Image: “Gogbot,” Installation at the Gogbot Media Art Festival in Enschede. By Flickr user Ineke

Happy fall television premiere week! The Fractured Atlas and Createquity teams are back with a third installment of the Createquity podcast, with a new series on television and our wellbeing.

Public conversations about television and the arts have tended to pit one against the other. If television wasn’t saving the arts by connecting them to a wide and public audience, it was killing them by advancing popular culture over ‘serious’ fare. While some celebrated the arts on television as encouraging live attendance, others worried it discouraged such attendance by serving as a substitute. From a public health standpoint, we can also be concerned by research associating heavy television-watching with conditions like obesity and early death — would we be both healthier and happier attending and participating in “traditional” art forms rather than staying home in front of the television?

Even in the age of digital communications — of broadcast and cable and wifi, oh my — we often miss the larger conversation about the box: television is culture. It conveys visual and narrative human expression, it employs and animates artists, reaches a massive audience every day, and it can even be a tool for social change. And — spoiler alert— people really enjoy watching television…a lot of television.

So what are the implications of “television as culture?” And how do they frame and inform the trajectory of artists, arts organizations, audiences, and all the others supporting and advancing artistic work? These episodes will explore the scope, scale, sources, and substance of contemporary television; consider its social, civic, and health effects; and discover it as a medium where artists and audiences find each other and even as a vehicle for artist and youth empowerment.

This follows our previous podcast: The Cost of Being Creative.

Episode 1:

Guest Louise Geraghty (bio below) provides a quick rundown of the research Createquity has done on this topic. Hear about the impact television may have on our personal health and happiness. Is heavy TV watching in the same category as soda/junk food when it comes to possibly needing some regulation?

(Click here to listen to the episode if you’re reading this via email.)

Episode 2:

Guest Qui Nguyen (bio below) talks to us about his experience in both the theatre and television worlds. Hear about how he feels the two industries interact and impact the health of the overall arts industry. Can television be a stable and even desirable form of employment for creative artists?

(Click here to listen to the episode if you’re reading this via email.)

Episode 3:

Guest Rebecca Yenawine (bio below) explains how she uses television media to engage low-socioeconomic-status youth in the Baltimore area. Hear about the impact she feels media has on the health of our communities.

(Click here to listen to the episode if you’re reading this via email.)

The Host

E. Andrew Taylor, Host
Andrew Taylor thinks (a bit too much) about organizational structure, strategy, and management practice in the nonprofit arts. An Associate Professor of Arts Management at American University in Washington, DC, he shares what he learns at “The Artful Manager.”

(1) What we mean when we say “watching TV”
When we talk about hours of television watched, we’re talking about self-reported hours; in other words, the amount of time an individual themselves assesses they watch TV, regardless of whether they’re fully focused on the program or it’s on in the background.

(2) On TV and kids’ health
Although this article focuses on adults, it’s worth noting that the health concerns about TV and its impact on physical health extend, of course, to children. One study finds that high-school-aged children who watch more than 3 to 4 hours of television per day are 36% more likely to report eating less than five fruits or vegetables per day, and 56% more likely to be overweight than their peers who watch less than two hours daily. Another suggests that low-income parents in particular may face stressors related to chronic financial hardship, like poor mental health or food insecurity, and that these stressors may influence their views of the importance of restricting screen time. This, in turn, may impact their children’s screen usage.

(3) On our regression analysis
The General Social Survey (GSS) is a representative, national survey covering attitudinal, social, and demographic topics in the United States. In 2012, the GSS included a module asking respondents questions about their cultural participation. As we began our investigation, we wondered how arts attendance and television viewing would predict subjective wellbeing. We used data from the General Social Survey to descriptively explore the following questions:

1. Holding income, condition of health, education level, gender, age, job satisfaction, and social engagements with friends and family constant, how does arts attendance and television predict wellbeing?
2. Using these same covariates, is there a difference in how television and arts attendance predicts wellbeing for respondents at different income quartiles?

We used logistic regression analysis to descriptively explore these questions, the results of which are linked here for all income levels and here for income quartiles. Our dependent variable was respondents’ determination of how satisfied they are with their lives in response to the prompt below, where Strongly Disagree, Disagree, and Neither Agree nor Disagree were considered unsatisfied and Agree or Strongly Agree were considered satisfied.

(Please tell me on a scale of 1 to 5 how much you agree or
disagree with the following statements about your life. 1 means
strongly disagree and 5 means strongly agree.)

I am satisfied with my life.

Covariates included respondents’ assessment of their own health, household income level, age, gender, how often the respondent interacts with friends and relatives, job satisfaction, and education level. Note that because health was included as a control, the regression analysis measures the effect of TV on life satisfaction independent of its effects on health. However, since health does have a strong relationship to life satisfaction on its own, if TV makes people less healthy, it will presumably also make them less satisfied with their life.

(4) On our anecdotal interviews
In order to hear the stories and better understand the viewing choices of low-SES adults who watch large amounts of television, Createquity interviewed nine individuals who self-identified as not having graduated college and reported watching at least five hours of TV a day. We recruited interviewees primarily by posting ads on craigslist in large cities like Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago, as well as in cities and small towns throughout the United States. . Interviewees were paid a small honorarium for their time. All respondents were women, and most had children at home. This portion of the investigation had two goals: 1) to add nuance and resonance to our findings from the literature review; and 2) to explore topics that were not addressed directly in the published research, such as reasoning behind viewing choices and the relationship between television viewing and arts participation.

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• Television is America’s national pastime. Adults spend an average of nearly three hours in front of the tube daily, outpacing the next most common leisure-time activity by a factor of four.
• There is surprisingly robust evidence suggesting TV watching may contribute to poor physical and cognitive health; when it comes to happiness and life satisfaction, however, the verdict is still out.
• Are people consciously choosing TV over other activities? There’s not a lot of evidence one way or another, but it doesn’t seem like most adults who watch large amounts of TV are doing so reluctantly.
• The arts are not the (obvious) antidote. People who attend exhibits and performances are no more likely to report being satisfied with their lives than those who don’t.
• We value adults’ freedom to make their own choices, so will need to see clearer evidence for an opportunity to improve wellbeing before committing to a case for change.

* * *

TV Slave – photo by flickr user Manuele Carra

In 2014, First Lady Michelle Obama broke the internet with “Turnip for What,” a vine promo for her Let’s Move! campaign. She’s appeared on the Biggest Loser. She has her own viral dance sensation–the #GimmeFive, performed to Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk. (You know it, right?) And she’s encouraging Americans to drink more water through fun social media stunts that appeal to our egos (hello, John Legend) and a line of chic accessories from the likes of J. Crew and Rebecca Minkoff. (Not to be outdone, POTUS and VPOTUS have been known to run around the White House and drink water, too.)

No, she’s not trying to be the next pop star. (Though we would totally buy her record.) She has a mission, and that’s to stem the obesity epidemic in the United States. The situation is, by all accounts, dire: 17% of children and almost 35% of adults are currently considered obese, and those numbers are worse among individuals with lower incomes and less education (so-called “low-SES” populations). Almost one in eleven adults has type 2 diabetes, and many more have prediabetes. Obesity is bad for our wallet: the US spends an estimated $147 billion in obesity-related healthcare expenses annually. It’s bad for the environment, too: cars are burning nearly a billion more gallons of gasoline a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

FLOTUS is but one character in the ongoing obesity saga. The Food and Drug Administration appeared in 2014 with new rules requiring establishments to post the calorie content of food on their menus. It went even further in 2015, when it required front-of-package labeling. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg led a movement in New York to reduce soda consumption by limiting the sale of jumbo sugary drinks, which re-ignited the debate around the so-called sin tax. For more than a decade, public schools have battled youth junk food consumption with all sorts of methods: removing vending machines, imposing strict guidelines for school nutrition, and the Hail Mary move of banning birthday cupcakes.

