The Making of Cultural Policy: A European Perspective



16

symphony concerts. Furthermore, innovation in composition of serious music has not been attractive and
exciting enough to maintain audiences. Preferences for cultural preferences are not given, but shaped by
education and experience. Rather than saturation described by Gossen's second law of diminishing
marginal utility, cultural goods show
over time increasing marginal utility. The hundredth literary book
one reads gives more satisfaction than any of the previous books, since the frame of reference will be
bigger. The latest concert of Bach music impresses more than previous ones, since one gradually
discovers the unifying themes in Bach's oeuvre. Second, culture is a memorable experience. Experiencing
a Hamlet at a young age can lead to lifelong memories.

Bourdieau (1979) argues that high culture has snob appeal. When the rest starts appreciating some
high culture, the elite looses interest and moves on to other forms of high culture. It is akin to the theory
of clubs where the utility of culture falls if more people enjoy them. Baumol and Bowen (1966) noted
that audiences for the performing arts in the US and UK consist mainly of middle-aged people,
professionals, managers and white-collar workers with high education and high incomes. Throsby and
Whithers (1979) find similar profiles for US and Australian audiences. SCP (2000) finds for the
Netherlands a diminishing interest for classical art of people between 16 and 40 years and growing
interest among older people. Ethnic minorities with the exception of people from the Dutch Indies
participate less than average in the arts. Prieto-Rodrfquez and Fernandez-Blanco (2000) use the Spanish
Structure, Conscience and Class Biography 1991 Survey to estimate a bivariate probit model to
characterise the average profile of audiences for classical and popular music. Half were popular music
followers and only a quarter were classical music fans. Interestingly, the hypothesis that classical and
popular music fans belong to independent groups is rejected. Controlling for effects of socioeconomic
characteristics (sex, marital status, number of children, household responsibilities, education and whether
one is student, pensioner, unemployed, housewife or employee), both groups seem to have an ‘innate’
taste for music. This suggests that music lovers are ‘omnivores’ who enjoy classical
and popular music.
No effects of gender or marital status were detected, but age has a negative, nonlinear effect on listening
to popular music. Classical music listening has a significant positive effect only for young adults (30-45
years). Education, cultural backgrounds of parents and occupational status have strong positive effects on
classical music listening, but not on popular music listening. Controlling for all other factors, pensioners
and housewives listen on average more to classical music, perhaps because their opportunity cost of time
is less. Finally, listening to popular or classical music is an urban phenomenon, more in Madrid and
Barcelona than in Andalucia or Galicia. Sintas and Alvarez (2002) analyse social consumption of culture
by Spanish people using both Bourdieu’s ‘distinction hypothesis’ and Lancaster’s (1966) theory of
characteristics of products. They conclude that culture in Spain has symbolic value associated with social
class and allows people to express and distinguish themselves. Still, the rising education level since the



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