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CPANDA Audiences: Overview of Available Data

Overview of Available Data

Table of Contents

There are several key sources of data on audiences and arts participation. The most comprehensive is the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts conducted roughly every five years (since 1982) by the National Endowment for the Arts. A number of other national, regional, statewide, and local surveys have also contained questions on arts and cultural participation. In addition, individual arts and cultural organizations and arts service organizations may periodically collect data on the numbers of people participating in their programs (or in the programs of their member organizations). Audience data for commercial arts and cultural activities are collected by a wide variety of organizations, many of which charge fees for access to the data.

Many studies that focus on arts participation also collect data on public attitudes toward the arts. Studies that focus exclusively or primarily on public attitudes toward the arts will be listed in the forthcoming CPANDA Overview of Available Data on Support for the Arts.

Data on consumer spending on arts and cultural activities are published annually by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BEA's National Income and Produce Accounts provide national estimates of total consumer spending on arts and cultural activities, while the BLS' Consumer Expenditure Surveys provide data on household-level expenditures.

Survey of Public Participation in the Arts

The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), generally considered the most comprehensive and reliable source of data on arts participation in the United States, has been conducted roughly every five years (since 1982) by the Research Division of the National Endowment for the Arts (http://www.nea.gov). The survey asks questions concerning respondents' attendance at live arts events, their participation in the arts through broadcast and recorded media, and the types of artistic activities they engage in personally. Arts and cultural activities covered in the survey include jazz performances, classical music performances, opera, musical plays, non-musical plays, ballet, dance performances other than ballet, visiting art museums, visiting historical parks, reading literature, and attending arts and crafts fairs. The 1982, 1985 and 1992 surveys were conducted by the Bureau of the Census, as a supplement to a larger national survey, the National Crime Survey (NCS). The 1997 survey was conducted by Westat as a stand-alone survey. The 2002 survey was conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as a supplement to the current population survey. All five SPPA data sets are available through CPANDA.

The NEA also conducted a series of local surveys of public participation in the arts in 1992. See Local Area Arts Participation Study 1992 (http://www.cpanda.org/data/profiles/laap92.html) for more information on this study.

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Other Significant Studies of Audiences

CPANDA has identified a number of other important data sets on audiences created over the past 30 years, some of which are available through the Archive. For those data sets available through CPANDA, we have provided a direct link to the study's summary page in CPANDA. For data sets available elsewhere, links have been provided to the relevant web sites.

National Studies: In addition to the Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts conducted by the NEA, other significant national-level studies on audiences conducted over the past 30 years include:

Regional and State Studies: Significant regional or state-level studies on audiences conducted over the past 30 years are listed below. All of these data sets are available through the Odum Institute Data Archive at the University of North Carolina [http://152.2.32.107/odum/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=7].

  • Southern Focus Poll (Spring, 1994)
  • Maryland Poll (1993)
  • South Carolina State Survey (April, 1991)
  • Kentucky Poll (1989)
  • Maryland Poll (1989)
  • New Jersey Poll (1989)
  • Maryland Poll (1988)
  • Kentucky Poll (1980)
  • Arts and the People Survey: New York State (1972)

Local Studies: Significant local-level studies on audiences conducted over the past 30 years include:

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Data from Arts Organizations and Arts Service Organizations

Many arts organizations and arts service organizations periodically collect audience data, and may make it available to researchers on a case-by-case basis. It is important to keep in mind, however, that audience data collected by such organizations is often gathered for purposes unrelated to research, which may make it unsuitable for analyses outside of its original scope. For a list of some of the major arts service organizations, see Arts and Cultural Policy Resources: Nonprofit Organizations.

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Commercial Data

Audience data for commercial arts and cultural activities, such as motion pictures, Broadway theater, recorded music, and television, are collected by a wide variety of organizations, many of which charge fees for access to the data. For a list of some of the major organizations that collect such data, see Arts and Cultural Policy Resources: Commercial-Sector Organizations.

Consumer Spending Data

Data on total consumer spending on arts and cultural activities (broadly categorized) are available through the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Estimates of total consumer expenditures are derived from the BEA's National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). Annualized data are available from 1929 to the present. To access information relevant to arts and cultural activities, go to http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=N and select Table 2.4, Personal Consumption Expenditures by Type of Expenditure. Users of these data should be aware that historical NIPA estimates are annually revised.

The National Endowment for the Arts has conducted analyses of NIPA data on consumer spending on the arts since the early 1980s. These reports can be found at http://www.arts.gov/research/ResearchNotes.html#Audiences.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides data on average annual household expenditures, based on its Consumer Expenditures Survey (CEX). The CEX collects data through ongoing "diary" surveys and quarterly interview surveys. Annual data are available from 1980 to the present. The data available online regarding expenditures on arts and cultural activities are not very detailed. For example, data are available for the broad categories of total entertainment expenses (with sub-category breakouts for "Fees and admissions," "Television, radios, and sound equipment" and "Other entertainment supplies, equipment, and services"), reading-related expenses, and education expenses. A list of CEX data tables available online may be found at http://www.bls.gov/cex/home.htm. More detailed information from the CEX on items such as "fees and admissions to movies, theater, opera, and ballet," "purchases of records, CDs, audio tapes, and needles," etc., is available by request.

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For More Information

There are several good sources for additional information about research on audiences:

The Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University has compiled an inventory of studies conducted since the 1970s on public participation in the arts and public attitudes toward the arts. The list includes only studies that attempted to generalize from a sample to a larger population. Each entry indicates, insofar as possible from available materials, the study investigator, the population studied, sampling procedures, number of respondents and response rates, areas of questioning, and publications based on the study. Information about many of the data sets not currently available through CPANDA is available in this publication. [Pettit, Becky, with forward by Paul DiMaggio and Stanley Katz. 1997. Resources for Studying Public Participation in the Arts: An Inventory and Review of Available Survey Data on North Americans' Participation in and Attitudes towards the Arts Working Paper No. 2. Princeton, NJ: Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. (http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/wrkpap02.html)]

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has issued a series of reports on its Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), since the first one was conducted in 1982. The NEA has also conducted a series of analyses of Bureau of Economic Analysis data on consumer spending on the arts since the early 1980s. Brief reports on both the SPPA studies and the BEA data may be found at http://www.arts.gov/research/ResearchNotes.html#Audiences. Longer reports on the SPPA studies may be found at http://www.arts.gov/research/ResearchReports.html#Audiences.

RAND has also produced a Guide to the Literature on Participation in the Arts, available at http://www.rand.org/publications/DRU/DRU2308/ [McCarthy, Kevin F., Elizabeth H. Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras. 2001. Guide to the Literature on Participation in the Arts. Santa Monica, CA: RAND].

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