2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
-
Upload
karolina-augeviciute -
Category
Documents
-
view
214 -
download
0
Transcript of 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
1/8
DiMaggio,Paul,
Cultural
PolicyStudies:fVhattheyare andfVhy fVeNeedThem,Journal ofArts
Management andLaw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
CulturalPolicy
Studies:
WhatThey are and
Why WeNeedThem
P A U L D I M A G G I O
Introduction
The enterprise of
policy
analysis has madeitsgreatestcontributions in
the areasof economic and soiai decision making. Work on incomes, edu-
cation,
health, housing, and in other policy arenashas assessedprimarily
distributional issues. The concern of mosi vvriters on soiai
policy
has been
to determine hovv the statcanbestencourage the distribution of some good
(such as money, housing, schooling, healthcare)and, to a lesserextent, to
assess
the euity of such distributions. The more unjmimously desired the
good, and the more readily uantifiable its delivery, the more
policy
analysts have written about it.
There have, to be sure, developed small enclaves of policy analysts
concerned vvith flelds l ike the arts, the humanities, Communications,
science, and educational curricula. Individuals in cach ofthese fields have
done good vvork, but they have done it in isolation from their potential col-
leagues inadjacent areas.
Many
of the ideas in this papcr vvere developed in dialogue vvith my coileagues
RussellW. Neumann, VValterW . Povvell,andjanetWeiss.I am grateful to Charles
E .
Lindblom
for ceireful reading and valuablc
criticism
of an earlier version of this
paper;and to the Andrevv W. Mellon Foundation and the YaleProgram on Non-
Profit Organizations for research support. None of thc persons or organizations
listedabove necessarUy sharethe opinions verbalized herein.
1983 Pul D i M a g g i o .
A l l
Rights
R c K i v e d .
241
Copyright c) 2002ProQuest
Information
and LearningCompany
Copyright c) Heldref
Publications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
2/8
DiMaggio,
Paul,
CulturalPolicyStudies:What
they
are andWhy WeNeedThem,Joumalo f
Arts
Management andLaw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
TheJoumalof ArtsManagementand Law
What I propose in this paper is
that
scholars and practitioners con
cerned
vvith
the flelds enumerated above have more in common
vvith
one
another than they think; andperhapsless in commonvvithstudentsof other
aspects
ofpublic
policy
than they are accustomed tobelieving.In the
pages
that
follovv, I shallattempt to describe vvhat makes culturalpolicydistinc-
tive; explain vvhat the cultural
policy
subfields have in common; consider
some of thereasons
that
culturalpolicy,as a
field,
has so long been ignored
i n the
United States
and suggest the importance of a more deliberate ap-
proach to the formulation of publicpolicy.
What is CulturalPolicy?
Cultu ral policies,
in brief, are
those that
regulate vvhat has been called
[ the marketplace of ideas. (I use the term policy loosely to include
unintended but systematic
conseuences
of government actions as
vvell
as
action tovvards identifiedends.)Cultural policies influence the barriers to
entry and the chances of
survival
and adoption of ideas, veilues, styles, and
genres. They do this, for the mostpart,by afFecting industries
that
are in-
volved
incultural
production:
the production of materials
that
are
primarily
ex-
pressive, ideational, or aesthetic, l ike books, paintings, television pro
grams, scientific research reports, school textbooks andcurricula, sermons,
dramatic productions, or videocassettes. Cultural policies influence the
television programming we see, the artistic styles and scientific
methodologies
that
are supported, distributed, and esteemed, the ideas and
values
that
our children leeurn in school, and even, on occasion, the meirket
positions of divergent religious doctrines.
A s the impact of government action in suchareasas communication,
education, and the arts has grovvn,policy subfields have developed
that
share
a
family
resemblance in the special problems
vvith vvhich
they are con
cerned, and in the mechanisms
that
are used to solve
these
problems.
Because discourse on cultural
policy
is less
vvell
developed than discourse on
soiai or economic policy, it may be useful to consider some examples of
cultural
policies
that
are both direct and indirect.
Direct cultural
policies.
Some government programs directly create,
mandate, or
forbid
the production or distribution of materials embodying
specified
values or ideas. The most
familiar
examples are decisions about
vvhat curricula or ideas should be
taught
in the public schools. Such deci
sions are usuaUy made by school boards, departments, or specific teachers,
vvhen they establish course reuirements or choose teaching materials.
