Event

Abstract:  How do cultural industry workers make creative decisions?  Although previous scholars have argued that decisions are shaped by organizational and institutional contexts of production, few have systematically analyzed the micro-interactional dynamics around decision-making processes.  Based on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in the casting department of a reality television production company, I analyze how workers identify talent for new reality television programs.  Specifically, I describe how workers dramatize their evaluation of cultural objects, in this case reality television characters, through two forms of emotional expression: in situ reactions and performative storytelling.  These forms of emotional expression establish and affirm shared standards of aesthetic quality.