Is Indie ‘the new black’?: The rise of an interstitial field between indie music and Quality TV in the US

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on the role of institutional work for fields’ emergence and transformation, we investigate how interstitial fields emerge, proto-institutionalize, and transform from the interplay between different typologies of institutional work and their outcomes. We employ a qualitative methodology, based on process-driven theorizing, which consists of the analysis of both primary and secondary data from semi-structured interviews and different archival documents. We focus on the interstitial field emerging between Independent Music and the Quality TV in the US, in 2003–2021. We illustrate the interplay between different forms of institutional work (synergizing and selling-in; discovering; and adapting at the boundaries) with distinct fields’ level outcomes (proto-institutions’ emergence; deconstruction of fields’ event and spaces creation; fields’ local transformation). Our research illustrates patterns and mechanisms of creation, transformation, and deconstruction of cultural institutions distinguishing fields’ emergence, when fields are characterized by the participation of diverse actors and need to achieve both consolidation and malleability.