Preaching to the converted: Cultural intermediaries and cultural consumer behavior

• Who aligns cultural behavior in response to signals from which cultural intermediaries?. • Using Danish registry data, I compare loans of library books before and after an award/review. • Awards and reviews significantly increase the subsequent loan of books. • Cultural legitimacy does not increase the impact of signals from cultural intermediaries. • The effect is strongest among individuals with high levels of cultural capital. • The cultural elite is not detached independent consumers, but embedded in a system of cultural valuations. This article studies the impact of signals from cultural intermediaries. Who aligns cultural behavior in response to signals from which cultural intermediaries? Drawing on unique individual-level population-wide Danish administrative registry data on library loans, this paper is the first to study heterogeneity in the impact of signals from cultural intermediaries across (a) individual-level cultural capital and (b) signal cultural legitimacy. Using a difference-in-differences design, I compare loans of books before and after an award/review, using shortlisted books and books yet-to-receive awards/reviews as controls. The study shows, in line with previous research, that signals from cultural intermediaries matter. Awards and reviews significantly increase the loan of books. Further, cultural legitimacy, as operationalized via professionalized quality evaluations, does not increase the impact of cultural intermediaries’ signals. Finally, the effect is strongest among individuals with high levels of cultural capital. This challenges the emphasis of elite cultural detachment in Bourdieu’s theory of cultural distinction and underscores how even elite cultural consumers are embedded in a cultural field. The results presented in this paper challenge Bourdieu’s representation of cultural intermediaries as primarily impacting those uncertain in their cultural tastes and suggest that the effectiveness of cultural intermediaries does not strongly depend on their ability to appeal to cultural legitimacy through professionalized taste evaluations.