CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Foreman-Wernet, F. & Dervin, B. (2004). A study comparing audience uses of the arts and popular culture: Applying a common methodological framework. Paper presented at the annual Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts Conference, October 7-9, George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia
©Lois Foreman-Wernet & Brenda Dervin, 2004

ABSTRACT:
In an effort to increase their audiences, legitimacy, and support bases arts institutions are increasingly emulating purveyors of popular culture through the use of sophisticated marketing techniques and blockbuster programming. Two arguments have emerged in response. One suggests that if the arts have something unique and vital to offer, as is suggested by their nonprofit status and their orientation as a public good, then it is important not only to the arts community but to society as a whole that this trend be reversed in order to ensure these unique qualities are retained and made available to the whole of society. On the other hand, some argue that there are no real qualitative difference between the arts and popular culture and that it is therefore appropriate that the arts should fight for their survival in the marketplace along with popular culture products and institutions.

The study presented here offers a methodology [Sense-Making] that allows the researcher to look qualitatively at audience experiences with the full continuum of offerings from the non-profit arts to popular culture. The focus emphasizes how audience members experienced and evaluated cultural products in the contexts of their lives. The study is based on in-depth interviews of 152 students at a major midwestern university whose student body demographic profile mirrors the U.S. These students' experiences with more than 1750 arts and popular culture products are analyzed. The results are presented as a series of themes comparing audience uses of both the arts and popular culture, focusing in particular on how audience members experienced their exposures to cultural products as good or bad, helpful or hindering.

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OTHER MATERIALS BY THESE AUTHORS ON THIS WEB SITE:
For Foreman-Wernet,
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistforemanwernet.html

For Dervin,
See:  http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistdervin.html