Thursday (2/24) on the Washington Post blog ArtsPost, Jacqueline Trescott writes, “Expanding the boundaries of how and where people enjoy the arts, a new survey from the National Endowment for the Arts concludes that nearly 75 percent of Americans participate in the arts. The federal arts agency, catching up with the delivery systems—such as the ipod—and alarmed that participation at live performances was declining, asked a group of experts to look again at the results from its own 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. The new analysis, released Thursday, included responses about using electronic media, attending festivals or performances at nontraditional locations—such as historic sites—and producing their own art. … Looking again at the data, the new report found 75 percent of adults pinpointed electronic media as their delivery system. That compares to 34.6 percent of adults who had attended a live performance—opera, ballet, jazz, plays—or visited an art museum in the 2008 survey. And classical music is winning out, with 18 percent of those adults saying they used mobile devices and the Internet to get their doses of Chopin, followed by 15 percent for Latin music. … This is handy information for arts advocates as the Congress debates this spring about whether funding for the arts is necessary.”
Posted February 24, 2011
