the highest work performances in competitions? We conducted a real-effort lab experiment to test for differences in the effect of both incentives on work productivity. Our main findings are that the performances of subjects in pursuit of a monetary prize exceed those of subjects in pursuit of non-monetary incentives. However, the work quality and the retrospective feeling of having had fun at work, which is associated with the received prizes, decrease in combination with greater effort. Furthermore, a competition with monetary prizes appears to label winners and losers. If non-monetary prizes are used, losers are, to a certain extent, more able to adjust their feeling of satisfaction by changing the subjectively perceived prizes.     

THE OPTIMAL ALLOCATION OF PRIZES IN TOURNAMENTS OF HETEROGENEOUS AGENTS

Tournaments are widely used in organizations, explicitly or implicitly, to reward the best‐performing employees, for example, by promotion or bonuses, and/or to penalize the worst‐performing employees, for example, by demotion, withholding bonuses, or unfavorable job assignments. These incentive schemes can be interpreted as various prize allocations based on the employees' relative performance. While the optimal prize allocation in tournaments of symmetric agents is relatively well understood, little is known about the impact of the allocation of prizes on the effectiveness of tournament incentive schemes for heterogeneous agents. We show that while multiple prize allocation rules are equivalent when agents are symmetric in their ability, the equivalence is broken in the presence of heterogeneity. Under a wide range of conditions, loser‐prize tournaments, that is, tournaments that award a low prize to relatively few bottom performers, are optimal for the firm. The reason is that low‐ability agents are discouraged less in such tournaments, as compared to winner‐prize tournaments awarding a high prize to few top performers, and hence can be compensated less to meet their participation constraints. (JEL M52, J33, J24)     

Mobile market and changing food governance: the world of non-certified organic food in Beijing

By engaging the frameworks of boundary organizations and social worlds, this article examines the emergence of non-certified organic agri-food in China by studying its pioneer organization – the Beijing Farmers’ Market (BFM). Based on tri-angulated analysis of texts, semi-structured interviews and on-site observations, we show that BFM allows diverse organic agri-food actors to cooperate by constructing a market configuration that accommodates elements of their diverse social worlds. This study contributes to studies that explore the expanding ‘civic’ spaces in China by explaining how civic actors mediate a public problem under the radar of State regulation. It sheds light on how some seemingly ‘ungoverned’ objects are indeed regulated through social interactions in margins of the mainstream food system.     

Unclaimed Prize Information Biases Perceptions of Winning in Scratch Card Gambling

Unclaimed prize information (i.e., the number of prizes still available to be won) is information commonly provided to scratch card gamblers. However, unless the number of tickets remaining to be purchased is also provided, this information is uninformative. Despite its lack of utility in assisting gamblers in choosing the most favourable type of scratch card to play, we hypothesized that unclaimed prize information would bias participants’ judgments within a scratch card gambling context. In Experiment 1 (N?=?201), we showed that participants are influenced by this information such that they felt more likely to win, were more excited to play, and preferred to hypothetically purchase more of the scratch card with the greatest number of unclaimed prizes. In Experiment 2 (N?=?201), we attempted to ameliorate this bias by providing participants with the number of tickets remaining to be purchased and equating the payback percentages of all three games. The bias, although attenuated, still persisted in these conditions. Finally, in Experiment 3 (N?=?200), we manipulated the hypothetical scratch cards such that games with the highest number of unclaimed prizes were the least favourable, and vice versa. As in Experiment 2, participants still favoured cards with greater numbers of unclaimed prizes. Possible mechanisms underlying this bias are discussed. In conclusion, across three experiments, we demonstrate that salient unclaimed prize information is capable of exerting a strong effect over judgments related to scratch card games.     

The Virtuality of Virtual Worlds,or What We Can Learn from Playacting Horse Girls and Marginalized Developers

This article discusses the emergence of Habbo Hotel as a large‐scale virtual world and its changing versions through time. We consider how social events taking place within the hotel are conditioned by designed‐in symbolic resources and how, in turn, with creative processes of symbolization, novel social objects emerge out of particular interactions. We then discuss how the membership trajectories of hotel members are essential in understanding how these interactions are shaped and evolve. We also look at how the digital infrastructure and its evolution lends itself to being material for actualizing particular social worlds within the hotel and how the trajectory of the infrastructure reflects the relationship between the user and the developer communities of Habbo. Finally, we discuss why, to understand more fully what virtual worlds consist of at large, analysts should look into the mutually constitutive interactions among users, developers, and surrounding business models over longer periods of time in the constantly varying actualization of any given virtual world.     

Characteristics And Types Of Participation In Social Worlds

The concept of social world is given greater analytical power by categorizing differential participation through a typology of social types—strangers, tourists, regulars, and insiders. These trans-situational social types are examined in terms of their commitment, relationships, experiences, and orientation to social worlds. Social worlds are also discussed in terms of three qualities of interaction—relevance, accessibility, and receptivity.     