Sometimes such decisions are mandated by
stat
Icgislatures,
vvhich
have
reuired courses on topics as diverse as drugabuseand the free enterprise
system. Government
itself
directlyproduces and distributes avviderangeof
242 Vol. 13, No. 1
Copyright c) 2002ProQuest
Information
and Learning Company
Copyright c) HeldrefPublications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
3/8
DiMaggio,Paul,Cultural
Policy
Studies:fVhatthey
are and
WhyWe
Need
Them, Joumal ofArts
Management andL aw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
The
Fulure
cultural
materials, for example, vvhen it provides political or technical
training filmsfor airmed-services personnel orcreatespublic service televi
sion advertisements encouraging energy conservation or discouraging
smoking.
Government agencies, usually at the stator
l o ca l
leve l ,may also
prohibit
directly the distribution of cultural materials, as vvhen movies are
censored or books purged from library shelves.
A second set of direct cultura l policy mechanisms are contracts,
grants, and fellovvships direcdy to artists, scholars, and scientists. By pro-
viding funds for their efforts, the
stat
directly subsidizes some cultural
materials, improves the market position of
those
it supports, and
adds
to
the incentives forothers to do or sponsor simUar vvork.
A
third form of direct government involvement in culture involves the
distribution
of funds to organizations
involved
in the production or
distribution of cultural materials. Direct
stat
support of universities,
libraries,
art museums, and public television stations falls into this
category. Such support, if provided across the board, may increase the
rangeof programs that recipients can pursue. Government aid to higher
education, for cxample, encouraged the development of nevv
departments
and interdisciplinary programs thatenabled
students
to encounter ideas to
vvhich
they might othervvise not have been exposed. If such support is given
selectively,
it vvillvalidate the programs of cultural organizations thatmeet
government speciflcations and may provide incentives for other orgzmiza-
tions to become more similar to those that receive support.
Indirect
culturalpolicies. Some cul tura lpolicies vvork indirect lyby affect
ing
the market for cultural products.
Most
programs thathave influenced
culturalproduction by affecting markets have done so unintentionally. For
example, the Federal Communications Commission's regulations have
over time influenced the structure
o f
the television industryand the barriers
to entry thatpotential communicators have faced. For example,
F C C
deci
sions that have blocked or facilitated the development of nevv tech-
nologiessuchas F M broadcasting or cable television transmissionhave
also affected the number and variety of program sources for the broadcast
media. T o the extent that different programmers present different ideas,
content, or values (orthat different market structures lead broadcasters to
choose different kinds of programs) the F C C has made cul tural policy.
S i m i l a r l y ,
postai regulations (and, in particular, postai rates)have a great
deal to do vvith the range and diversity of ideas that magazine publishers
canshare
vvithreaders.
Government has also exerted a largely inadvertent
influence
on school curricu la through the market. For example, federeJ
support for large city school systems (along
vvith
demographic factors)
strengthened the position of urban schools in the textbook market. By the
early 1970s, large textbook publishers vvere less
vvilling
to acquiesce to
Spring 1983 243
Copyright c) 2002
ProQuest Information
and Learning Company
Copyright c) Heldref
Publications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
4/8
DiMaggio,
Paul,
Cultural
PolicyStudies:Whattheyare andfVhy eNeed
Them, Joumal ofArts
Management andLaw, 13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
TkeJoumalof
Arts
ManagementandLavo
the demands of southem book-adoption committees and became more
responsive to the
reuirements
of systems l ike
Nevv
Y o r k or Detroit that
demanded the
inclusion
of
minority
group members in reading and history
texts.
Some market-based cul tura l policies, such as the use of cul tural
youchers to encourage low-income people to
visit
museums, are intentional
i n
their effects. Educ ationa l reformers have advocated that government
provide educat ional vouchers to encourage altemativc forms of school ing.
Theartsprograms
o f
the Comprehensive Employment andTra inin g Agency
used the labor market to encourage art in publ ic places.
One important
k i n d
of indirect culturalpolicy is non-regulation. In
the field of
religion,
for example, the absence of regulation has proved an
immense boom to church leaders vvho use methods usually associated vvith
mzurket enterprise to compete vvithmore traditional denominations.
