Timetable: Understanding arts audience segmentation

Understanding Arts Audience Segmentation

OBJECTIVES

In this seminar, we will follow art sociologists in their attempts to decipher audience segmentation in the arts and its
meaning in terms of social inequality. We will address cornerstone questions such as: Do even non-publics look up
to the high arts? Does the segmentation of art consumption reflect and legitimize social segregation? How far does
social mobility affect taste? Does Postmodernism and the eclectic consumption of Culture mean the end of the
distinction between high and low art? How far can an individual be dissonant from himself, in his consumption of
Culture, and what does this mean for social distinctions? Through these interrogations, a better understanding of the
social meaning of the consumption of he arts will rise.

By the end of this seminar, students will have gained an understanding of arts segmentation with insights at different
levels of our socially constructed reality, from the individual experience process (Dewey) to grand-historical narratives
of distinction (Elias, Veblen), from Distinction (Bourdieu) to Nobrow (Seabrook), from institutions (Lamont &
Fournier) to the multiple dispositions of the individual (Lahire).

CONTENTS

We will first review sociological analyses of symbolic barriers and social segmentations:
- first reminding some classics of Sociology: Veblens conspicuous consumption, Elias civilizing process
and its relevance nowadays, Bourdieus distinction and some of his critiques
- then moving on to the new institutionalists around Lamont & Fournier,
- and devoting another session to some precise topics: geographic segregations, social mobility and art
education

In a second step, we will point at the tensions between the discourse on the democratization of access to the high arts
and the recognition of Popular Culture; and we will look into the arguments of some critics from the USA who are
questioning the reality of symbolic barriers nowadays (claiming theres no more highbrow vs. lowbrow but a common
Nobrow).

The third movement of this seminar will start with a reconsideration of cultural classifications (in terms of high and
low), and will move on to an analysis of eclectic taste (following Petersons articles on the cultural omnivores vs. the
univores), to finally approach Bernard Lahire, a French sociologist who tells us a new story about art consumption: the
story of individuals bounded by multiple and often contradictory dispositions and striving for distinction from
themselves!

In the last session, we will look into some of the latest sociological research from the ESA conference of September
2005.

The main course material will be in english. For those interested, some further reading will be available in French.
Books, book extracts and articles will be available at the library reserve and/or in MyStudy.
All course communication will be in English.
 Timetable: Understanding arts audience segmentation

1. Introductory session: Presentation of topics, of participants and course organization

Students will be asked to state their preferences for the topic of their presentation (every student
will be required to participate in one presentation).

2. Veblens Leisure Class and conspicuous consumption

Veblen 1961 (1899); Rojek 2000; Campbell 1994
Further reading: Mc Cracken 1991

3. Elias Civilizing Process in the 20th century

Elias 2000 (1938); Wouters 1986; Wouters 1999

4. Bourdieus Distinction and its critics

Bourdieu 1979; Gartman 1991; Lamont and Lareau 1988; Holt 1997

5. Lifestyle and social class

DiMaggio and Useem 1978; Myers and Gutman 1974; Coleman 1991;
Further reading: To introduce lifestyle read Lazer 1963, Weels 1974, Kassarjian and Sheffet 1991;
Chaney 1996

6. The Institutionalization of Cultural Categories

Ed. Lamont and Fournier 1992 (intro and part one)

7. High Culture and Exclusion

Ed. Lamont and Fournier 1992 (part two)

8. Geographic segregation + social mobility and taste + school art education

Dear and Flusty 1999; Van Eijck 1999; Morisson and West 1986; Coulangeon 2003 (French)
Further reading: Van Eijck 1997

9. Popular Culture + the "democratisation" of culture

Hoggart 1966 (1957); Strinati 2000 ; Grignon et Passeron 1989 (French); Passeron 2003 (French) ;
Further reading : Chaney 2002 ; Van Venrooij 2004(?); Hebdige 1979; Ewen 2001(1976); ed. Lewis
1992

10. American critics on social segmentation of arts audiences

Seabrook 2001(2000); Robinson and Filicko 2000; Himmelfarb 2001
Further reading: Jensen 2002; Chaney 1994; Epstein 2002 (chap. 8, 24)

11. High and Low reconsidered

Levine 1994 (1988), Gans 1999
Further reading: DiMaggio 1987

12. Omnivores vs. Univores

Peterson 1992 ; Peterson 1996 ; Peterson 1997 ; Bryson 1996 ; Bryson 1997 ; Lopes Sintaz and Garcia
Alvarez 2002
Further reading: Van der Stichele and Laermans 2001

