ArtsJournal points us to a new study that challenges the assumption of a ”cultural elite” (a fact sheet about the study is available for download here).
”We are unable to identify any numerically significant group of cultural consumers whose consumption is essentially confined to high cultural forms and who reject, or at least do not participate in, more popular forms,” says the report.
Instead, they offer a different way to slice the pie — by actual consumption patterns (as described in this project summary):
- Univores – people who have an interest in popular culture only
- Omnivores – people who consume the full variety of different types of culture
- Paucivores – people who consume a limited range of cultural activities
- Inactives – people who access nothing at all.
While I’m always eager to see evolving segmentation models that might serve cultural professionals, I’m also wary of the effort if wielded without clarity. The categories above, for example, rely on underlying assumptions about ”high” and ”popular” cultural forms that are shaky, at best, and fundamentally flawed, at worst.
I recall the studies of the past decade, for example, showing dramatically strong and growing interest in opera. Much media praise and discipline-based bluster ensued. When nudged a bit, however, the most popular operas referenced by respondents turned out to be Phantom of the Opera and ”The Three Tenors.” This isn’t to suggest that those events aren’t ”high” or ”low,” but rather that the distinction is too fuzzy to be of practical use.
Is The Nutcracker high culture or popular culture? Is commercial film high or low? Is A Christmas Carol serious theater or popular entertainment? And does the answer matter in the least?
To be fair, the goals and insights of the study were well beyond the bullet list trumpeted in the press (it sought to explore how cultural consumption is related to social status, and how the status-consumption link might be modified by social class, education, income, age and gender). But we have a track record, as an industry, of running with the bullet points in forming our policy and our management decisions.
No matter how you decide to slice your audiences or your artforms, it’s best to do so in a way that’s directly relevant to the decision at hand, rather than by some perceived ”master” segmentation model. Each of us comprise many roles, many faces, many networks, and many categories. It can be useful to divide us into manageable chunks, but it can also blunt or blind our decision process if we believe such chunks to be ”real.”
As market segmentation strategist Walt Whitman put it:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
It’s worth noting that the idea of cultural ”omnivores” and ”univores” was first introduced more than 15 years ago by sociologist Richard Peterson. Props to Richard for an idea that keeps coming back!
It’s hard to believe a finding like this when one works in the arts field. A small Latino arts organization is worlds away from the Opera. Even if Opera attendees do attend more than one type of arts event, they are very unlikely to venture into our neighborhood for a workshop or performance. The economic elite, however, certainly are funding orchestras, operas, ballet companies, etc.
Now, if the study is claiming that not all economically elite individuals are funding the arts, that’s certainly true, but hardly news.
I imagine these data, such as they are, would be heavily effected by geography. I worked in theatre in Montana for many years, and also in NYC. Two pretty different cultures with very different expectations of “high,” “low,” “popular,” and “entertainment.” If you’ve ever seen ticket sales to your theatre decline because the rodeo was in town, you’ll get what I’m talking about.
Often, geography dictates the socioeconomic variable as well, with perhaps a relatively similar proportion of high net worth households in certain rural areas, but not enough raw numbers, or a large enough corporate or philanthropic footprint to support certain kinds of artistic activity. Theatres in these areas must cast a wider net for an audiences, many of whom would no doubt consider any excursion to the theatre “high” culture – even a trip to an amateur production.