Let’s Move Day – photo by flickr user Phil Roeder

The junk food hullabaloo raises interesting questions about choice, and whether individuals can or do make good choices for themselves. Here, the work of leading psychologists, economists and neuroscientists provides useful context: it is now widely accepted that most people make sense of the world by simplifying it, and the ways our brains are wired to simplify things can cause us to make judgments that are contrary to our best interests. There are a few reasons we might tend towards the simplify trap: hyperbolic discounting, which is our tendency to value immediate pleasure (or pain) over future consequences; loss aversion, or the fact that we dislike losing more than we like winning, which can make us risk-averse; or our tendency to focus only on what we know and what’s familiar. The combination of these factors makes low-risk, familiar propositions offering immediate satisfaction very hard to turn down. If we grew up with juice boxes and oreos as a school snack, and the closest grocer is a corner bodega stocked with chips and soda, and, well, sugar and salt and fat are so good, then of course we’d reach for cookies over carrots.

At this point, dear reader, you might be wondering why we have spent the first four paragraphs of an article about television and the arts talking about obesity. Well, as it turns out, TV (probably) makes you fat too.

TUNE IN, DROP OUT

Jamie K. is a 36-year-old from Fort Wayne, IN. She has a GED, and is unemployed. She likes to make jewelry and work on home improvement projects in her free time, which isn’t much, since she has three teenagers. She doesn’t go to arts events, because she doesn’t “have friends that are cultured, and it’s hard to go to things that [she] would find interesting by [herself].” She actively watches 10 hours of TV a day. Sonja B., a 57-year-old from Chicago, IL who is also unemployed, doesn’t attend arts events because they are usually in the evening, and she “wouldn’t want to go by [herself.]” She works out, and watches an average of 15 hours of TV, daily. Shantell T. is a 33-year-old administrative assistant from Washington DC. She watches 12 hours of TV on a typical day, and doesn’t consider herself to be a very “artsy” person.

In May of 2015, Createquity published Why Don’t They Come?, the first of many deep dives into the question of disparities of access to the benefits of the arts. The article looked closely at arts participation patterns among poor and less educated individuals, and considered obstacles to attendance including logistical reasons, such as cost and access to transportation or childcare, as well as other factors like feeling excluded and not having a friend to take along. (It is worth noting that many of the logistical reasons cited as obstacles to arts attendance are barriers to healthy eating as well. Cost and access in particular are blamed with the widening food gap between rich and poor.)

What we discovered in the course of our research surprised us. While the aforementioned obstacles were certainly barriers, a lack of explicit interest was far and away the dominant factor keeping low-SES populations away from arts events.

That’s What You Think – photo by flickr user Robert Couse-Baker

Of all these statistics, one in particular stood out to us. Virtually alone among the activities we studied, television attracted more participation from poor and less educated adults rather than less. And on top of that, our analysis of GSS data suggested that even within low-SES groups, adults who don’t attend arts events watch even more TV than those who do. It seems possible that, whatever sustenance people are seeking from live arts attendance, the folks who don’t go are getting it (at least in part) from the small screen.

Given the tendency to be distrustful of television, we were curious: are people going to be worse off on average watching TV instead of engaging in other, potentially more enriching, activities? Should this be an area of concern for our work here at Createquity? Is there an opportunity here to improve wellbeing through the arts?

SMALL SCREEN, BIG CONSEQUENCES

“It’s kind of a waste,” admits one of our interviewees. “I’m not really doing anything when I’m sitting and watching TV.”

As it turns out, sitting and not really doing anything when you’re watching TV doesn’t bode well for your physical wellbeing. There is compelling evidence that increased hours spent watching television is associated with obesity, in part because of the sedentary lifestyle it promotes by crowding out time that could be spent on exercise. SA Bowman looked at data from the USDA’s Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII), and found that men and women across demographic groups, including race, income, and educational status, were more likely to be overweight as their average hours of television viewing per day increased. Women who watched more than two hours of TV per day were 41.4% more likely to be obese than women who watch less than one hour a day. For men, that figure was 90.29%. And it’s not just sitting that’s the problem: even among healthy Australian adults who exercise at least 2.5 hours per week, watching TV is straight up bad for the waistline, with more hours watching TV per day was associated with increased blood pressure, waistline, and cholesterol levels. (Note 2)

Research has indicated that TV affects physical health in other ways as well⏤even to the point of shortening your lifespan. One team’s analysis of the 2008 General Social Survey-National Death Index dataset reveals that each hour of TV watched per day is associated with a 4% increase in mortality risk, amounting to an overall reduction of 1.2 years in total life expectancy due to television viewing in the US. A 2010 paper found an increased likelihood of all causes of mortality with more than 2 hours of television watched per day. Yet a third paper finds that, compounding psychological factors aside, TV may lend itself to an increased likelihood of smoking (and we all know where the shoe drops there).

Watching Zoolander – photo by flickr user Vincent Diamante

Are you doing some math in your head? (Your Favorite TV Shows x Total Viewing Hours) / Hours Watched Daily = Life Expectancy Reduction and Loss of Cognition? We did some math too, because there’s more to the brain than cognition. We ran a regression analysis on television and wellbeing using data from the 2012 General Social Survey. After controlling for variables including health, income level, education level, gender, age, and the frequency with which people interact with their friends and relatives, we found that increased hours of watching television is negatively associated with overall life satisfaction for people in the top three income quartiles, albeit only by a little bit. (Interestingly, we did not an association between television viewing and happiness for people with household incomes less than $25,000 per year). With a small sample and effect size and no ability to infer the direction of causality, we have to be careful not to push these results too far. Still, this descriptive analysis doesn’t do the case for TV any favors.

Others have investigated the relationship between watching a lot of television and one’s overall satisfaction with life (sometimes framed or referred to by scientists as subjective wellbeing). In their analysis of individual responses to the World Values Survey, which includes data from 80 countries, researchers Luigino Bruni and Luca Stanca found that television “crowds out” other, more social, activities–such as volunteering or spending time with friends and family–that are associated with higher life satisfaction. In the same study, they also suggest that increased hours spent watching television causes people to want higher incomes, which in turn creates unhappiness and low life satisfaction. According to Bruni and Stanca, TV is a part of a “relational treadmill” that induces people to measure their increase in happiness against that of their neighbors, instead of against their own experiences. Television, they argue, makes people want to consume more, inspired by both advertising and program content; unfortunately, by this metric, individuals will never achieve a real increase in happiness that corresponds to their increase in buying power. Some take issue with the way Bruni and Stanca classified countries in their methodology (see here), and at least one set of researchers note that when considering heterogeneity within countries, people who watch television report higher levels of wellbeing than people who do not watch any television at all. Still, we likely can all point to an example of being sucked into the “relational treadmill” of consumption thanks to TV.

TV and your brain: Turin street art – photo by flickr user mermaid

THE TWIST

You would think with all this talk of obesity, mortality, and dissatisfaction with life, people would reach for the off button. The fact that they don’t suggests they must be getting something out of it.

Could it just be that people who watch large amounts of TV lack self-control? That could explain some of these findings; for example, there is research that indicates unhappy people in general tend to watch more TV, suggesting that depression might be the culprit in some cases. But that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. There is an emerging body of research on television and addiction, but people are still trying to understand it, how many people are affected, and how it relates to other addictions that might be more disruptive to daily life. We have not found evidence tying television addiction to income level, even though people with lower incomes tend to watch more TV.