13. Repertoires of dispositions

Lahire 2003; Lahire 2004 (French)
Further reading : Lahire 1998 (French)

14. Latest sociological research on arts audiences

Selected papers from the September 2005 ESA Conference in Torun (will be handed in the course of
the seminar)
 Timetable: Understanding arts audience segmentation

Additional themes (for an essay):

- How relevant are the categories gender and ethnicity for arts audience segmentation?
Sources: part three in Ed. Lamont and Fournier 1992; SPPA studies (NEA RD report 25: DiMaggio
and Ostrower 1992); Kolb 2002a, Kolb 2002b, Kolb 2003.
- Art as experiential process
Sources: Dewey 1980; Holbrook and Hirschman 1991, Bourriaud 2001 (French)

Bibliography
Pierre Bourdieu, La Distinction, Critique sociale du jugement, Minuit 1979 (or english translation : Routledge,
1989).

Nicolas Bourriaud, Esthtique relationnelle, Les presses du rel, 2001.

B. Bryson, Anything but heavy metal: Symbolic exclusion and musical dislikes, American Sociological
Review, 61, 1996 (p. 884-899).

B. Bryson, What about the univores? Music dislikes and group-based identity construction among Americans
with low levels of education, Poetics, 25, 1997 (p. 141-156).

Colin Campbell, The Desire for the New: Its Nature and Social Location as presented in Theories of Fashion
and Modern Consumerism, in Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Space, Eds. Roger
Silverstone and Eric Hirsch, Routledge, 1994.

David Chaney, The cultural turn, Routledge, 1994.

David Chaney Lifestyles, Routledge, 1996.

David Chaney, Cultural Change and Everyday Life, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Richard P. Coleman, The continuing significance of Social Class to Marketing in eds H.H. Kassarjian and T.S.
Robertson, Perspectives in Consumer Behavior, PrenticeHall, 1991.

Philippe Coulangeon, Quel est le rle de lcole dans la dmocratisation de laccs aux quipements culturels,
in eds O. Donnat and P. Tolila, Le(s) Public(s) de la Culture, Presses de Sciences Po, 2003 (p. 245-265).

M. Dear & S. Flusty, The post-modern urban condition, in M. Featherstone & S. Lash, Spaces of Cultures:
City, Nation, World, Sage, 1999 (p. 64-85).

John Dewey, Art as experience, Perigee Books, 1980.

Paul DiMaggio, Classification in Art, American Sociological Review, 52, 1987 (p. 440-455).

P. DiMaggio and M. Useem, Social class and arts consumption: The origins and consequences of class
differences in exposure to the arts in America, Theory and Society, 5, 2, 1978.

Paul DiMaggio and Francie Ostrower, Race, Ethnicity, and Arts Participation, NEA Research Division Report
25, 1992.

Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

Joseph Epstein, Snobbery, The American Version, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture, Basic Books,
2001.

Herbert J. Gans, Popular culture and high culture : an analysis and evaluation of taste, Basic Books, 1999.

D. Gartman, Culture as class socialization or mass reification : A critique of Bourdieus Distinction, American
Journal of Sociology, 97, 2, 1991 (p. 421-447).
 Timetable: Understanding arts audience segmentation

Claude Grignon et Jean-Claude Passeron, Le Savant et le populaire. Misrabilisme et populisme en sociologie et

en littrature, Gallimard / Seuil, 1989.

Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Routledge, 1979.

Gertrude Himmelfarb, One Nation, Two Cultures: A Searching Examination of American Society in the
Aftermath of Our Cultural Revolution, Vintage Books USA, 2001.

Richard Hoggart, The uses of literacy : Aspects of working-class life with special reference to publications and
entertainments, Penguin, 1966.

M.B. Holbrook and E.C. Hirschman, The experiential aspects of consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings,
and Fun in eds H.H. Kassarjian and T.S. Robertson, Perspectives in Consumer Behavior, PrenticeHall, 1991.

D.B. Holt, Distinction in America? Recovering Bourdieus theory of tastes from its critics, Poetics, 25, 1997
(p. 93-120).

Joli Jensen, Is Art Good for Us?: Beliefs about High Culture in American Life, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2002.

H.H. Kassarjian and M.J. Sheffet: Personality and Consumer Behavior: an update, in eds H.H. Kassarjian and
T.S. Robertson, Perspectives in Consumer Behavior, PrenticeHall, 1991.

