Cultural Policy

Cultural policy in western Europe has taken two directions. The first emphasizes democratization, inclusion, and greater access, in the form of projects intended to make art available to the people. The second promotes exclusivity, providing subsidies for the producers of so-called high culture rather than those associated with working-class and ethnic minority groups.

The rise of the cultural industries is very much bound up with the rise of mass culture. This term is intended to draw critical attention to the modification of art. In the second half of the 20th century, the growth of the cultural industries accelerated. A number of factors were responsible for this: (a) the rising prosperity in the global north, (b) increasing leisure time, (c) rising levels of literacy, (d) links between ...