how are oscar awards selected?

The establishment of the Academy (and its awards system) has had a major effect and influence upon the film industry, due to the enormous boost a nomination or award (for a film or actor) creates, by giving prestige and bottom-line profits to a studio or performer. Studios have often engaged in expensive marketing and advertising campaigns to sway votes, and to encourage contractual loyalty during voting. The Academy has, with limited success, tried to limit the influences of pressure groups and promotion, box office gross receipts, and studio public relations and marketing on voting results. It has also attempted to limit votes for melodramatic sentimentality, atonement for past mistakes, personal popularity, and "prestige" or epic scale, but those influences have often had a decided effect upon the outcome of some of the poll results