The Institutional Structure of Cultural Services

Abstract

If by we refer to organized activities by which culture is brought to the people, we have at least four institutional structures to consider: churches, schools, arts and humanities complex, and mass media. The provision of cultural services is a major rationale for existence of each of these systems. Indeed, cultural services in some form are provided by all organized components of society--courts, hospitals, military forces, business firms. But for these organizations cultural services are subordinated to their other pursuits. Differences in spirit in which cultural services are provided can be discerned even within structures which specialize in providing cultural services. The churches and schools, by and large, dispense cultural services of a traditionally defined type, with a relatively clear purpose, for specifically identified publics, and usually with intention of affecting personalities of individuals composing these publics in a particular, prescribed way. The arts and humanities complex network of activities which focuses on organizing aesthetic aspects of human existence lacks, in modem societies, this clarity of traditional definition, purpose, public, and intention. It is tolerant of ambiguity. On other hand, it is not all governed mainly by criterion of what public demands or will bear, as entertainment programs of mass media are. The arts