TV Man in the Autumn – photo by flickr user sualk61

Then there’s the fact that, for many, watching television is a meaningful social experience. Kawanda C. lives in New Orleans, where she doesn’t have a car. She’s 31 and didn’t finish high school. She works as a cashier, and spends a lot of time getting to and from work. She watches on average eight hours of TV a day, and loves to watch with her kids. Sonja B. also opts for companionship when taking in her favorite shows: “It’s always fun to watch TV with someone else because they might have a different perspective.” Indeed, in contrast to to Bruni and Stanca’s findings about television crowding out social activity, researcher Nele Simons’s interviews with TV watchers show that they socialize around the television they watch. She even suggests that people watching television at different times can create new opportunities for TV and socializing. In Simons’s telling, the classic mid-century meme of a traditional family unit gathered around to watch I Love Lucy or the Ed Sullivan Show continues, only today it’s football at your uncle’s place, or Game of Thrones at your corner dive bar.

Family watching television. Evert F. Baumgardner, ca. 1958 – from the National Archives and Records Administration.

It does seem that qualitative methodologies tend to paint a more positive picture of the effects of television. A set of interviews with Dutch adults aged 65-92 published last year explored the question of whether their television viewing habits are more often part of a selection strategy–that is, a conscious choice made to maximize wellbeing–or a compensation strategy, a choice that is made to fill time or otherwise compensate for some kind of loss or diminishment. While there were certainly examples of compensation strategies among their interviewees, the researchers more often found that people were watching TV with no regrets.

But the TV-is-good-for-you case is more than anecdotal; there’s a small but growing body of quantitative research that paints a more positive side to the medium as well. Recall that our aforementioned analysis of the General Social Survey found that among the lowest income quartile, which is also the segment that watches the most TV, more television is not associated with lower life satisfaction. One hypothesis to explain this comes from a paper by Bruno S. Frey et al. analyzing data from the European Social Survey. Frey et al. found that people with a lower opportunity cost of free time, like unemployed people or those with very fixed working hours, were less likely to report decreased life satisfaction as their TV hours increase, while the opposite was true of individuals with a high opportunity cost of their free time. If people with lower incomes tend to have a lower opportunity cost of their free time, this might explain why television at the bottom income quartile does not seem to harm life satisfaction.

While we haven’t encountered research showing positive effects of television content on adult viewers, there are some success stories for children and teens. In one study, researchers Kearney and Levine looked at the MTV franchise 16 and Pregnant–a series of reality TV shows including the Teen Mom sequels–and determined that the shows ultimately led to a 5.7% reduction in teen births in the 18 months following their introduction, which is about one third of the reduction in teen births during that period. In a follow-up, Kearney and Levine found that preschoolers who lived in areas where they could watch Sesame Street were 14% less likely to fall behind when they got to elementary school, and that this effect was much more pronounced for kids who grew up in areas with higher levels of economic disadvantage.

TV time – photo by flickr user Blake Danger Bentley

I WILL CHOOSE FREE WILL?

TV makes us fat. It dumbs us down. Too much TV makes us unhappy. Not enough TV makes us unhappy. TV makes us laugh. It keeps us informed. It keeps us from more social activities. It’s an opportunity for family time. It’s dangerous: for our feeling of self worth, for our capacity to understand right from wrong. At the end of the day, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that TV is both good and bad for us, depending on who we are, how we define good and bad, and how we go about asking and answering the question.

To be sure, not all of this evidence is created equal. If we were to pit the “TV is good” and “TV is bad” hypotheses against each other in a contest of methodologies, bad would probably win out. But how bad is bad? What exactly is the threshold of evidence of harm that would warrant taking the position that TV requires an intervention?

Here, the case of junk food provides us with a useful comparison. The impact of junk food consumption on public health has generated enough concern among reasonably-minded policy wonks to motivate multiple attempts at intervention by the state. And yet even for junk food, that movement to change behaviors has not come without controversy. The FDA, under intense pressure from Congress (and the National Restaurant Association) was forced to delay nation-wide implementation of menu labeling requirements until after the upcoming Presidential elections. (NYC implemented these same rules in 2006, and it took a full two years for them to become reality.) This past November, NYC passed a law requiring restaurants to indicate highly salted dishes; it was challenged immediately. Bloomberg’s famous soda ban was struck down, suffering from a backlash from the very people it was intended to help. Richmond, CA took a different approach, introducing a soda tax rather than a size limit, but it, too, failed.

What’s more, many of these well-meaning attempts to regulate the health of Americans don’t seem to be working: menu labeling has not been shown to change eating habits (and at least one study suggests it leads to greater caloric intake.) Kids denied in-school vending machines often end up consuming extra junk food. One year after Berkeley, CA became the first city in the US to successfully pass a soda tax, a study of its effectiveness reveals that, as the price increase has been largely assumed by distributors, the intended effect on consumers is negligible.

The no free-will bus campaign – photo by flickr user Travis Morgan

While there are certainly aspects of the effect of TV on physical, cognitive and subjective wellbeing that are concerning and deserve further exploration, given how dicey it is to seek to intervene in adults’ choices, our instinct is to exercise caution. For us to move forward in pursuing a case for change with respect to TV, we would need to see clearer evidence for an opportunity to improve wellbeing.

For us, the question of wellbeing ultimately comes down to opportunity and choice. Our definition of a healthy arts ecosystem draws inspiration from the “capability approach,” a widely adopted philosophical framework developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum that defines wellbeing in terms of freedoms. According to the capability approach, whether or not people take advantage of the opportunities they have, their capability to make decisions about how they pursue their lives is vital to wellbeing, and having the capability to achieve various states is more important than whether or not one chooses to exercise that capability.

Frances T. talks about the impact of TV on her life

It seems like a whole lot of people are making the choice to reach for the remote. For some, this undoubtedly isn’t the best choice they could make. For others, maybe it is. And it’s really hard for us, or anyone else, to tell the difference. Tempting as it might be to judge people who spend eight hours a day in front of the TV, many of us spend that much time or more each day in front of a different sort of small screen. We can only hope that everyone who does so is as enthusiastic about it as Frances T., who confidently declared when we asked her whether TV affects her wellbeing, “it is my own wellbeing to watch TV.”

Liked this article? Two things. First, we’ll be hosting a #CreatequityAsks Twitter chat to discuss the implications of this work on Wednesday, March 9 from 4-5pm Eastern time. Second, we’re conducting a reader poll to help us determine what we should investigate next. Please take 5 minutes to share your opinions! Thanks so much.

“Boob Tube Time” by Sarah Kamalsky

Title: Older adults’ television viewing as part of selection and compensation strategies

Author(s): Margot J. van der Goot, Johannes W.J. Beentjes, and Martine van Salem

Publisher: Communications

Year: 2015

URL: http://www.degruyter.com/dg/viewarticle/j$002fcomm.2015.40.issue-1$002fcommun-2014-0025$002fcommun-2014-0025.xml

Topics: reasons for watching television, aging

Methods: Interviews with Dutch older people about their television viewing habits

What it says: This article investigates whether older people, who tend to watch television more than younger people, use television as a substitute for other activities that they may do less because of their age like working and socializing. The authors draw on Selective Optimization and Compensation (SOC) theory, which states that successful aging is a lifelong process of optimizing life circumstances through selecting and compensating to maximize gains and minimize losses.

Other researchers have suggested that increased television viewing among older people is a compensation strategy for losses in their lives. The authors conducted qualitative interviews with Dutch older adults to see if they could find more instances of selection, or choosing to engage in watching television, vs. compensation, or substituting television for diminished abilities or activities.

Their analysis indicates that television was a choice for some interviewees, and that it did not simply take the place of other activities in which interviewees were unable to partake. This suggests that television was one of a variety of meaningful activities in which interviewees could participate, and that they chose television over those other activities. Interviewees also appreciated the social aspect of television and being able to share it with a partner.

For interviewees who indicated that television was part of a compensation strategy, it did take the place of more meaningful activities, or to fill time. Respondents using this strategy also reported substituting television after losing a social relationship, like the loss of a spouse. Overall, the authors found that selection strategies better described older adults’ television viewing behavior than compensation strategies.

