From cupright@Princeton.EDU Sun Jul 29 18:08:19 2001
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 18:53:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Craig B Upright <cupright@Princeton.EDU>
To: cupright@Princeton.EDU
Subject: baumann notes


Sociologist of culture rely on three main factors to explain the public
acceptance of a cultural product as art.  The first factor is the
\textit{changing opportunity space} brought about by social change outside
the art world.	DiMaggio (1992:44) contends that whether a cultural product
succeeds in earning recognition as art ``has depended on the shape of the
opportunity space,'' which is defined by the appearance of
``competitiors,'' ``substitutes,'' abd tghe formation of a pool of
high-stustus ``patrons'' who can act as sponsors.  A newly popular
substitute or competitor can act as a foil against which a cultural genre's
artistic status is enhanced.  In addition, a cultural product's association
with a high-staus audience can help to legitimate the product as art. 
These developments, which are essentially rooted ouside the art world, help
explain the timing of ``aesthitic mobility'' (Peterson 1994:179).

The second factor crucial to explaining the creation of artistics status is
the \textit{institutionalization of resources and practices} of production
and consumption by members within the art world.  Becker (1982) provides a
thorough analysis of the importance of arganizations and vetworks in art. 
Although the artist is at the center of the art world, the participation of
many different collaborators is essential for art to maintain its status as
art.  In this light, Becker (1982:301) expalins the creation of an art
world as an instance of successful collective action, of winning
``organizational victories'' and creating the ``apparatus of an art
world''.

The thrid main factor is the grounding of artistic worth in a
\textit{legitimating ideology}.  Ferguson (1998) makes the case for the
crucial roloe of the intellectualization of a cultural product in the
development of a cultural field.  Bourdieu's (1993) concept of a ``field''
of cultural production focuses on the relations between cultural produers
and consumers.	A cultual field (also applicalble to intellectual endeavors
outside the boundaries of art) comes into being when cultural production
begins to enjoy autonomy from other existing fields in the type of capial
available to cultual producers.  In any given field, actors engage in
competition for capital.  To the extent that there is a distince form of
symbolic capital available to consecreate cultural products of a particular
genre, the field is more autonomous.  For example, the literary field has
adhieved a high degree of autonomy--it offers prestifious prizes and
critical successes that constitute the symbolic capital that may serve as
an alternative to economic capital for authors.  Ferguson (1998:600) argues
that it is through texts that a field of cultual prodution is established
and a cultural product is transormed into an ``intellectual phenomenon.'' 
The develpment of a field-specific set of aesthetic princliples provides a
rationale for acception the definition of a cultual product as art and
offers analyses for particular products.