This article introduces the concept of scalar mediation to describe a central aspect of the work of global consecrating organizations. Existing work has demonstrated how scales within global cultural fields can operate as distinctive symbolic universes. The present study looks at how global consecrators bridge the different and sometimes contradictory judgements made at different scales to produce selections that “scale up” and appear legitimate before global audiences. It examines the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature using a qualitative and quantitative analysis of archival records from 1901 to 1966 – some of the most recent years available under the statutes of the Nobel Foundation. The results show that the scales of mediation for the Nobel Prize underwent several transformations during the period of observation. The earliest prizes favored the tastes of conservative national academies over international literary opinion, while in the 1920s and 1930s the Nobel largely ignored or rejected the preferences of other cultural authorities. Only after 1946 did the prize recognize cosmopolitan literary pioneers and world-renowned thinkers with any regularity. The findings reveal that scalar mediation can be a slow, uncertain, and contested process, even in the most self-evidently global of cultural organizations.

本文介绍了标量调解的概念来描述全球奉献组织工作的一个核心方面。现有的工作已经证明了全球文化领域内的尺度如何作为独特的象征宇宙运作。本研究着眼于全球奉献者如何弥合在不同规模上做出的不同且有时相互矛盾的判断，以产生“扩大规模”并在全球受众面前显得合法的选择。它通过对 1901 年至 1966 年（根据诺贝尔基金会章程可查阅的最近几年）的档案记录进行定性和定量分析，研究了诺贝尔文学奖的授予情况。结果显示，诺贝尔奖的调解量表在观察期间经历了多次转变。最早的奖项偏向于保守的国家学院的品味，而不是国际文学观点，而在 20 年代和 1930 年代，诺贝尔奖在很大程度上忽视或拒绝了其他文化权威的偏好。直到1946年之后，该奖项才开始定期表彰世界性的文学先驱和世界著名的思想家。研究结果表明，即使在最不言而喻的全球文化组织中，规模调解也可能是一个缓慢、不确定和有争议的过程。