Curating Value in Changing Markets

In this article, I ask how firms negotiate dissonance between industry trends and day-to-day market realities. By utilizing the independent record store as a case of an intermediary firm negotiating rapid industry change, I analyze their contributions to those understandings that reinforce their relevance within the market. Through an analysis of industry and news media, I compare the symbolic work of these firms before and after drastic technological innovation and document changes in the way they discuss their field. I find surviving firms offer new interpretations of their social position that both preserve many traditional aesthetics while selectively presenting new perspectives on contemporary music culture. I introduce the concept of curating value to embrace this multidimensional effect of symbolic work and extend economic sociology research on the intersection of cultural meaning and market change. I argue that the successful market positioning of independent record stores hinges upon dynamic use of symbolic criteria that, in turn, can produce new material value within a new market composition.