What I think about it: The interview methodology limits our ability to generalize from these findings, but these are interesting results that relate to how we’re thinking about television vs. attending arts events more generally. In terms of other limitations, I wonder about a potential for social desirability response with some of the interviewees that might have increased the number of respondents who appeared to use television as a selection strategy instead of a compensation strategy. Additionally, given that the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts data shows a mostly upward trend of arts participation with aging, it’s possible that older adults tend to engage with more entertainment in general, which in turn might explain some of the selection strategy.

What it all means: Selection and compensation strategies apply to aging, but I wonder if this construct applies to other aspects and changes in our lives. According to these results, the choice to watch television among these older people is usually healthy and fulfilling, but can also be a simple use of time and related to things that they have lose throughout their lives. Similarly, I wonder if people who find themselves with an injury or in poor health, experienced a loss, or have otherwise undergone a change in life find themselves in a similar position of having to choose whether or not to watch television to either compensate for losses or maximize a positive aspect of a life change.

The SOC framework seems related to how we’re thinking about how people of lower socioeconomic status choose to prioritize and fill their free time. For some, limitations might push them toward watching television instead of doing what they’d really like to be doing, like perhaps attending arts events, and for others television might be a meaningful activity with which to fill their time. While the results from this article can’t point us in any conclusive direction, this is an interesting way of framing the question.

The Computing Scale Co, Burnaby Village Museum by Kenny Louie

Title: TV Viewing and BMI by Race/Ethnicity and Socio-Economic Status

Author(s): Kerem Shuval, Kelley Pettee Gabriel, Tammy Leonard

Publisher: PloS ONE

Year: 2013

URL: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0063579

Topics: obesity, health outcomes, television viewing, socioeconomic status and race

Methods: Regression analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), a nationally representative survey of people over aged 18 from across the United States about their communications and knowledge about healthcare and cancer.

What it says: This study uses data from HINTS to understand the association between obesity and television among adults when considering socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. The authors use BMI as the primary dependent variable and TV viewing, in average number of hours watched per day, as the primary independent variable. They controlled for race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status using variables for race and whether or not respondents completed a college degree and whether or not they had health insurance. They also controlled for age, gender, marital status, number of children, and variables related to respondents’ level of physical health.

They found that the odds of being overweight increased as respondents entered the third and fourth quartiles of television watching across races and socioeconomic statuses, but that the strength of the effect varied with race and socioeconomic status. For example, while they find an increased tendency toward obesity with more television viewing among non-Hispanic whites, the employed, and those with insurance, the effect is not statistically significant in the case of Hispanic and black respondents, unemployed respondents, and those without health insurance. Both college graduates and non-graduates were at increased risk for obesity in the fourth quartile of TV viewing.

What I think about it: The authors note a few important limitations to interpreting the results. The sample size for racial subpopulations is fairly small, which might disguise a real effect due to small sample size. They note that their findings are cross-sectional and do not account for how respondents’ relationship to watching television might vary over time. Additionally, they note that they do not consider factors other than television that might indicate a level of sedentary tendencies.

In terms of the significance of the findings, I think that we need more evidence to understand how television viewing and obesity relate to socioeconomic status and race. Additionally, I wonder if a more helpful statistical approach would be to examine how the increased likelihood of watching television among a particular group might make that group more prone to obesity, instead of looking at how the same amount of television viewing might lead to an increased likelihood of obesity.

What it all means: Increased television viewing leads to a higher likelihood of obesity, perhaps because of an increased tendency toward sedentary behavior. While the results of the study suggest that increased television viewing is not necessarily associated with increased obesity for all racial and socioeconomic groups, the fact that people in certain subgroups watch more television might make them more likely to become obese if we think that the relationship is causal.

Books! by Kirrus

Happy New Year, Createquity Insiders! We are starting the year off productively with plans to launch two feature articles later this month. We’re also in the process of choosing our next research investigations. Stay tuned. And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Television Watching and Wellbeing

We are putting the pieces together on our feature article for TV and wellbeing and clarifying our takeaways from our review of the literature. Here is the full list of sources we’ve reviewed thus far for the forthcoming article:

Bowman, S. (2006). Television-viewing characteristics of adults: correlations to eating practices and overweight and health status. Preventing Chronic Disease, 3(2). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16539779

Bruni, L., & Stanca, L. (2008). Watching Alone: Relational goods, television, and happiness. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(3-4), 506–528. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268106002095

Cardwell, S. (2014). Television Amongst Friends: Medium, Art, Media. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 9(3), 6–21. Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/manup/cstv/2014/00000009/00000003/art00002

Dempsey, P., Howard, B., Lynch, B., Owen, N., & Dunstan, D. W. (2014). Associations of television viewing time with adults’ well-being and vitality. Preventative Medicine.

Dunstan, D., Barr, E., Healy, G., Shaw, J., Balkau, B., Magliano, D., … Owen, N. (2010). Television viewing time and mortality: the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab). Circulation, 121(3), 384–91. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065160

Guetzkow, J. (2002). How the Arts Impact Communities: An Introduction to the Literature on Arts Impact Studies (Working Paper Series No. 20). Taking the Measure of Culture Conference: Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. Retrieved from https://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP20%20-%20Guetzkow.pdf

Gupta, V., Nwosa, N., Nadel, T., & Inamdar, S. (2001). Externalizing behaviors and television viewing in children of low-income minority parents. Clinical Pediatrics, 40(6), 337–41. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11824177

Harlow, B. (2015). Staying Relevant in a Changing Neighborhood: How Fleisher Art Memorial is Adapting to Shifting Community Demographics (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Staying-Relevant-in-a-Changing-Neighborhood-How-Fleisher-Art-Memorial-is-Adapting-to-Shifting-Community-Demographics.pdf

Harlow, B., & Cox Roman, C. (2015). Someone Who Speaks Their Language: How a Nontraditional Partner Brought New Audiences to Minnesota Opera (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Someone-Who-Speaks-Their-Language.pdf

Harlow, B., & Heywood, T. (2015a). Getting Past “It’s Not For People Like Us”: Pacific Northwest Ballet Builds a Following with Teens and Young Adults (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Getting-Past-Its-Not-For-People-Like-Us.pdf

Harlow, B., & Heywood, T. (2015b). Opening New Doors: Hands-on Participation Brings a New Audience to a Clay Studio (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Opening-New-Doors-Hands-On-Participation-Brings-a-New-Audience-to-The-Clay-Studio.pdf

Hendriks Vettehen, P., Konig, R. P., Westerik, H., & Beentjes, H. (2012). Explaining television choices: The influence of parents and partners. Poetics, 40(6), 565–585. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X12000605

Hoang, T. D., Reis, J., Zhu, N., Jacobs, D. R., Launer, L. J., Whitmer, R. A., … Yaffe, K. (2015). Effect of Early Adult Patterns of Physical Activity and Television Viewing on Midlife Cognitive Function. JAMA Psychiatry. Retrieved from http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2471270

Horvath, C. W. (n.d.). Measuring Television Addiction. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(3). Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15506878jobem4803_3?journalCode=hbem20#.Vji50KL88gg

Jacobs, J., & Peacock, S. (2014). Editorial: “The Liveliest Medium”: Television’s Aesthetic Relationships With Other Arts. Critical Studies in Television, 9(3), 1–5. Retrieved from https://www.icahdq.org/pubs/Calls/liveliestmedium.asp

Jakes, R., Day, N., Luben, R., Oakes, S., Welch, A., Bingham, S., & Wareham, N. (2003). Television viewing and low participation in vigorous recreation are independently associated with obesity and markers of cardiovascular disease risk: EPIC-Norfolk population-based study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 57(9), 1089–96. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12947427

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2006). Would You Be Happier if You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion. Science, 312(5782), 1908–1910. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/312/5782/1908.short

