Abstract
The Sunday “Arts and Leisure” section of the New York Times for selected years is examined to gauge competition between “high” culture and “popular” culture. From 1962 through 1988 high culture consistently outranked popular culture in percentage of articles, but after 1988 popular culture gained steadily, and by 1993 accounted for 49 percent of articles as compared with only 39 percent for high culture. Most of the gain was accounted for by coverage of motion pictures. For two out of four sub-categories a significant correlation was found between editorial content and advertising, so that one cannot reject the hypothesis that advertising affects editorial coverage.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Balfe, Judith Huggins and Meyersohn, Rolf (1996) “Arts Participation by the Baby Boomers”, in Erin V. Lehman (ed.), Age and Arts Participation. National Endowment for the Arts, Research Division Report #34.
Dhalla, N.K. (1980) “Advertising as an Antirecession Tool”, Harvard Business Review January– February: 158–165.
Duthy, Robin and Art Market Research (1996) The Daily Telegraph Art Index.
Miller, Judith (1996) “As Patrons Age, Future of Arts Is Uncertain”, New York Times February 12: A-1, C-12.
Robinson, John P. and Jack Faucett Associates (1993) Arts Participation in America: 1982–1992. National Endowment for the Arts, Research Division Report #27.
Vogel, Carol (1996) “Confident Climate Fosters New Art Galleries”, New York Times October 1: C-11.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Heilbrun, J. The Competition between High Culture and Popular Culture as Seen in the New York Times. Journal of Cultural Economics 21, 29–40 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007304802683
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007304802683