Gabriel Rossman
Biography
I study cultural industries (radio and film) and economic sociology (diffusion and disreputable exchange).
I work on how people structure immoral exchanges like bribery to make them more subtle and therefore less obviously immoral. I also do computer simulations of the role of social networks in the spread of new ideas. My previous work used pop music radio data to study diffusion and film data to study how information structures markets.
Publications
“Dungeons & Dragons: Repairing Ecosystems Trust.” 2024. (with Oliver Schilke and Julian Zlatev) Harvard Business School Case Study
“Honor among Crooks: The Role of Trust in Obfuscated Disreputable Exchange.” 2024. (with Oliver Schilke) American Sociological Review
“Network hubs cease to be influential in the presence of low levels of advertising.” 2021. (with Jacob C. Fisher) PNAS.
“It’s Only Wrong If It’s Transactional.” 2018. (with Oliver Schilke) American Sociological Review.
“Obfuscatory Relational Work and Disreputable Exchange.” 2014. Sociological Theory.
“The Diffusion of the Legitimate and the Diffusion of Legitimacy.” 2014. Sociological Science.
“Close, But No Cigar: The Bimodal Rewards to Prize-Seeking.” (with Oliver Schilke). 2014. American Sociological Review
Climbing the Charts: What Radio Airplay Tells Us about the Diffusion of Innovation. Princeton University Press. 2012.
Awards & Grants
Grants
National Science Foundation. (SES-0724914).
“Sustaining and Disruptive Innovation: Drawing Lessons from the Radio Industry.” Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Industry Studies Fellowship.
