Opinion leaders vs collective dynamics in cultural consumption: Decision-making in the choice of music

Decision-making in cultural consumption often hinges on social signals, yet the relative power of anonymous mass behaviour versus local opinion leaders remains unclear. The article presents a controlled lab. experiment that attempted to measure, in real time and in a network setting, the degree to which different mechanisms of influence – expert preferences, local networked opinion leaders’ preferences, and collective social dynamics – shape decision-making in the selection of music, as a case of cultural consumption. The results of the experiment provide evidence that decentralised, impersonal social aggregation can outweigh the influence of local influencers in shaping cultural preferences. The article contributes to research on collective intelligence by demonstrating that mass-level signals can more reliably catalyse coordination around cultural goods than top-down endorsements, with implications for digital platform design and early-warning trend detection.