Another study examines changes in field definition and internal structures
resulting from changes in the information systems utilized to define the
markets served. Anand and Peterson (2000) examined changes in the field of
commercial music resulting from alteration of the procedures employed to
assess sales of various music genres. Earlier information regimes based their
report of record sales on a panel of about 200 reporting sales outlets with the
claim that these were a "weighted cross section" of stores selling commercial
music records. However, with the introduction of bar codes, it became feasible
to track record sales from a much wider range of sales outlets. This new sampling
technology revealed that earlier approaches had vastly underestimated
sales of country music, whose audiences were more often located in rural
areas, patronizing unconventional suppliers-for example, gasoline stations
and convenience stores-types of outlets omitted from earlier sampling
approaches. This newly available information led to an altered conception of
the music industry, in particular, the position of country music within it. And
this information also changed the behavior of recording executives, who
began to adapt their contracting decisions with recording artists and with
distributors to take: into account a newly recognized audience.