Kataria, M., & Regner, T. (2011). A Note on the Relationship Between Television Viewing and Individual Happiness. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 40(1), 53–58. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535710000892

Lampard, A., Jurkowski, J., & Davison, K. (2012). Social-cognitive predictors of low-income parents’ restriction of screen time among preschool-aged children. Health Education & Behavior: The Official Publication Of The Society For Public Health Education, 40(5), 526–30. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23239766

Lee, B., & Lee, R. S. (1995). How and Why People Watch TV: Implications for the Future of Interactive Television: Implications for the Future of Interactive Television. Journal of Advertising Research, 35(6). Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/242362719_How_and_why_people_watch_TV_Implications_for_the_future_of_interactive_television

Livingstone, S. (1998). Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation (Second). Routledge. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=0iIbwhcu1r4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

McCoy, C. A., & Scarborough, R. C. (2014). Watching “bad” television: Ironic consumption, camp, and guilty pleasures. Poetics, 47, 41–59. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X14000576

Muennig, P., Rosen, Z., & Johnson, G. (2013). Do the Psychological Risks Associated with Television Viewing Increase Mortality? Evidence from the 2008 General Social Survey – National Death Index dataset. Annals of Epidemiology, 23(6), 355–360. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662979/

Robinson, J. P., & Martin, S. (2008). What do Happy People Do? Social Indicators Research, 89(3), 565–571. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11205-008-9296-6

Romer, D., Jamieson, K. H., & Aday, S. (2003). Television News and the Cultivation of Fear of Crime. Journal of Communications, 53(1), 88–104. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb03007.x/abstract

Rosenstein, C. (2005). Diversity and Participation in the Arts: Insights from the Bay Area. The Urban Institute. Retrieved from http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/311252-Diversity-and-Participation-in-the-Arts.PDF

Schneider, L. (2013). A Note on Income Aspirations, Television, and Happiness. Kyklos, 66(2), 301–305. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/kykl.12022/abstract

Shuval, K., Gabriel, K. P., & Leonard, T. (2013). TV Viewing and BMI by Race/Ethnicity and Socio-Economic Status. PLOS. Retrieved from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0063579

Simons, N. (2015). TV drama as a social experience: An empirical investigation of the social dimensions of watching TV drama in the age of non-linear television. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(2), 219–236. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/279280934_TV_drama_as_a_social_experience_An_empirical_investigation_of_the_social_dimensions_of_watching_TV_drama_in_the_age_of_non-linear_television

Stevens, L. K. (1996). Motivating opera attendance : comparative qualitative research in 10 North American cities, 1996. Washington, D.C.: ArtsMarket Consulting. Retrieved from http://www.worldcat.org/title/motivating-opera-attendance-comparative-qualitative-research-in-10-north-american-cities-1996/oclc/35633527

Sussman, S., & Moran, M. B. (2013). Hidden addiction: Television. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(3), 125–132. Retrieved from http://www.akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/JBA.2.2013.008

Thompson, D., Matson, P., & Ellen, J. (2013). Television viewing in low-income latino children: variation by ethnic subgroup and English proficiency. Childhood Obesity, 9(1), 22–8. Retrieved from http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/chi.2012.0113

Uslaner, E. M. (1998). Social Capital, Television, and the “Mean World”: Trust, Optimism, and Civic Participation. Political Psychology, 19(3), 441–467. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792173

van der Goot, M., Beentjes, J. W. J., & van Selm, M. (2015). Older adults’ television viewing as part of selection and compensation strategies. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(1), 93–111. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/277930457_Older_adults_television_viewing_as_part_of_selection_and_compensation_strategies

Wheeler, K. S. (2015). The relationships Between Television Viewing, Behaviors, Attachment, Loneliness, Depression, and Psychological Well-Being (Undergraduate Honors Thesis). Georgia Southern University, Georgia. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses/98/

World Health Organization. (2012). Social Determinants of Health and Well-Being Among Young People.

Xu, J., Forman, C., Kim, J. B., & Van Ittersum, K. (2014). News Media Channels: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Mobile Phone Usage. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 97–112. Retrieved from http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jm.13.0198

History of Change in the Arts Ecosystem

We are also in the writing stage of our feature article exploring the history of change in the Arts Ecosystem. Here are the additional sources we reviewed in January for the forthcoming article:

Bogaert, S., Boone, C., Negro, G., & Witteloostuijn, A. van. (2014). Organizational Form Emergence A Meta-Analysis of the Ecological Theory of Legitimation. Journal of Management. http://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314527129

Burns, J. S. (1975). The Awkward Embrace: The Creative Artist and the Institution in America (1st edition). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Hanks, N. (1965). The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects. Rockefeller Brothers’ Panel Report on the Future of Theatre, Dance, Music in America. Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund. Retrieved from http://images.library.wisc.edu/Arts/EFacs/ArtsSoc/ArtsSocv03i3/reference/arts.artssocv03i3.rockefeller.pdf

National Endowment for the Arts. (1998). The Performing Arts Spread Out: Geography of Performing Arts Organizations, 1992(Research Division Note No. 63). Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/63.pdf

National Endowment of the Arts. (1998). Count of Performing Arts Organizations Up by Over 30 %, 1987 – 1992 (Research Division Note No. 62). Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/62.pdf

Novick, R. (2011). Please, don’t Start a Theatre Company! Next Generation Arts Institutions and Alternate Career Paths. GIA Reader, 22(1). Retrieved from http://www.giarts.org/article/please-dont-start-theater-company

O’Quinn, J. (2015). Going National: How America’s Regional Theatre Movement Changed the Game. American Theatre. Retrieved from http://www.americantheatre.org/2015/06/16/going-national-how-americas-regional-theatre-movement-changed-the-game/

Ragsdale, D. (2011, May 16). L3C Cha-Cha-Cha. Retrieved from http://blog.americansforthearts.org/2011/05/16/l3c-cha-cha-cha

“Second Grade Writing Class” by Flickr user woodleywonderworks.

In July, thirteen years after the Bush Administration passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), ushering in an age of highly criticized, high-stakes standardized testing–Congress voted to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This month, it passed the new law–nicknamed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)–with overwhelming bipartisan support. ESSA ends Adequate Yearly Progress, reels in standardized testing (though it doesn’t do away with it entirely), and removes the Common Core requirement. It also delegates more authority to states and local education agencies over accountability regarding student growth measures, professional development, and federal funding allocation for high-poverty schools. Notably for arts education, the ESSA replaces the language of “core subjects” from NCLB with “well-rounded education” (which includes the arts); in addition, the new legislation allows for arts and music education programming to qualify for new, state-administered grants. While President Obama called law a “Christmas miracle” and most welcome the change, some are concerned that leaving the details to the states may leave the most vulnerable behind.

The year of too much television. 2015 was the year the number of original scripted television series available in the US surpassed the 400 mark–coming in at 409 shows, up almost 9% from 2014 and nearly double the number available a mere six years ago. But hold the bubbly: the second Golden Age of Television has fast become the year of “Peak TV”, and it’s not all welcome news. While some are celebrating the milestone, many lament the embarrassment of riches, pointing out that “there are not enough hours in 2015 to watch all the TV you want to see in 2015.” John Landgraf, CEO of FX Networks puts it a different way: there’s too much competition, and “good shows often get in the way of the audience finding the great ones.” There’s also the unexpected side effect of shows that should have concluded or been cancelled long ago hold on, as TV networks race to program every moment. And yet, despite significant increases in programming on basic cable, traditional television is suffering. In December, Nielsen released a report confirming a 10% decline in traditional television watching among the coveted 18-34 demographic, compared to a 25% increase in the use of smartphones. The latest Pew Research Center survey revealed 19% of adults in this demographic have become cord cutters–that is, they’ve dropped their cable or satellite service–and another 16% never had a package to begin with.