Broad
cast advertising, mass mailings, and revenue-producing sales activities
have
a l l
contributed to the grovvth
o f
certain modern sects. Were the
stat
to
applybusiness-regulatory mechanisms to churches, the balance ofpovverin
American
theology might be
uite
different.
Finz i l ly , government intcrvcnes in the marketplace of ideas through
the taxation system. Government taxation policies that favor nonprofit
organizations are responsible inpartfor the
ubiuity
and robustness of the
nonprofit form among American arts organizations. In the
absence
of the
tax incentive, fevver museums
vvould
have been founded; and those that
vvere might have come to be sponsored by the s t a t , as they are in Europe,
or have developed as profit-seeking enterprises in the
mold
of P . T . Bar-
num's
American
Mus eum. And the
k i n d
of art displayed and the programs
offered
the public
vvould
have been far different. S i m i l a r l y , the tax shelter
fo r investment in movie production vvas probably responsible, at least in
part,for the relativerangeand diversityof
American
f i lmin the 1960s, and
its suspension vvas a major factor i n the recentral ization and, in the viewof
many
critics,
the homogenization of
American
movies in the 1970s.
The Neglect of
Cultural
P o l i c y
The aforegoing vvill,1 hope, provide a senseof the variety of vvays in
which
government policies affect our cu lture. G i v e n the importance and
ubiuity ofstatregulation of culture, it is remarkable that so littleatten-
tion
has been focused on the underlying problems of cultural
policy
mak
i n g . Cultural policy issues have either been ignored or ghettoized into nar-
rovvly technical fields l ike Communications,arts, or science policy. Com-
parative studies of
cultural
policiesin such fields are nonexistent. Common
problems of the cultura l subfields, and the appl icabili ty of approaches
244 Vol. 13, No. 1
Copyright c) 2002ProQuest
Information
and Learning Company
Copyright c) Heldref
Publications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
5/8
DiMaggio,Paul,
Cultural
PolicyStudies:
What
theyare andWhy
We
Need
Them
,Joumal ofArts
Management and
Law,
13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
The
Fulure
developed in one fieid to the others, have received little attention. P o l i cy
analysts vvho vvorry about cu rricul um rarely talk to those concerned vvith
the arts; neither has much to do vvithCommunicationspolicyanalysts; and
none of them interacts vvith science policy specialists.
Certainly this neglect has to do neither vvith the unimportance of
cultural
policynorvviththe novelty of the notion
that
such apolicyarea ex-
ists. European policy makers have vvorried about cultureJpolicy, broadly
defined,
for decades. A nd the devcloping nations accord culturad policy
issues the highest priority. The United Nations, through U N E S C O , has
sponsored a shelfs vvorth of studies and a series of conferences about
cultural
policy in every region of the vvorld.
During
the
Nevv Deal
in this
country, EdvvardC . Li nde man, in a study undertaken at the instigation of
Roosevelt
aide Herbert C r o l y , predicted that the
stat
of the future vvill
need
soiai
technicians . . . to cngage in cultural planning just as
technological
experts and economists . . . pltm for orderly material produc
tion and dist ribut ion. *
Perhaps fortunately, Lindeman'sca l lfor an elite core of
cultural
plan-
ners
vvent unheeded. More surprising than the absence of largc-scale
cultural
planning, hovvever, has been the neglect and
virtual
disappearance
o f explicitdiscussion of the issues thatLindeman raised during a period in
vvhich State action has become ever more
conseuential
in shaping and
regulating the cultural marketplace. VVhat has caused this substantial in-
hibition
of discourse about culturzd
policy?
For one thing, culturalpolicy only becomes salient in the presence of
\
cultural
conflict
and uncertainty, vvhen the marketplace of ideas is at least
potentially competitive. To the extent
that parents
and educators
share
common
interpretations of their country's
past,
or common perceptions of
the vtJues thatschooling should imbue, debatesabout curricula and text-
books are u n l i k c l yto arise. T o the extent
that
a science is paradigmatic, or
an artistic styleattractsthe universa l allegiance of artists and critics, alloca-
tion
of
public
support is a
distributional
issue, not a
cultural
one. T o the ex-
tent that television programs rcflect a
vievv
of societythat is
vvidely
shared,
regulation
of broadcasters is
prely
economic.