Bonita Kolb, Ethnic preference for the arts: the role of the social experience as attendance
motivation, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 7, 2, 2002a.

Bonita Kolb, Ethnic Attendance at the Arts versus Ethnic Experience of the Arts: Adjusting to a
Changing Cultural Reality, paper presented at the 2002 ACEI Conference in Rotterdam, 2002b.

Bonita Kolb, Ethnic Attendance at the Arts: Adjusting to a Changing Cultural Reality, Arts Reach,
April 2003.

Bernard Lahire, Lhomme pluriel, Les ressorts de laction, Nathan, 1998.

Bernard Lahire, From the habitus to an individual heritage of dispositions. Towards a sociology at the level of
the individual, Poetics, Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts, Elsevier Science,
31, September 2003 (p. 329-355).

Bernard Lahire, La culture des individus, La Dcouverte, 2004.

Ed. Lamont and Fournier, Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality,
University of Chicago Press, 1992.

M. Lamont and A. Lareau, Cultural capital: allusions, gaps and glissandos in

recent theoretical developments, Sociological Theory, 6, 2, 1988 (p. 153-168).

William Lazer: Life Style concepts and marketing: Toward Scientific Marketing, Proceedings of the American
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Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow, lowbrow : the emergence of cultural hierarchy in America, Harvard University
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Ed. Lisa A. Lewis, The adoring audience : fan culture and popular media, Routledge, 1992.

J. Lopes Sintaz and E. Garcia Alvarez, Omnivores show up again. The segmentation of cultural consumers in
Spanish social space, European sociological review, 18, 3, 2002 (p. 353-368).

Grant McCracken, Culture and consumption: A theoretical account of the structure and movement of the
cultural meaning of consumer goods in eds H.H. Kassarjian and T.S. Robertson, Perspectives in Consumer
Behavior, PrenticeHall, 1991.
 Timetable: Understanding arts audience segmentation

W.G. Morisson & E.G. West, Child exposure to the performing arts: The implication for adult demand,
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J.H. Myers and J. Gutman, Life Style: The Essence of Social Class, in ed, Weels, Life Style and
Psychographics, American Marketing Association, Chicago, 1974.

Jean-Claude Passeron, Consommation et rception de la culture : La dmocratisation des publics , in eds O.

Donnat and P. Tolila, Le(s) Public(s) de la Culture, Presses de Sciences Po, 2003 (p. 361-390).

R.A. Peterson, Understanding audience segmentation: From elite and Mass to Omnivore and Univore, Poetics,
21, 1992 (p. 243-258).

R.A. Peterson, Changing highbrow taste: from snob to omnivore, American sociological review, 61, 1996.

R.A. Peterson, The rise and fall of high-brow snobbery as a status marker, Poetics, 25, 1997 (p. 75-92).

John P. Robinson and Therese Filicko, American Public Opinion about the Arts and Culture, The Unceasing
War with Philistia, in eds Joni M. Cherbo and Margaret J. Wyszomirski, The public life of the arts in America,
Rutgers University Press, 2000 (p. 108-137).

C. Rojek, Leisure and the rich today: Veblen'

s thesis after a century, Leisure Studies, Routledge, 19, 1, 2000
(p. 1-15).

John Seabrook, Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture, Vintage Books USA, 2001.

Dominic Strinati, An introduction to theories of popular culture, Routledge, 2000.

Alexander Van der Stichele and Rudi Laermans, Beyond Bourdieu, In search of the Flemish omnivore, Visions
and Divisions - Challenges to European Sociology, 5th Conference of the European Sociological Association
(ESA) in Helsinki, 2001.

K. Van Eijck, The impact of family background and educational attainment on cultural consumption:
A sibling analysis, Poetics, 25, 1997 (p. 195-224).

K. Van Eijck, Socialization, education and lifestyle: How social mobility increases the social heterogeneity of
status groups, Poetics, 26, 1999 (p. 309-328).

Alex Van Venrooij, Classifications in Music -The Valuation of Popular Music in France, Germany, the
Netherlands and the United States, 1955-2005, Cultural Classification Systems in Transition Research
Proposal Project 3, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, 2004(?).

Thorstein Veblen, The theory of the leisure class : an economic study of institutions, Random House, 1961.

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Psychographics, American Marketing Association, Chicago, 1974.

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Civilizing Processes, Theory, Culture and Society, 3, 2, 1986 (p. 1-18).

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Jahrhundert, Westdeutschen Verlag, 1999.