Nick Crossley is Professor of Sociology and co-founder/co-director of the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis at the University of Manchester. His most recent book is Networks of Sound, Style and Subversion: The Punk and Post-Punk Music Worlds of Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield, 1975--1980, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

Siobhan McAndrew is Lecturer in Sociology with Quantitative Research Methods at the University of Bristol. Her D.Phil. examined the evolution of institutions providing opera in modern Britain. She works primarily on the social science of culture, and of religious, moral and value change in contemporary Europe.

Paul Widdop is Research Fellow in Culture, Leisure and Sport at Leeds Metropolitan University. His main research interests are in the sociology of taste and consumption, focusing on exploring how social networks impact upon behaviour in the fields of music and sport. He is also interested in the importance of place and neighbourhood effects in these fields, especially in relation to their mediating role in developing cultural lifestyles and cultural communities.