CAPS IN SEQUENTIAL CONTESTS

We study a sequential two‐stage all‐pay auction with two identical prizes. In each stage, the players compete for one prize and each player can win either one or two prizes. The designer may impose a cap on the players' bids in each of the stages. We analyze the equilibrium in this sequential all‐pay auction with bid caps and show that capping the players' bids is profitable for a designer who wishes to maximize the players' expected total bid. (JEL D44, D82, J31, J41)     

Social capital and the added value of social relations

Almost all empirical research reveals that social capital is a factor that enhances public goods, but scholars are divided into two strands of thought. According to the first strand, the enhancement of public goods does not need any network of social relations, while, according to the second, enhancement depends on the existence and good functioning of relational networks, to the point that it consists in the creation of social networks. Which one is right? In order to clarify the issue, one should ask: can a social relation have any added social value? If so, how can we conceive of the added social value of social relations, and how can we measure it? The author claims that the added social value of social relations can be observed in those processes through which social capital and public (relational) goods (re)generate or elide each other. These processes can be analyzed as morphogenetic cycles that work in temporal sequences and are not circular or recursive. By adopting this perspective, we can see and measure the added social value of social relations in primary and secondary networks, leading to the emergence of public goods. The relational approach can give abundant evidence as to how and why different public goods are produced and/or enhanced depending on the different added social value of the social relations that constitute them.     

PROPERTY RIGHTS AND LOSS AVERSION IN CONTESTS

We analyze the effects of property rights and the resulting loss aversion on contest outcomes. We study three situations: in “gain” two players start with no prize and make sunk bids to win a prize; in “loss” both the players start with prizes and whoever loses the contest loses their prize; and in “mixed” only one player starts with a prize that stays with him if he wins, but is transferred to the rival otherwise. Since the differences among the treatments arise only from framing, the expected utility and the standard loss aversion models predict no difference in bids across treatments. We introduce a loss aversion model in which the property rights are made salient, and as a result the reference point varies across treatments. This model predicts average bids in descending order in the loss, the mixed, and the gain treatment; and higher bids by the player with property rights in the mixed treatment. The results from a laboratory experiment broadly support these predictions. There is no significant difference in bids in the loss (gain) treatment and bids by property rights holder (nonholder) in the mixed treatment. A model incorporating both loss aversion and social preferences explains this result. (JEL C91, C72, D23, D74)     

CARROTS AND STICKS: PRIZES AND PUNISHMENTS IN CONTESTS

We study optimal contest design in situations where the designer can reward high performance agents with positive prizes and punish low performance agents with negative prizes. We link the optimal prize structure to the curvature of distribution of abilities in the population. In particular, we identify conditions under which, even if punishment is costly, punishing the bottom is more effective than rewarding the top in eliciting effort input. If punishment is costless, we study the optimal number of punishments in the contest. (JEL D44, D82, J31, J41)     

In Search of Mesostructure in the Family: An Interactionist Approach to Division of Labor

This paper demonstrates the importance of the concept of mesostructure for understanding how families create and enact a gendered division of labor. The work of symbolic interactionists, especially those using the negotiated order perspective, is used to examine linkages and processes of articulation between the public and private worlds. Mesostructure provides a conceptual device for examining how men and women merge their respective activities within the context of social constraints. Six interlinked concepts developed by Hall (1987)—collective activity, network, conventions-practices, resources-power, processuality-temporality, and grounding—form the foundation for a mesostructural analysis of family division of labor. These concepts are used to explicate the interaction of structure and process in gender division of labor in families.     

How social workers maneuver in complex and neoliberal contexts

This article examines social workers’ personal interpretations and position-taking in neoliberal and complex contexts. Personal position-taking of professionals is a powerful tool in guiding social workers’ professional activity. The aim of this research is to make these common—but often unnoticed—positions visible. The research focuses on Estonia; a country strongly embedded in neoliberal ideology, and by that significantly influenced by market-based solutions to services and individualization of social risks. Data collection and analysis have been guided by a narrative research framework. The research highlights the challenging position of social workers. Such workers experience pressures caused by double constraints—quick intervention and access to services—and finding a way out from the complex social problems of the most vulnerable individuals. However, in the Estonian case, the pressure and control from outside is perhaps more dominating because the young profession is still weak. The claims of effectivity, evidence, and solving problems hinder the creation of a research-minded, reflective, and practical wisdom-oriented social worker. Awareness of the varied trajectories of positions shows the need for a social discussion about the role and added value of social work within the preconstituted frame and the relationship between the values of social work and the workfare state.     

Political Position and Social Knowledge1

The nature of social cognition—how we “know about” the social world—is one of the most deceptively obvious problems for sociology. Because we know what we know, we often think that we know how or why we know it. Here, we investigate one particular aspect of social cognition, namely, what we will call “political ideology”—that is, people’s self‐placement on a dimension on which persons can be arrayed from left to right. We focus on that understanding that is in some ways the “ur‐form” of social cognition—our sense of how we stand by others in an implicit social formation whose meaning is totally relational. At the same time, these self‐conceptions seem to be of the greatest importance for the development of the polity and of civil society itself. Our question is, when citizens develop such a “political ideology,” what does this mean, and what do they do with it? We examine what citizens gain from their subjective placement on the dimension from liberalism to conservatism by using the results of a survey experiment that alters aspects of a hypothetical policy.