Managed Middlebrow Mimesis

Successful "art packaging" can exercise the dynamics of peer-defined normative mimetic reinforcements. The peer-normative symbols are focused though an archetype-model (an author in this case) and the cultural artifacts (books) created by that model, which are packaged, transmitted, and regulated through the media promotional apparatus. The symbol of the media promotional apparatus (Steve Allen in this case) patterns the archetypal behaviors of involvement, veneration and deference that consumers are encouraged to imitate.