Engagement with Culture in Transformative Times

Mapping the Societal Drivers and Impacts of Cultural Understandings, Practices, Perceptions, and Values Across Europe
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-58310-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 689 g

At the heart of this volume are the questions: What does culture mean to European citizens in the face of globalisation, digitalisation, diversity, and social inequality? How do Europeans engage with culture in its various forms, and what societal values are tied to this cultural engagement? These questions are explored in depth across the 15 chapters of this book. By delving into the understandings, practices, perceptions, affordances, and impacts of culture, this book advances the study of the societal values of culture in contemporary European societies, offering insights beneficial to both research and cultural policy work.

The book stands out with its five unique features. It embraces an inclusive conception of culture, spanning the arts, popular culture, and everyday cultural practices, both offline and online. It takes a grassroots approach, starting from the cultural understandings and experiences of European citizens. It employs a comparative method involving people from diverse socio-economic groups in nine European countries – with different cultural policy models, social-structural features, socio-cultural value orientations, and media systems. It builds on a multi- and mixed-methods approach, including a large-scale survey, a smartphone study with experimental stimuli, several phases of online content data collection and analysis, qualitative interviews, and focus groups. Finally, it delves into how wide-ranging and interconnected sociocultural transformations such as migration, digitalisation, and social inequality impact people’s understanding of and engagement with culture as well as the meanings and values they attribute to culture. These unique features promise to offer a fresh and comprehensive perspective on cultural engagement in contemporary European societies.

The collection showcases the multiple, often contradictory concepts and understandings of culture and its societal values among social groups within and across European societies. The findings call for a “social turn” in cultural policy that extends beyond traditional arts and culture to support diverse cultural expressions that may enhance social values, address complex social issues, and shift the focus from economic objectives to promoting civic solidarity, equity, inclusivity, tolerance, and shared community values.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Janssen, Susanne

Kristensen, Nete

Verboord, Marc

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Part I: Practices and understandings

1. Understandings of culture in nine European countries: advancing the study of cultural stratification

2. Mapping cultural practices in Europe: social inequalities and cross-national differences

3. How inequality affects cultural participation in Europe: comparing before and after the financial crisis

4 Understandings of culture in digital space: mapping Twitter discourses on culture

5. Capturing cultural practices in everyday life: employing experience sampling methodology

Part II: Perceptions and experiences

6. Europeans’ perspectives on the cultural impacts of globalisation and migration

7. Cultural integration and difference from migrants’ perspective: cultural comparisons between country of residence and country of origin

8. The impact of digitalisation in everyday life: citizens’ perspectives on the rise of digital media

9. Migrants’ engagement with digital culture: active two-way use, Internet enthusiasm, digital dislike, and social media sociability

10. Campaigning for culture online: An analysis of trending culture-related petitions on Facebook

Part III: Outcomes, affordances, and values

11. What drives people to engage in cultural activities? Europeans’ motivations for cultural participation

12. The importance of culture for well-being: perspectives of locals and migrants on how culture makes life better

13. Different modes of openness and tolerance in Europeans’ cultural participation

14. Religiosity, social solidarity, and cultural participation

15. The limits of cultural democracy? Challenges and paradoxes in advancing cultural inclusion and participation in Denmark, the Netherlands, Serbia, and Spain

Über Autor(innen)

Susanne Janssen is Professor of Sociology of Media and Culture at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Nete Nørgaard Kristensen is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

Marc Verboord is Professor of Media and Society at Erasmus University Rotterdam.