Cultural Consumption in the Fine and Popular Arts Realms

Abstract In this paper, we review recent sociological research dealing with the consumption of culture produced in the fine and popular arts realms. Most of the initial theoretical developments in the study of culture consumption were intended to explain audience segmentation in the fine arts realm under the ‘cultural capital’ paradigm developed by Pierre Bourdieu. This paradigm shift has led to the current dominance of the ‘omnivore thesis’ in the sociology of taste. The consumption of popular culture, however, remained for a long time dominated by the Birmingham ‘resistance’ and ‘subculture’ paradigms developed in the 1970s. Recent popular arts consumption research has moved beyond the limitations of the subculture paradigm by incorporating the theoretical legacy of the cultural capital paradigm in order to account for patterns in audience and producer differentiation in popular arts ‘scenes’. This has brought the study of popular and fine arts culture consumption under a single conceptual framework after a long period of theoretical disengagement.