The Facebook fortune turns philanthropy on its head. On December 1, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced the birth of their daughter Max in an open letter on Facebook. The letter announced another birth, so to speak, as well: the creation of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative “to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation,” funded by Mark and Priscilla’s pledge to “give 99% of [their] Facebook shares–currently about $45 billion–during [their] lives to advance this mission.” The announcement was met with praise, and as much criticism, as the chattering class opined about the dangers of personal influence and the rise of “philanthrocapitalism”, questioned their charitable intentions, raised concerns about transparency, and even accused the couple of tax evasion. (It probably didn’t help that Zuckerberg’s first big philanthropic overture didn’t go so well.) The Initiative is structured as an LLC instead of a traditional foundation, a highly unusual move for philanthropy, which affords it some interesting benefits that enable the entity to sidestep regulations on lobbying and how much it gives away in a given year. That $45 billion fortune–which is more than the endowment of the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest–has the potential to significantly change the shape and pacing of philanthropy in the future. The arts didn’t make it into the initial letter, but with the Initiative’s interest in “strengthening communities,” it will be interesting to see if and how it figures. 

Mexico establishes a Ministry of Culture. Lately, Mexico has made mainstream news more for violent crime and human rights violations than for its mariachi and mole. In September, in his annual state of the nation address, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto chose to focus on the latter, announcing plans to set up a new culture ministry that were affirmed almost unanimously by the Mexican Senate this month. (Up until now, cultural decisions were made by the CONACULTA, within the body of the Public Education Ministry.) Although the new ministry won’t have much in the way of resources to start with, its formation comes just before the passing of the 2016 budget, which will allow it to better design and implement policy. The Ministry will be led by Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, who led the CONACULTA from 1992 to 2000 and again since 2012. It now falls to the Senate to create and approve legislation establishing a General Law of Culture.

Royalty rates for internet radio are raised, slightly. The battle over music royalties is as old as recorded music itself, though it has certainly intensified since the dawn of the streaming era. Much has been written about the paltry sums paid out by streaming services, and some high profile battles have been waged against Spotify and its competitors by the likes of David Lowry (of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame) and Taylor Swift. This month, those on the payee side scored a victory when the US Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruled that, for the period covering 2016-2020, internet radio companies will pay 17 cents per 100 song plays (up from 14 cents previously), and major and independent record labels will be treated the same. These rules apply to non-interactive internet radio (think Pandora), so on-demand services like Spotify and iTunes Radio, which operate under direct licenses, won’t be affected. Still, the decision is a coup for labels and artists, who will in theory see more money coming their way. Unfortunately, the new rules are not welcome news for small webcasters, who are not in a position to be generous. An exception for small webcasters based on total revenue that CRB included in its 2010 ruling is noticeably missing from the latest rates, putting small and mid-sized webcasters on shaky ground.

MUSICAL  CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Arthur Espinoza, Jr. has been appointed the Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
• Henry S. Bienen, president emeritus of Northwestern University, has been named president of The Poetry Foundation.
• Ruby Lopez Harper was named new Director of Local Arts Services at the Americans for the Arts.  
• Andrew D. Hamingson, current executive director of St. Ann’s Warehouse, has been named president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
• Saudi King Salman has appointed Adel Al Toraifi minister of culture and information, in a move that some are seeing as a signal of openness to reform.
• After nine years as executive director, Roberto Bedoya has resigned from the Tucson Pima Arts Council.
• ArtsEngine/a2ru seeks a Research Fellow. Posted on November 25; closing date January 15.
• The Community Arts Stabilization Trust is hiring a Director of Real Estate Development and Partnerships. Posted December 21; no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A study from the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and UNESCO estimates that cultural and creative industries provide 29.5 million jobs worldwide and generate 3% of the world’s GDP; another published in the journal Economic Development Quarterly looks at the links between big performing arts organizations and the ‘creative class’, with positive implications.
• Despite recent funding cuts, a survey this month of UK theaters shows the industry is thriving, with increases in earned and contributed income across the board. (The trend extends to other mediums as well; new figures published by DCMS shows fundraising income catching up with public funding as a source of income for Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations.) On the other hand, a survey of those same theater companies reveals a steep decline in use of digital technologies in the creation and distribution of new work, which is too bad, as yet another report suggests that digital performance broadcasts increase live attendance. Things are not looking great for British libraries, however. New numbers Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy show the number of libraries in the UK fell by 2.6% in 2015. 
• TV was in the new news quite a bit this month. New numbers from Nielsen admit that smartphones and tablets are gaining on traditional television, and a survey from the Pew Research Center shows 19% of the coveted 18-29 demographic have become cord cutters. Meanwhile, new research suggests watching a lot of TV in early adulthood is associated with poorer cognitive performance at midlife.
• The National Endowment for the Arts published The Arts in Early Childhood: Social and Emotional Benefits of Arts Participation: A Literature Review and Gap-Analysis (2000-2015) this month, synthesizing findings from 18 recent reports in psychology and education research journals. Meanwhile, in Canada, a recently published research suggests that shows group music classes may help increase sympathy and helpfulness in kids.
• In good news for New York students, the 2014–15 New York City Department of Education “Annual Arts in Schools Report” released this month shows arts education in NYC public schools was expanded in 2015.
• On the foundation side, an external analysis of the Knight Foundation’s grantmaking approach concludes that, while innovative, its lack of clear goals and strategies is confusing to many.
• Tentative cause for celebration: a ten-year long study of one million women in the U.K. found that unhappiness does not increase risk of mortality. In less celebratory news, a study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that the role of genetics in intelligence varies with socioeconomic status, at least in the United States, and that individuals are more likely to associate creativity with men than women.  
• IMPACTS released findings from a study which looked at the considerations that drive the philanthropic decisions of ultra high net worth individuals. And as we head into the new year, a call for resolutions: the annual survey by the Corporation for National and Community Service and the National Conference on Citizenship found that only one in four Americans formally volunteered through an organization in 2014, the lowest percentage of volunteerism since 2001.

“Untitled” by flickr user Jakob Montrasio

Each year, Createquity offers a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past twelve months. You can read the previous editions here: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009. Creation of this list is distributed amongst our editorial team. Authorship of individual items is noted at the end of each story.

Compiling our annual list of arts policy stories has always been a loose exercise, involving quite a bit in the way of editorial judgment calls. What constitutes a “top” story? Is it one that captured the most attention? That’s most relevant to our readership? That makes for the best reading? In the past, we’ve navigated these questions intuitively and implicitly for the most part, but this year, in keeping with our work towards identifying the most important issues in the arts (which faces similar dilemmas), we’ve added a twist. The stories below were selected and ranked based on our estimate of how many people they affected (or will affect), and how deeply, worldwide. As a result, the stories you’ll see below have a distinctly global flavor compared to our previous lists. We’re planning to use a similar method to rank our Newsroom stories in the new year. Speaking of which, from all of us at Createquity, best wishes for a happy and healthy 2016!  –Ian David Moss

10. At the casino with national arts councils: Australia shuffles the deck, Canada doubles down, England tries a new game

Australia’s system for government funding for the arts was turned upside down this year, and the implications are still shaking out, even as Communications Minister Mitch Fifield took over the Arts Ministry portfolio from former Arts Minister George Brandis in November. Brandis surprised (and angered) the Australian arts community in May by pushing over AUS $110 million in cuts to the Australia Council arts funding body over the coming four years. The money didn’t disappear, but instead was earmarked for the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts, a new arts funding program under direct control of the Ministry for the Arts, and thus managed, rather alarmingly, by Brandis. Money wasn’t the only thing Brandis moved from the Council to the Arts Ministry–he also took control of the public-private partnership program known as the Creative Partnerships Australia. The ongoing tug of war between the Council and the Arts Ministry highlighted key issues in arts funding structures, including a hard look at the Council’s principle of arm’s length funding. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the English-speaking world, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his new Minister of Canadian Heritage Melanie Joly pledged to double funding for the Canada Arts Council last month. And in the arts sector in England, movement towards a more fully American-style funding system continues apace, with so-called “national portfolio organizations” now raising more than double each year the amount that has been lost in government funding as a result of cuts several years ago to Arts Council England. That said, the Council averted further cuts this year and instead is to receive a small annual increase of £10m yearly until 2020. –Michael Feldman

