Coopérer pour résister : interactions marchandes et réseaux multiniveaux dans un salon d'échanges de programmes de télévision en Europe Centrale et Orientale

Today television programs produced by a few American companies, the Majors, are among the most popular with viewers. This dissertation examines the process of cultural uniformisation that has driven this phenomenon by focusing on commercial interactions in the global distribution market for television programs. We observe both the actors who promote this uniformisation, the Majors, and the others, who try to resist it. To do this we look at how trade fairs in this sector work. Indeed, this industry is structured by a set of recurrent and annual trade fairs and festivals. The captation strategy of the Majors consists in offering only exclusive contracts and free-riding on the trade fairs themselves. During these events, they leave the official marketplace while remaining in the close vicinity in order to organize private screenings and attract the buyers with the deepest pockets. This behavior is tolerated because the participation, at least formal, ofthe Majors is vital for the organizers of the trade fairs due to the popularity of their production with buyers and the public. Based on ethnographic observations, organizational analyses and a multilevel network study (i.e. inter-individual networks of information exchange and of scheduled meetings, and inter-organizational networks of contracts between companies) in the main tradefair of Eastern Europe, we show that the weakest parties in the system can cooperate to resist the domination of the Majors. This cooperation is often based on local, triadic mechanisms that are multilevel, multimilieux and multiplex that we identify with their substructures, determinants and probability of occurrence.