It isonlyvvhen nevv values , interests, or ideologies rise to challenge the
o ld
that
dist ributiona l issues are transformed into issues of cul tural
choicethat the
stat
begins to affect the marketplace of ideas vvhen it
distributes funds to culture producers or regulates cultural industries.
Significantly,vvhen educators demanded regulation of the American
Book
Company,
vvhich through bribery and int imidation obtained a near mo-
Edvvard
C. Lindeman,
IVealthand
Culture.
N . Y . :
Harcourt,Braccand Company,
1936.
Spring 1983 245
Copyright c) 2002
ProQuest Information
and Learning Company
Copyright c) Heldref
Publications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
6/8
DiMaggio,
Paul,
Cultural
PolicyStudies:Whattheyare andWhy
We
Need
Them
,
Joumal ofArts
Management andLaw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
TheJoumalofArtsManagementand Law
nopoly of the textbook trade around the tum of the century, their objec-
tions vvere to its methods, not to the values itstextsconveyed. By contrast,
vvhenliberal and minority educators criticized the much more competitive
textbook
publishing
industry in the mid-1960s, their complaints vvere aimed
at vvhat the books said, nothovvthey vveresold.Perhaps the relative unity of
the 1940s and 1950s produced too litde dissensus to engender a cu ltural
policy
field. The cultural conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s challenged core
values on enough fronts to make the
family
resemblzmces betvveen such
policy
areas as Communications, art, and education more
apparent.
This,
hovvever, is not the vvhole story. Tvvo other factors also inhibit
the development of a unified, comparatively oriented cultureil
policy
field.
The first has to do vvith the
nature
of the impact thatpublic policies have
upon cultural production: Cultural impacts of publ ic policies are usuziUy
conceptualized by planners as extemalities (i.e., by-products) and rarely
lend themselves to simple quantification. Efforts to make broadcasting
more competitive, to equalize school district educational budgets, or to ex-
pand the publics of art museums al l affect the content ofcultural products.
But
the effects of such efforts are measured in concentra tion ra tios , dollars,
orpaid admissions.
Nonetheless, a substantial amount ofpublic policy discourse in other
fields(forexample, environmentalpolicy)explicitlyaddressesexternalities;
and the methodological difficulties inherent in measuring the impact of
public programs on the range, nature, and availabilityof
cultural
products
are no more formidable than those
involved
in, for example, assessing the
effects of school on the learning of children.
Perhaps the principai
cause
of the
inhibition
of cultural-policy
discourse in the United States has to do
vvith political
values related to
democracy and to the first iunendment guarzuitees of frcedom of speech and
expression. This ethos, and the market metaphor used to express it, vvas
statedby Justice Holmes in his dissent from the Supreme Court's decision
mAbramsv.
U.S. in 1919:
. . vvhen man have realizedthattime hasupsetmany fighting faiths, they
may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their
ovvnconductthatthe ultimate good desired isbetterreached by free tradein
ideasthat the
best
testoftruthisthe povverofthought to getitselfaccepted in
the competition of the market . . .
Just as classic economics posits an opposition betvveen the market and the
State, so the dominant tradition in
American
politiceil thought has been
guidedby abeliefthat the statshould not, in a democracy, become a ma
jo r
force in the marketplace of ideas, either through strenuous regulation or
by flooding the market vvith its ovvn products. For this reason, vvhen the
246 Vol. 13, No. 1
Copyright c) 2002ProQuest Informationand Learning Company
Copyright c) Heldref
Publications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
7/8
DiMaggio,
Paul,
CulturalPolicyStudies:Whattheyare andWhyWe
Need
Them,Joumal ofArts
Management andLaw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241
TheFuture
State, either through well-intentioned efforts to prime the pump of cultural
production or, indirect ly, through its involvement in other functions, i m-
pinges upon the marketplace of ideas, it is
difRcult
for
those
in government,
or for
policy
analysts vvho vvork from
official
definitions of
policy
problems,
to acknovvledge or talk
about
its
c o n s e u e n c e s .
Perhaps the
best
evidence for this lies in the efforts of government
agencies
explicitly
charged
vvith
subsidizing or regulating cultural produc
tion to avoid acknovvledging their autonomy or influence. Such efforts
employ
three strategies
of disassociation. One strategy, available only to
those agencies vvhose programs affect cultural production indirect ly, is
deniai. Thus the FC C has traditionallytreated its role as one of technical
and economic regulation. By attending to uestionsof the relative merit or
economic feasibility of competing technologies vvithout considering their
cultural c o n s e u e n c e s ,
the F C C has set the constraints
vvithin vvhich
American
mass
culture has developed vvithout assessing seriously the im
pact of its decisions.
