Prize culture: creative ecosystems in the attention economy

This paper examines the proliferation of awards, prizes, and highly publicized honors in the creative industries as a flexible strategy for adapting the commercial creative ecosystems. Creatives thrive in ritualized status tournaments in which attention markets draw together creative suppliers, brokers, sponsors, and audiences into a loosely bounded ecosystem dependent on transforming reputation into intellectual capital. In the attention economy, creative ecosystems employ a prize culture strategy to manage and marry this ecosystem's artistic with commercial components and to adapt the ecosystem to an uncertain future. What makes the prize culture strategy effective in the attention economy is its flexibility, public reach, and ability to direct attention in two opposing directions – prizing the established creative veterans in well-developed genres and anticipating emerging creatives. With this Janus-faced reach, a prize culture strategy enables creative ecosystems to establish shared intellectual property; the prize culture, a means of binding diverse participants, encourages an artistic-commercial marriage within the ecosystem while promoting past successes and anticipating new stars.