Audience perspectives on the European dimension in Aarhus 2017 events: impacts of EU cultural policy

Abstract

The EU’s cultural policy of creating a recognisable, common European identity is exemplified by the EU’s cultural programme, European Capitals of Culture (ECOCs), whose official purpose is to highlight similarities and differences across European cultures to generate a greater sense of European identity among the citizens of Europe. To date, there has been little qualitative investigation of how ECOC attenders perceive the representation of European culture in the events and what they think about using ECOC events to promote Europeanisation. In this article, I use the methodology of intercept interviews at four Aarhus 2017 events to explore these two aspects. Findings indicate that the inclusion of European culture in Aarhus 2017 events often went unnoticed by the event attenders, and there was uncertainty about what European culture might actually comprise. Instead of perceiving ECOC events as promoting Europe, event attenders tended to interpret Aarhus 2017 events within a local, national or international framework, with ECOC events perceived as promoting tolerance and intercultural understanding. The findings are discussed in relation to the value of ECOC as a political-cultural initiative for generating European citizens’ identification with the EU.     

Global competitiveness and special events in cultural tourism: the example of the Barnes Exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

This study investigates the role of cultural tourism in enhancing urban global competitiveness. The recent growth in urban cultural products is linked to improved quality of life, economic prosperity and development. An example of an urban cultural tourism product of international significance is used as a case study for this research to investigate such potential linkages. From September 1994 to January 1995 the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto hosted a major art exhibit of French impressionist paintings ‘From Cezanne to Matisse, Great French Paintings,’ known as the ‘Barnes Exhibition.’ This special cultural event affected the attraction mix of Toronto's urban tourism product and acted as a ‘magnet’ drawing out of town visitors to Toronto with the main purpose of visiting this unique event. This paper explores the spatial impact of the Barnes Exhibit in a segmentation analysis of ‘out‐of‐town’ Barnes Exhibit visitors. Visitors are segmented by major trip purpose and visitor origin. The pull of the Exhibit is examined using two simple gravity models to describe the distance decay effect. Out‐of‐town visitors from Ontario are compared with visitors from the United States according to the main purpose of their trip, their demographics and spending patterns. Out‐of‐town visitors from Ontario tend to be older than US visitors, spend less than US visitors and are more likely to have the Barnes Exhibit as the main purpose of their trip to Toronto. This study illustrates the value‐added nature of special events to the urban cultural product both for recreational and tourist travel. It shows the complexity and overlapping of urban fields of a Toronto attraction for different types of visitors to the same event. Cette étude examine le rôle du tourisme culturel dans l'amélioration la compétitivité mondiale urbaine. La récente expansion des produits culturels urbains est liee a l'amélioration de la qualité de vie, à la prospérité et au développement économique. Un exemple de produit culturel urbain d'importance Internationale constitue l'étude de cas de cette recherche qui essaie d'établir de potentiels rapports entre ces facteurs. De septembre 1994 à Janvier 1995, la Galerie d'Art de l'Ontario a accueilli une importante exposition de pein‐tures impressionnistes françaises intitutée: de Cézanne à Matisse, chefs‐d'oeuvre de la peinture française, mais plus connue sous le nom de l'Exposition Barnes. Cet événement culturel a joué un rôle dans le pôle attractifdu tourisme urbain de la ville de Toronto, L'exposition a attiré, tel un aimant, de nombreux visiteurs, venus de l'extérieur de Toronto, uniquement pour visiter cette exposition. Cet article explore l'impact spatial de l'Exposition Barnes grâce à une analyse de segmentation des visiteurs de l'exposition venus de l'exteriéur. Les visiteurs ont été segmentés en fonction de leur motif principal pour la visite et en fonction de leur origine. L'attrait de l'exposition a été analysé avec deux simples modèles de gravitation qui décrivent l'effet des distances sur la fréquence des visites. Les visiteurs extérieurs venus de l'Ontario sont comparés aux visiteurs venus des États‐Unis en fonction de leur motivation de voyage, de leur profit socio‐démographique et de leurs habitudes de dépenses. Les visiteurs ontariens ont tendance àêtre plus âgés que les visiteurs américains et l'Exposition Barnes était le but principal de leur voyage a Toronto. L'étude montre bien la nature de la valeur ajoutée des événements spéciaux sur le produit culturel urbain du point de vue du voyage récréatifet de celui du voyage touristique. Elle montre la complexité et le chevauchement des domaines urbains d'un pôle attractif torontois pour différents types de visiteurs d'un même événement.     

Listing and protecting culturally significant events: intangible cultural heritage and policy considerations for hockey broadcasting in Canada

ABSTRACT

Listed events are policies enacted by states to protect the free-to-air rights of specific television and radio broadcasts that are identified as being of particular national significance. Some states (including the UK, Belgium, and Argentina) have begun to adopt these listed events policies, typically regarding significant national sporting events. We re-conceptualize listed events as a practical means by which to protect the intangible cultural heritage of states – an issue addressed by international institutions such as ICOMOS and UNESCO. Furthermore, we engage in a critical analysis regarding both the merits and potential problems involved in the possibility of Canada adopting listed broadcasting events policies, specifically involving hockey broadcasts.     

Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity

The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in European Capitals of Culture in practice. On all levels of the EU’s cultural policy, the rhetoric of European cultural identity and its ‘unitedness in diversity’ is related with the ideas and practices of fostering common cultural heritage.     

