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Chapter 4 Cultural Context sets out the relationship between the three parties involved in the
cultural concordat – the public, politicians and policy-makers and professionals – and its position
regarding the three different types of value. In terms of the ‘value triangle’ the public cares most
about intrinsic value but they do not care much about instrumental value. The professional cares
about intrinsic values but also sometimes about instrumental ones. For politics it is said that there
is a huge disconnect between the public’s idea of culture and what it is for, and the way that politics
and policy talks about it, since politics tends to focus on instrumental values.
Chapter five is dedicated to explaining indepth the mismatch of value concerns between the
public, the professionals and the politicians while Chapter 6 is about the role of the media that
reflects and forms the relationship between the public, politicians and professionals. The media
discourse about culture is grouped around a number of themes, creating a paradoxical picture in
which the media both support and attack the arts and artists. Chapter seven is dedicated to
Research, Evidence and Advocacy and their relationship. Research is a way of generating useful
information for policymakers and raw material for advocacy. At this point this paper explains some
of the problems faced by research like the fact that measurement tends to occur where it is
easiest, not necessarily where it is most useful. The activity of cultural professionals is measured
much more than the public response to it. Data-gathering often fails to capture value, or just the
fact that most of the times professionals often do not know why they are asked to produce
evidence and very little feedback is given to them. At the end it establishes a new regime for
research giving useful principles to follow.
Chapter 8 and the conclusion in Chapter 9 suggest several priorities and prescriptions for change,
such as the importance of understanding the different types of values that culture creates, or the
need to engage with the public.
The ‘cultural value’ framework described in the argument helps people and organizations to
understand themselves, articulate their purposes, and make decisions, because it provides:
- a language to talk about why the public values culture
- a more democratic approach, offering the opportunity to build wider legitimacy for public
funding
- the opportunity to ease adaptation to a more participative model of culture
- a reassertion of the role of the professional practitioner
- a rationale for why the funding system should be less directive
- a means by which politicians and professionals can understand each other’s positions, leading
to improved relationships and a better concordat with the public.
_________________________
Jackson, Maria Rosario; Kabwasa-Green, Florence; Herranz, Joaquìn (2006). Cultural vitality in
communities: interpretation and indicators. Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Accessed at: http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/311392_Cultural_Vitality.pdf
This monograph introduces a definition of cultural vitality that includes the range of cultural assets
and activity people around the country register as significant. Cultural vitality is defined as evidence
of creating, disseminating, validating, and supporting arts and culture as a dimension of everyday
life in communities. The study provides a set of nationally available resources and a toolkit for their
interpretation, enabling policymakers to systematically monitor and assess the capacity building
role of culture at the local level, encouraging the inclusion of arts and culture indicators in quality of
life measurement systems and in efforts to explain community dynamics and conditions.
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