consider many of its key aspects such as email, information sites, blogs, chat rooms, or the like—though I will consider the Internet as an important site for the distribution and consumption of art.
There are innumerable things that are not art. In this list, I have mentioned only those areas which are similar enough to art to cause confusion—mostly cultural forms that are not art. The line between art and non‐art is not sharp. How you look at a cultural form, and from where you look, affects your perception of it. For instance, in France haute cuisine is considered to be a part of the national heritage and is supported by the French Ministry of Culture. Gourmets exist in English‐speaking countries too, but cooking is not valued in the same way. Similarly, high fashion is a form of creative expression for designers. But I do not study haute cuisine or haute couture in the book.3 Some cultural forms cross boundaries between art and non‐art: digital games are not art, but many aspects of these products (artwork, music, aesthetic style) are artistic. YouTube videos of cats, as a cultural phenomenon, are not art; however, some individual examples might be considered art. I also do not cover art therapy or personal art, as in doodles or recreational watercolors. These are important expressive forms for individuals, but they do not communicate in the public sense that art does.
Why do I consider broad categories of art—fine, popular, and folk/DIY—together? The full answer lies in the book, but the basic idea is that they all can be understood with the same sociological concepts. These analytic and methodological tools are applicable to arts that appear in some tangible or performative format (although they do not always apply well to related areas in popular culture, broadly stated, or the media, which is why these areas are not covered). Concentrating on the fine, popular, and folk arts makes it possible to cover the topic in some depth. Moreover, the distinctions among fine, popular, and folk art continue to exist, but they have blurred in recent decades and the categories are less powerful than they once were. In fact, these distinctions exist for social reasons, and this is an important topic for discussion.
Terms for Art
Since I cover the fine, popular, and folk arts, I need to have a term that includes them all. I will often refer to “the arts,” as I have in the title. More simply, I will refer both to the generic concept, and to individual pieces, as art. But as I have mentioned, this word can also be used in an honorific sense. For example, an especially good stunt motorcyclist might be described as an “artist” and his demonstration rides as “art” to separate this motorcyclist from ordinary bikers. I shall not use the term art in this sense. Likewise, “art” sometimes means only good art and often implies only the fine arts. I shall set aside this honorific use of “art”, and apply the term to mean any of the products created within the fine, popular, or folk arts realms. (We shall visit the idea of art and the honor attached to it later in the book, however.)
Other scholars have come to different solutions to the same problem. Griswold (2013: 11) uses the term cultural object, which she defines as “A shared significance embodied in form” – it is “audible, or visible, or tangible” or “can be articulated.” I will also use the terms “object” (as in artistic or cultural object) or “work” (as in artwork or work of art) to refer to individual pieces. I tend to use art, object, or work interchangeably. In general, I use these terms to refer to artistic endeavors that produce a product (a painting, a CD, a book, a film) as well as those that produce a performance (a ballet, live music).
The Sociology in Sociology of the Arts
This book looks at sociological approaches to understanding the fine, popular, and folk arts, but what makes a sociological approach? Sociology embodies many ways of thinking about society. Sometimes these different thought styles are at odds with each other to such an extent that it may seem that they do not belong in the same discipline. Nevertheless, at least two ideas link the disparate approaches in sociology. First, sociology endeavors to generate theory. A theory is an attempt to say something about society, and most sociologists try to surpass “mere” description of the social world and attempt to theorize it, that is, to explain how it works.
Second, sociology also looks at systems, structures, and culture; that is, at the connections among individuals, the stabilized patterns emerging from social interaction, and meaning that is shared across individuals. Sociology sees people as part of systems, structures, and cultures and sociologists concentrate on these rather than on the psychological makeup of particular persons or on the effects of “great men” and women who have single‐handedly made a difference.
Sociologists do not agree, however, on whether researchers should discuss human action only at the level of individuals or whether researchers can look at aggregates of people and study how groups, organizations, or networks “act” (the issue of “macro–micro translation”). Sociologists also disagree on whether it is possible to separate elements of culture or social structures from the particular individuals who constitute them (the issue of “generalization”). Sociologists’ beliefs about these two issues are background assumptions (also called metatheories); researchers come to hold them independently of their research, as these beliefs cannot be confirmed or refuted through empirical study.
Sociological Approaches
An approach is a group of theories that study social phenomena from the same basic perspective, with a similar set of assumptions or metatheories. Though they share metatheories, the specific theories will differ on many details, and may even be contradictory at points. There are many different approaches in sociology. For instance, a common distinction is made between positivistic and interpretive approaches. Positivists tend to measure variables and test hypotheses. Their goal is to create generalizable theories. Positivists are likely to argue that aesthetics and meaning are not amenable to empirical analysis, and thus these topics must be left to art historians and philosophers. Instead, positivists study “objective” aspects of the art world. They may research, for instance, the demographic characteristics of art museum audiences, the repertoires of orchestras, or the effects of the Internet on the strategies and earnings of recording companies.
In contrast, interpretive sociology is concerned with questions of meaning. How is meaning created and maintained in social systems? What is the relevance of people’s cultural background? What does a particular artwork mean? Most interpretivists believe that meaning cannot be abstracted from its particular situation and is, therefore, ungeneralizable. Sociology, in this view, is about understanding subjective experience and, theoretically, interpretivists are interested in explaining particular situations. Interpretive sociologists might study the meanings of art objects or how people create meaning in their lives through the consumption of art.
There is a place in sociology for both positivistic and interpretive approaches, though some scholars from one camp look down on scholars from the other camp. Indeed, it is important to see sociology, as with all academic study, as a competition among theories and approaches. This book presents five basic approaches (reflection, shaping, production, consumption, and constitutive, as described in the subsequent chapters). Each of these approaches looks at art from a particular vantage point, but they do not map neatly onto a positivistic/interpretivist distinction, which cross‐cuts all of them. In some places, the different approaches may seem complementary, but in others, contradictory. This is the nature of academic work.
Sociological Theories
For the purposes of this book, theories are simplifying ideas or models that tell us about society. Metaphorically, a theory is a map of a territory (the social reality). If you wanted to get from London to Edinburgh, and you did not have SatNav in
