Whether Live or Online, Participation is Unequal: Exploring Inequality in the Cultural Participation Patterns in the United States

Abstract

Cultural participation is an individual activity with relevant social dimensions. Democratic societies are concerned about the representation of social groups in cultural audiences and promote policies to increase participation focusing on planning aspects, such as in creative placemaking, or educational policies and social interventions targeted at some underrepresented social groups. Using the data derived from the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts from the United States, we estimate generalized entropy indexes to explore the more relevant dimensions to explain divides in cultural participation across the U.S. adult population, considering geographical and sociodemographic variables. Cultural engagement is characterized by the participation by highbrow, lowbrow, passive, active, live, and digital activities. Overall, we find that spatial and racial characteristics are not the most relevant, while education appears to be the most important source to explain access inequality. The pattern of digital participation is remarkably similar to the pattern of physical participation, thus showing some evidence that the divide and stratification of cultural practices in the real world translates to digital practices.