9. Hollywood begins to wake up to its diversity problems

This time last year, Hollywood was rocked by the Sony Hack scandal, which–beyond spectacle and threat–revealed in no uncertain terms the stark gap in gender pay at Sony. Turns out, Sony is not the only offender, and women are not the only ones affected. In January, when the coveted Oscar nominations were announced, there was not a single person of color among the nominees for lead and supporting actor and actress, not a single women nominated in either of the screenwriting categories, and the director category was dominated by white men. Although television fought back with a more diverse slate of Emmy Awards nominations in July, and the recently announced nominees for the 2016 Golden Globes are somewhat more balanced, the situation on the small screen is not much better: a study from the Directors Guild of America looked at the 2009 to 2014 television seasons, and revealed that in this five year span, 87% of first-time TV directors were white, and 82% of them were male. More studies follow suit: a report from the Ralph E. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA which looked at film and television makeup in 2012 and 2013 shows minorities and women lagging behind in all categories (with particularly low numbers of LGBT and Latino players) and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s study of the 700 top-grossing films between 2007 and 2014 shows that women had less than a third of speaking parts in the most popular films and worse, that only three of those same films were directed by African Americans.

Hollywood is finally taking note. Top-billed Hollywood actresses (and George Clooney), heeding Jennifer Lawrence’s rallying cry, have started speaking out about gender pay inequity. In May, citing bias against women, the ACLU asked state and federal agencies to investigate Hollywood’s hiring practices. In October, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission followed suit and began contacting female directors to investigate gender discrimination in Hollywood. Also in October, the Women in Film and the Sundance Institute organized a two-day, closed-door meeting with 44 top industry officials to discuss solutions to the gender issue. (The four strategies identified during this meeting were made public in December.) As for racial diversity, in November Cheryl Boone Isaacs (who, it should be noted, is the first African American and only the third woman to hold the post of president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) finally announced a five-year plan aimed at diversifying the Academy’s leadership, and stars of color such as Aziz Ansari continue to draw attention to the issue. –Clara Inés Schuhmacher

8. Culture fails to make a dent in UN Sustainable Development Goals

This September, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new agenda for sustainable development, replacing the 2000 Millennium Development Goals. The so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a significant milestone for global policy and help define the framework that will be used to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in global aid over the next 15 years. In the two years prior to the adoption of SDGs, a consortium of organizations including the IFACCA, Agenda 21 for Culture, IFCCD, Culture Action Europe, Arterial Network, IMC, and the ICOMO launched an international campaign to advocate for the inclusion of cultural indicators among the SDGs. UNESCO–the cultural arm of the UN–also advocated for the inclusion of culture in the SDGs, developing a manual for the collection of data on culture and development. Yet even with 17 goals and 169 targets addressing economic, social and environmental development, culture would up notably absent from the agenda. Despite the setback, some notable progress was made in the final weeks of 2015. On December 14, the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution on Culture and Sustainable Development, which recognizes culture as a driver of sustainable development and points out that policies responsive to cultural contexts yield better development outcomes. Importantly for the future of the SDGs, the resolution also suggests that the role that culture plays in development should be included in the follow-up and review framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. – John Carnwath

7. Controversies and troubles in social science research

It’s been a year of upheaval and, yes, even scandal, for the social sciences. In February, the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology announced it would ban the “null hypothesis statistical testing procedure,” claiming that p-values, the time-honored method of establishing statistical significance of research, are easily manipulated and were never meant to be the be-all and end-all of scientific rigor. The announcement was met with celebration, caution, and mood dampening within the statistics world, and brought a bit of mainstream media attention to an existential struggle that’s been gripping the scientific community for years. The high-profile retraction of an influential study about political canvassing came three months later. The study, which suggested that canvassers from the Los Angeles LGBT Center were effective at changing attitudes towards gay marriage, had received national media attention in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, This American Life – even a tweet on Createquity – and launched primary researcher Michael LaCour’s career all the way to a plum tenure-track job at Princeton. It received a different kind of attention in May, when two graduate students trying to recreate the study arrived at the conclusion that the data was likely falsified. When LaCour was unable to produce the original data set collected, the study’s high profile co-author Donald Green promptly requested a retraction from the original publisher, Science. And it’s not just wrongdoing at play. In August, The Reproducibility Project released the results of its attempts to replicate the findings of 100 foundational social science studies. In 62 of the replicated studies, the effect observed was weaker than in the original, suggesting that the original findings were not confirmed. Both the LaCour scandal and the Reproducibility Project findings raise important questions about “irregularities,” the dependence of study results upon circumstances, and the need for replication. Whether it’s greater transparency and a culture of whistleblowing, increased focus on data sharing and replication, or more innovation and rigor in the use of statistics, psychology and the social sciences will surely continue to debate potential reforms in the year to come, with implications for arts research as well. –Katie Ingersoll

6. ISIS loots cultural heritage to fund terrorism

2015 has been a tragic year for culture in the Middle East, with egregious heritage crimes committed by ISIS in Sabratha, Nimrud, Hatra, and Palmyra (twice!) as reported in these pixels in March and September. The real problem goes much deeper, however. In May, Iraq’s top antiquities officials suggested that the destruction of cultural sites was in fact a cover-up for the systematic looting and resale of antiquities, prompting an international investigation into the Islamic State’s oil & antiquities department (known as “Diwan al-Rikaz,” or, the “Department of Precious Things That Come Out of the Ground,”) and how it helps fund terrorist activities through the sale of relics on the black market. A link was made to the Western art trade as blood antiquities from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq were discovered to be being sold in London, New York and elsewhere. In August, the FBI issued a warning directly to art dealers to watch out for “terrorist loot,” and in September the U.S. Department of State offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the disruption of ISIS trafficking of antiquities and oil. In November, a report released by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) found that “IS completely dominates the antiquities trade in the areas under its control,” taking 20% or more of the revenue from items sold to smugglers. While the total value of the looted pieces is difficult to assess (some say it’s in the hundreds of millions, others say the total value is, in fact, nominal,) the extensive destruction has galvanized many into action: archaeologists are racing to capture Middle East’s historical sites with digital renderings before they’re destroyed, and Syria’s “Monuments Men” are cataloging theft and destruction on the ground. UNESCO took its own serious step against ISIS in May when it adopted a resolution affirming that “attacks intentionally directed against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art … or historic monuments, may amount to war crimes”. Meanwhile, these revelations have raised the age-old question of who actually owns ancient art and has prompted a closer look at the astounding scale of looting and selling of ancient artifacts globally. –Shawn Lent

5. The Every Student Succeeds Act is passed by Congress

Fifty years after the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Congress finally passed a reauthorization of the landmark federal education legislation called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) this December. After the stringent accountability measures and top-down approach of the embattled prior authorization No Child Left Behind (NCLB), ESSA attempts to delegate more authority to states and local education agencies over accountability regarding student growth measures, professional development, and federal funding allocation for high-poverty schools. Notably for arts education, the ESSA replaces the language of “core subjects” from NCLB with “well-rounded education,” and the definition of a well-rounded education includes the arts. While NCLB did include the arts in its list of core subjects, popular wisdom held that its emphasis on strict testing of academic subjects created incentives for schools to shift focus away from the arts. More flexibility in creating and monitoring student growth measures may allow schools and local education agencies to increase their investment in the arts. Further, the new legislation allows for arts and music education programming to qualify for new, state-administered grants. While we will have to wait and see how the legislation is implemented to learn how this new reauthorization will impact arts education, it seems likely that ESSA will at least maintain and perhaps improve arts education for all US students. –Louise Geraghty