A second strategyfor avoiding overt cultural
policy
choicesfavored
by
bodies,
l ike
the National Endovvments for the Arts and the Humzuiities
and the National Science Foundation,
vvhich
fund the production, distribu
tion, or preservation of cul tural materialsis to
assert
that agency pro
grams simply reflect the desires and
demands
of constituencies i n the
field.
Thisargumentis based onpoliticalreality: agencies do need constit-
uency support and much decision making is reactive. Nonetheless, the
reflection rationale inhibits attention to the vvays in vvhich such pro
cedrai
matters
as internal routines,
e l i g i b i l i t y r eu i r em en t s ,
the scope of
advisory decision making, the channels through vvhichconstituency vievvs
flovv
into the agency, and many
othersdo
in fact, systematically encourage
or discourage the support of different kinds of producers.
A thirdstrategyof disassociation is to export decision-making respon-
sibi l i tyoutside the agency's ovvnborders. In practice, this method takestvvo
forms. The first, vvhich at the federal level invariably
meets
vvith congres-
sional favor, is geographic decentral ization; cultural support funds are
handed over to geographically dispEirate autonomous or semi-autonomous
bodiesfor example, the
stat
arts agencies or the National Institute of
Education's Regionai Educational Laboratories. Another form is the crea-
tion
of rotating expert panels,
vvhich
decide among competing programs or
proposals: by letting professionals decide, the agency, in effect,
relinuishes
its povver to authoritative pract itioners vvho
possess
the expertise re
uired
to make distinctions too
difficult
to be left to lay personnel. (Never
mind that
staff of agencies
l ike
the Arts Endovvment or the N SF are usually
professionals vvho, i fthey vvere not employed in the agency, might be prime
Spring 1983 247
Copyright c) 2002
ProQuest Information
and LearningCompany
Copyright c) Heldref
Publications
-
7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them
8/8
DiMaggio,
Paul,
CulturalPolicyStudies:What
they
areandfVhyWeNeedThem, Joumal of
Arts
Management and
L aw,
13:1
(1983:Spring)
p.241
The
Joumal
oJArtsManagementand Law
candidates for the panels.) On occasion,
these
two forms are combined, as
vvhen funds are subgranted by a stat agency that itself uses professional
panels.
These decision-exporting
techniues
are time-honored and defensible
methods for managing dif l icul t decisions under conditions of uncertainty.
F r e u e n t l y ,
hovvever, they become not
simply
administrative tools, but
rhetoricalfig leaves, behindvvhichgovernment managershide in asserting
their ovvn neutral role. When this occurs, consideration of the impact of
support policies on the
life
chances of ideas, methodologies, and artistic
genres tends to be foreclosed.
Conclusion
To
the extent
that stat
action has grovvn to be an important factor in
shaping the marketplace of ideas in a variety ofcultural
fields,
inattention
to the processes by vvhich this influence is exerted is both dangerous and
vvasteful. It is dangerous because the negative externalities of programs
vvith no explicitly cultural goals cannot be amended if they are poorly
understood; andbecausefailure to acknovvledge the impact of government
actionon the c ul tural marketplace mzikes itdifficult, i fnot impossible, con-
sciouslyto devise programs to achieve (or avoid) given cultural ends. It is
vvastefulbecausea comparativeassessmentof the c ommon problems facing
cultural policymakers, and of the rangeof mechanisms used to solvethese
problems,
could
permit a more rational
assessment
of the
policy
alter-
natives available to decision makers in each
field.
The era in
vvhich
government
could
pretend to maintain a
latssezjaire
stancetovvards thc cultural marketplace has passed. What is important novv
is to develop a vocabularyvvith vvhich to discuss the values at stakc, and a
traditionof comparative policy analysis and research that vvillenable c u l -
tural
policy makers to exert the influencethatthey already
vvield
cr i t i ca l ly ,
self-consciously,
and vvith some avvareness of the
likely conseuences
of
their actions.
248 Vol. 13, No. 1
Copyright c)2002ProQuest Informationand Learning Company
Copyright c) HeldrefPublications