The Competition between High Culture and Popular Culture as Seen in the New York Times

Jul 6, 2026

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Examines how the New York Times Sunday “Arts and Leisure” section from 1962 to 1988 reflected competition between high culture and popular culture. High culture initially led in the share of articles, but after 1988 popular culture rose steadily, reaching 49% by 1993 versus 39% for high culture, with most gains from motion-picture coverage. Correlations between editorial content and advertising appear in two of four sub-categories, supporting an advertising-influences-editorial hypothesis.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

Introduction

The Current State of Competition

Arts participation and the “the more, the more” principle

Pressure on classical music and survey evidence

Education effects and crowding-out concerns

Follow-up SPPA studies and cohort analysis

Journal of Cultural Economics 21: 29–40, 1997 . 29 􀀍c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. The Competition between High Culture and Popular Culture as Seen in the New York Times1 JAMES HEILBRUN Fordham University, New York, U.S.A. Abstract. The Sunday “Arts and Leisure” section of the New York Times for selected years is examined to gauge competition between “high” culture and “popular” culture. From 1962 through 1988 high culture consistently outranked popular culture in percentage of articles, but after 1988 popular culture gained steadily, and by 1993 accounted for 49 percent of articles as compared with only 39 percent for high culture. Most of the gain was accounted for by coverage of motion pictures. For two out of four sub-categories a signiﬁcant correlation was found between editorial content and advertising, so that one cannot reject the hypothesis that advertising affects editorial coverage. Key words: popular culture, high culture, advertising, art prices, The New York Times Introduction For those interested in what are often referred to as the “high arts”, the relationship between high culture and popular culture is an important question. Although the high arts enjoyed an unprecedented boom in the United States from the 1960s into the 1980s, a sense of unease has developed in the last few years as their growth slowed and evidence increasingly suggested that they were being crowded out by popular culture. This paper begins by looking at the current state of competition between high and popular culture, especially as reﬂected in the studies of public participation sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. It then adopts a novel perspective on that competition by studying coverage ofthe arts over a thirty year period in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. After examining trends in the Times ’coverage of both popular and high culture, the paper also investigates advertising of the arts in the Times and asks the question “Does advertising affect editorial content?” It concludes with a statistical study of editorial content, advertising and other variables in an attempt to answer that question. The Current State of Competition At one level art forms are obviously competitive, since money and time the consumer spends on one cannot be spent on another. Yet because tastes in art are subject to cultivation, there is also a mutually reinforcing aspect to consumption of 30 JAMES HEILBRUN the arts: participation in one art form, say classical music, may breed an interest in another, say ballet or modern dance. Analysts of arts participation in the United States sometimes refer to the principle of“the more, the more”, because they ﬁnd that the more members of the public participate in one art form, the more likely they are to participate in another.2 At ﬁrst glance, such results seem to indicate that forces of mutual reinforcement outweigh those of competition. From the point-of-view of an agency devoted to the promotion of the high arts that is good news, which may explain why the NEA is so pleased to report it. However, a sceptic can point out that at any moment in time participation in classical music may be positively associated with participation in rock and pop, yet in the long run a rise in the consumption of popular music may cause a decline in classical music participation. In other words, a function relating consumption of the two forms may always have positive slope, yet over time shift down to lower and lower levels of classical music participation. Classical music is probably the high art form now under the greatest pressure from competition with popular arts. According to the 1992 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), the attendance rate at performances of classical music fell only from 13 percent in 1982 to 12.5 percent ten years later, a decline that was not statistically signiﬁcant. Nevertheless, there is more than a little evidence

FAQs

How did the New York Times’ coverage of high culture and popular culture change over time?

From 1962 to 1988, high culture consistently had a higher percentage of articles than popular culture. After 1988, popular culture increased steadily and by 1993 accounted for 49% of articles compared with 39% for high culture.

What factor explains most of the increase in popular-culture coverage?

Most of the gain was attributed to increased coverage of motion pictures.

Does advertising influence the Times’ arts editorial coverage?

For two out of four sub-categories, significant correlations were found between editorial content and advertising, so the hypothesis that advertising affects editorial coverage cannot be rejected.

Jul 6, 2026

Upload by Liam