Detachment as a privilege: industry participation at TV programming and distribution marketplaces. Issue 4 (4th July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Favre, Guillaume; Brailly, Julien
• Is Part Of: Consumption, markets & culture. Volume 24:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 373
• Page End: 389
• Publication Date: 2021-07-04
• Subjects: Trade fairs -- detachment -- attachment -- television studies -- globalization -- embeddedness; Consumption (Economics) -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Consumers -- Attitudes -- Periodicals; Marketing -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 306.305
• DOI: 10.1080/10253866.2020.1803071
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1025-3866

Abstract

ABSTRACT: While studies have described the role of international trade fairs in building new industries, few have analyzed the reverse: that of companies detaching from fairs, and the contexts in which such events disappear. We study the processes of attachment and detachment to trade fairs in the television programming and distribution industry, using two polar cases: a recently created trade fair in Africa, at the fringes of the globalized market; and a declining trade fair in eastern Europe, which had once been a hub for international trade. We use quantitative data to characterize the degree of internationalization of these two fairs, and focus with qualitative data on the organization of these events. We show that attachment occurs when a fair is new and unavoidable for industry actors; but in older marketplaces, already integrated in globalized markets, powerful actors can detach from the marketplace and re-embed their commercial interactions into personal networks.