Comparing cultural classification: high and popular arts in European and U.S. elite newspapers, 1955-2005

This article seeks to elucidate over time changes and cross-national variations in the status
of art forms through a comprehensive content analysis of the coverage given to arts and culture in
elite newspapers of four different countries - France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United
States - in the period 1955-2005. The authors explore how cultural hierarchy is affected by specific
features of these societies and their respective journalistic and cultural production fields. The
four countries show significant differences in journalistic attention to high and popular arts.
Throughout the period of study, the American newspapers and to a slightly lesser extent, French
elite newspapers generally devote more attention to popular art forms than their Dutch and German
counterparts. In accounting for cross-national differences in the coverage given to popular
culture, field level factors like the structure of the newspaper market and the position and size of
local cultural industries seem more important than remote societal factors such as national cultural
repertoires and the level of social mobility.