Gatekeeping and networking arrangements: Dutch distributors in the film distribution business

•Develops a typology of film distributors in the Dutch market which extends to search and selection strategies.•Explains how institutional logics, taste judgements and networking arrangements work together in different decision-making contexts.•Questions Bourdieu's taste analogy.•Further develops the concept gatekeeping networks.•Demonstrates that decision-making is heavily regulated and controlled.

Gatekeeping studies in the cultural industries increasingly draw attention to transnational networks, revealing that decision-making is decentralised through gatekeepers operating from different levels in the marketplace. This brings into focus a new line of enquiry revolving around the nature of such relationships. This paper situates an analysis of transnational gatekeeping and networking arrangements within the longstanding tradition of neo-institutional and Bourdieusian theory. Through a typology of the search and selection strategies developed by distributors in the Dutch film market, it explores their decision-making practices, demonstrating how institutional factors, taste judgements and networking arrangements work together in specific transnational contexts. This reveals that networking arrangements serve the purpose of information sharing, but, more specifically, also act as a social influence through which decision-making is evaluated and confirmed. It therefore becomes clear that reliance on transnational networks adds significant weight to decision-making processes.