An Ethnographic Study on Cultural Production

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The transformation of the theater world in Japan can be characterized by five general trends : commercialization, institutionalization, unification, liquidation, professionalization. Commercialization means the tranformation of the market structure of the modern theater. Institutionalization included the process by which theater is increasingly recognized as a legitimate aritistic genre through the increase in the financial support from the state and private sources. The remaining three trends show the transformation of the theater world per se, corresponding to the changes in the environments. Unification means what Paul DiMaggio called structuration of organizational fields arising from the increase in the presence of the state. Liquidation means the weakening of the cohesiveness of the theatrical companies, which have been the basic unit of theatrical production in Japan. These general trends has led to the professionalization, namely development of the professional associations instead of theatrical companies. One of the predictions which can be derived from this study is that when these general trends lead to a fruitful division of labor among four segments-i.e, academic, nonprofit, subcultural, and commercial-we can have truly productive theater world in Japan.