Hadley - Audience Development and Cultural Policy
Hadley, S. (2021). Audience Development and Cultural Policy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-030-62969-4
This book uses a study of audience development to make a wider political point about the distribution of power and resources in the subsidised arts sector. In addition to offering a new perspective on what constitutes cultural authority in an increasingly globalised post-Keynesian context, it provides a detailed overview of the issues concerning audience development and different attempts to democratise access to the arts. Empirical evidence collected from interviews with key actors in the audience development field serves as a basis for the author’s arguments for a re-conceptualisation of audience development as an ideological function of cultural policy.
The author outlines the key debates but also the vested interests in the camps advocating for the democratisation of culture and, alternatively, for cultural democracy. He claims that the latter has resurged in recent times, as evident from the literature and empirical evidence the book is based on. The author also diagnoses what he describes as a reluctance or unwillingness to engage with subsidised culture as a form of failure. He also outlines how hostility to marketing and marketisation of culture in general created the conditions for audience development’s rise to prominence in the cultural sector, as part of the social inclusion agenda.
Two traditions of the discussed audience development approaches are described as ‘Art Lover tradition’ and ‘Social Justice tradition’. They are claimed to share similar motivations but divergent views on the transformative power of art and, consequently, the ultimate purpose of public subsidy for the cultural sector. Nevertheless, because of its ‘functional ambiguity’ the term audience development made it possible for the two traditions to coexist and indeed collaborate in their practices.
Finally, in light of all that has been said, the author discusses what he sees as the democratic and moral imperative to ensure quality of access to publicly funded culture. He discovers a significant degree of vested interest in the cultural field, working towards the preservation of the status quo. New solutions needed to change the current situation of stasis require a re-conceptualisation of the relationship between democratic and elite structures. The most important question that needs to be answered is how to best adapt and utilise the tools of audience development practice in a context where the notion of cultural participation has been extended beyond the arts and now encompasses the arena of everyday creativity.
Steven Hadley “Audience Development and Cultural Policy”