Assessing the contribution of cultural agglomeration in urban regeneration through developing cultural strategies

The recent discussion regarding contemporary urban regeneration has underlined the increasing role of art and cultural agglomeration as an essential part of a progressive agenda for local development. In fact, there is a good deal of literature which is related to specific and finite cultural strategies. Although scholars, in some cases, may suggest other perspectives, their value narrows to a comprehensive evaluation regarding the possible interpretation of cultural agglomeration in respect of urban regeneration. Accordingly, this study, by using an interdisciplinary systemic approach based on the clustering of cultural carriers, developed the cultural strategies under a six concepts scheme. The study then, through developing a method based on modes and development approach of cultural agglomeration, recategorized the six mentioned strategies into three major categories of cultural strategies, to find out their contribution in the process of urban regeneration. Overall, the study revealed the extent of cultural agglomeration as a method of developing cultural strategies in urban regeneration.     

Sub-national cultural policy--where the action is: Mapping state cultural policy in the United States

Abstract

This paper argues that cultural policy analysts should turn their analytical attention towards the cultural policies of sub-national levels of government. State level cultural policy has become an increasingly important locus of interest for those who are concerned with the health and stability of the arts, culture, and humanities in American life, and the same is undoubtedly true elsewhere. This rise in the importance of cultural policy at the state level has not been accompanied by a similarly evolving understanding of the cultural policy system that has developed at this sub-national level. Cultural policy at the level of an American state has been the sum total of the more or less independent, uncoordinated activities of a variety of state agencies and allied organizations and institutions. This paper lays out a number of hypotheses concerning what we might be likely to find in such an inquiry and reports some preliminary findings from a cultural policy mapping project in the State of Washington.     

Modelling the cultural industries

Alternative definitions of the cultural industries lead to the construction of different models of the cultural production sector of the economy and hence to a different array of specific industries which are contained within the sector. In turn this implies not just differing estimates of the contribution of the cultural industries to output and employment in the economy but also significant differences in the way economic analysis can be applied to the cultural sector as a whole. This paper begins by discussing the way in which an economic approach to interpreting the scope of the creative and cultural industries can lead to a reasonable basis for defining them. It then goes on to examine the content of six distinct models of these industries, asking the question: is it possible to find a common core group of industries on which all of the models agree? The paper then considers the implications of the models for economic analysis of the cultural sector, and finishes with some conclusions for cultural policy.     

Theorising the role of cultural products in cultural diplomacy from a Cultural Studies perspective

Cultural diplomacy continues to attract significant interest as a potential means for states to exercise ‘soft power’. However, policy-makers and academics who assert the efficacy of cultural diplomacy in terms of influencing foreign publics and states rarely consider how cultural products are actually received abroad. This article proposes that this process of reception can be better understood with reference to the theoretical approaches of Cultural Studies, which encourage us to recognise the extent to which audiences are implicated in processes of meaning-making, processes which are closely associated with the articulation of identity. By applying these approaches to cultural diplomacy, policy-makers and researchers could shift their focus to an exploration of realities of the reception cultural products abroad, which would better inform their assumptions about how to achieve successful cultural diplomacy.     

Participation in cultural legislation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the recent legislative process concerning the funding of cultural institutions in Finland. The drafting of the bill was opened up to participation by artists and other professionals and facilitated by an outside partner. The text draws on research conducted to evaluate the participatory element in the law-drafting, and further analyses it in the wider framework of participatory decision-making and governance. The research shows that within the confined scope of the participatory phase of the law-drafting, the deliberative process succeeded in creating positive experiences of participation. However, set in the wider framework of the legislation, the effect of participation remains limited. A notion of ‘placebo participation’ is suggested to explain this perceived empowerment despite a lack of strong evidence for effective participation. The process is further interpreted in terms of incompatibility of interests between political participation and institutionally led participatory governance.     

The creation of cultural policy in the media: a field research of cultural discourses in Germany

In Germany, cultural policy is formally made on the level of municipalities, the Länder (federal states) and the federal government. With approximately eight billion Euros per year, they finance a large percentage of cultural and arts activities: music, theater, dance, museums, libraries, film and the preservation of sites of historic interest. The federal government sets the legal framework in which art can be produced and distributed, and finances it indirectly through tax reductions (VAT reduction), copy right laws, and special health insurance and retirement arrangements for artists (Künstlersozialkasse). Within this institutionalized legal and governmental setting, the discursive dimension of politics is often forgotten, particularly when policy creation is being discussed. This article focuses on the discursive dimensions of politics within the field of classical and contemporary music and offers a discourse analysis of mass media coverage to investigate policy‐making.     

The cultural paradiplomacy of Barcelona since the 1980s: understanding transformations in local cultural paradiplomacy

This article seeks to explain the conditions for the emergence and institutionalization of the cultural paradiplomacy of the city of Barcelona and its local effects. The recognition of the city as an active participant on the international stage is based on its evolution from an industrial to a service economy. Against this backdrop, Barcelona’s city council, in common with many other city authorities operating in the world’s metropolises during the 1980s, initiated its own cultural paradiplomacy as a strategy for attracting capital and promoting local development. This policy became established as part of a new multilevel system of governance. This article analyzes the causes of the institutionalization of this activity from an intergovernmental perspective. It concludes that in the context of economic globalization, the emergence of cities’ cultural paradiplomacy is strongly related to the restructuring of the State and its external administration and to the intensification of the ‘cultural branding’ of cities as a tool for global competition.