Inequalities

The myth of trickle-down. How fashions do (not) spread in European fashion magazines, and what this tells us about power and status in the global fashion system

This chapter offers an empirical examination of this common account of how fashion works. Do fashion styles ‘trickle-down’? That is, do we see the diffusion of styles from high-status to lower-status actors within countries, and from central to more …

Book Review: Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians, and Power in Society

Getting Signed is a book that builds a powerful critique of one of the biggest and most influential music industries worldwide, unveiling how the ideological motive of getting signed brings individuals to sign their own exploitation in the promise of …

Sounds like meritocracy to my ears: Exploring the link between inequality in popular music and personal culture

Economic inequality is on the rise in Western societies and ‘meritocracy’ remains a widespread narrative used to justify it. An emerging literature has documented the impact of meritocratic narratives in media, mostly focusing on newspapers. In this …