Abstract
Researchers have studied how artistic judgments are made in group interactions, but much remains to be known about artistic evaluations in decision-making settings where agreements need to be reached. This paper analyzes panel evaluations of artistic productions, drawing on interviews with panelists from a Polish theater competition. The article focuses on two aspects of panel decision-making: (1) concepts of artistic value that members of expert panels apply when evaluating art productions; and (2) interpersonal rules of deliberation, that is, norms and patterns of behavior that allow panelists to attach legitimacy to the decision-making process and its outcomes. The authors find that panel evaluations are based on a combination of two different logics (content and context logic) and develop a matrix of values the conceptualizes artistic standards and their applications. Furthermore, the authors find that panelists follow three types of interpersonal rules for decision-making: substantive, procedural, and contextual.
Highlights
Evaluation and valuation of symbolic goods and practices have been increasingly studied by cultural sociologists (Beljean et al 2015; Lamont 2012)
The matrix of values that stems from our analysis helps understand how art experts make artistic selections, namely, that evaluations are based on a combination of two different logics: content logic, concerning two fundamental properties of an artwork, and context logic, involving the application of two different approaches to the artistic form and meaning
By integrating concepts that have been studied much more often by philosophers of art than sociologists with constructs that are well known in the field of social studies, our model provides a framework for understanding what critics pay attention to and what criteria they use in their evaluations
Summary
Evaluation and valuation of symbolic goods and practices have been increasingly studied by cultural sociologists (Beljean et al 2015; Lamont 2012). While sociological research in this area has been largely focused on field analysis—e.g., in film (e.g. Cattani et al 2014; Kersten and Verboord 2014), literature (e.g. De Nooy 1999; Janssen 1997), or music (Dowd et al 2002)—the most recent studies have been engaged in exploring standards and practices of evaluation using an inductive approach This new work in cultural sociology includes, for. Qualitative Sociology (2020) 43:21–42 example, ethnographic research that concerns how artistic tastes are formed and performed in social interactions (Benzecry 2011; Hennion 2001) or how shared aesthetic judgments tie people together (Wohl 2015), and interview-based analysis of critics’ legitimization strategies (Chong 2013) These studies meaningfully contribute to our understanding of how experts and amateurs interact with works of art and how these interactions help them place themselves within larger social groups. We focus on two aspects of panel decisionmaking that play a crucial role in how evaluations are made: (1) concepts of artistic value that members of expert panels apply when evaluating art productions—namely, we investigate what properties of theater performances indicate artistic worth to theater experts; (2) interpersonal rules of deliberation, that is, norms and patterns of behavior that are seen as good or appropriate and allow panelists to attach legitimacy to the decision-making process and its outcomes
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