4. Big Tech gets in on entertainment action, Big Media gets in on nonprofit action

Income from streaming services eclipsed CD sales for the first time in 2014, and the fatcats took notice. In January, Sony announced that Spotify would replace Music Unlimited as the music streaming outlet for its PlayStation Network. That platform, available in 41 countries (which triples Sony’s live streaming reach), went live on March 30. In March, Jay Z announced the launch of his own streaming service, Tidal, and despite a rocky year–a major lawsuit, three CEOs in eight months–the service is holding on with a million subscribers, a 31-country reach, and a surprise release from Prince. Apple jumped on the increasingly crowded music streaming bandwagon in June when it unveiled Apple Music, its own music streaming platform spearheaded by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. As with Tidal, Apple’s service offers a paid option only, though it certainly has a marketplace advantage: the app is packaged into every iOS download, and it integrates neatly with iTunes, which at last count had some 800 millions user accounts. Pandora, not to be undone, turned on the offensive this year, acquiring Ticketfly, Rdio Inc and Next Big Sound, and signing unprecedented licensing agreements with Sony/ATV, and with Warner. While it remains to be seen what effect recent US Copyright Royalty Board rulings will have on internet streaming, everyone won with the arrival of the Beatles catalogue to the streaming universe. Streaming services aren’t the only mechanism by which tech giants tried to elbow into the entertainment business this year. In March, Google launched YouTube for Artists, a set of online tools aimed at helping musicians generate more revenue from their music, and ostensibly plan better tours through in-depth access to viewer information on a city level.

If 2015 signaled a convergence between tech and media, within media itself we saw another convergence: between nonprofit and for-profit. In August, premium cable channel HBO struck a deal with the nonprofit Sesame Workshop to bring first-run episodes of “Sesame Street” exclusively to its network and streaming outlets starting in the fall. Although new episodes will eventually be available on (free) PBS–the show’s home for the last 45 years–the news raised some troubling questions about mission and access. As if that weren’t enough, after 127 years, the National Geographic Society, “one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world,” sold a 73% stake in its iconic magazine and other media assets to a Murdoch-headed partnership in exchange for $725 million in September. –CIS

3. A landmark victory for net neutrality

The first half of this year delivered big-time for proponents of net neutrality. In February, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in favor of classifying broadband Internet as a public utility, outmaneuvering a previous court order that had handicapped proposed regulations. Far from done, in May the FCC shot down the proposed merger between cable giants Time Warner and Comcast in another move celebrated by net neutrality advocates, and the following month the agency approved a proposal to expand the Lifeline program and allow participants to apply its subsidies to broadband internet as well as to landline and mobile telephone service. (The $1.7 billion subsidy program, created in 1985 under the Reagan administration, serves some 17 million low-income people nationally.) Over the summer, nine internet service providers filed lawsuits to overturn the Open Internet Order, including telecom giant AT&T, who is waging legal war against the commission on its own; all arguments were heard in court on December 4. A decision is expected in spring 2016, and at least one commentator suggests that the Open Internet’s prospects are looking good. On the federal side, Republicans in Congress have attempted to overturn the initial FCC ruling all year (see here and here) and at the last minute, slipped an anti-net neutrality rider into the end-of-year, must-pass spending bill. Luckily, the bill passed without those provisions, thanks in part to pressure from companies such as Etsy, Kickstarter, Tumblr and Vimeo. Meanwhile, across the pond, the European Parliament rejected several proposed amendments limiting Internet companies from playing favorites with legal online content, reminding us all that this issue is a global one. –CIS

2. China becomes dominant player in global arts markets

In 2014, China overtook the United States as the world’s largest economy, and in 2015, it solidified its ascendance in the arts with many important firsts. With the value of art traded in 2014 reaching an all-time high at an estimated €51 billion, China edged out the United States as the world’s largest market for modern art with a 30.6% share of global sales. China rose to second place worldwide in the global art market more generally, tying the UK with a 22% share. Both percentages are likely to increase, especially given the jaw-dropping $170.4 million Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian paid Christie’s for Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couche in November. Unfortunately, however, Chinese collectors aren’t paying those kinds of prices for works made at home: sales of contemporary Chinese artists have dropped significantly as buyers focus on Western pieces and Western art fairs, like Art Basel Miami. At the box office, China did as spectacularly, beating out the United States in February film proceeds with $650 million in revenue. (Star Wars, which may or may not tilt the scales, will not be released in China until January 9.) What’s more, Chinese box office sales jumped a whopping 48% this year, putting it firmly in second place globally; a report from Ernst & Young predicts that China will be the world’s biggest film industry by 2020. The year ahead looks bright for gaming, as well. This past May, China’s Ministry of Culture lifted a fourteen year-old ban on the production and sale of video consoles gaming, opening the door to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to manufacture and sell their Xboxes, PlayStations and Wii in-country. Although it’s not immediately clear what impact the lifting of the ban will have on Chinese gamers, or on the bottom line of these big three, China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market by 2016. We may very well see China back on this list this time next year. –CIS

1. Terrorism hits the arts

Deaths from terrorism have reached their highest level ever recorded, and the arts are increasingly in the crosshairs. The year dawned with attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in which two Islamic fundamentalists killed twelve, including Charlie Hebdo’s editor and several cartoonists, in apparent retaliation for the magazine’s repeated depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Though this attack was aimed a small group of individuals, its effects were felt deeply and on the global scale: a solidarity march held on the Sunday after the attack drew almost four million citizens and some forty world leaders. In March, gunmen attacked the National Bardo Museum in downtown Tunis, killing two Tunisians and 20 foreign visitors, and wounding at least 50 others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack – Tunisia’s deadliest since 2002 – shaking a country that prides itself on having emerged as the most successful post-Arab Spring democracy. In October, two Bangledeshi publishers were stabbed to death purportedly for having printed the work of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American known for his critical writings on religious extremism. (Roy was himself assassinated in February of this year.) The close of the year saw coordinated terrorist attacks once again reverberating throughout Paris on November 13, this time even more devastating. Gunmen opened fire at a Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris’s historic Le Bataclan music hall, killing 89, and at bars and restaurants throughout the city, killing another forty individuals. U2 frontman Bono called the Bataclan massacre “the first direct hit on music in this so-called war on terror,” pointing to an unsettling new direction in terrorism this year in which cultural institutions (and not just local or politically symbolic international sites) have become targets.

This year’s attacks, collectively and individually, have prompted an avalanche of news coverage and reactions from all corners of the globe, and precipitated a growing backlash across Europe and in the United States against Muslim immigrants, Islamist terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, and importantly for this forum, freedom of expression. In November, President François Hollande revealed a proposal for France’s museums to temporarily house Syrian cultural objects “at risk” of ISIS looting, and Minister of Culture Fleur Pellerin announced a relief fund for French organizations affected by the attacks. Meanwhile, Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged 1 billion euros to spend equally on culture and security, and the Bardo Museum in Tunis, site of the March attacks, announced a cultural partnership with the Museo di Arte Orientale in Turin, Italy, in an effort to contribute to peace and stability in the region. –CIS

Honorable Mention:

• The Ford Foundation shifts its focus to inequality, reboots creativity & free expression program
• “Happy Birthday” is finally in the public domain
• Charitable giving to the arts is on the rise
• Building frenzy in NYC

For some prognostication on what we might be seeing in 2016, check out Thomas Cott’s annual roundup of predictions from his readers. Happy new year!

For our examination of the expansion of the nonprofit arts sector, we have continued to prioritize and review resources identified in our initial scan of the literature (shared in our September research update) as well as a few additional sources:

DiMaggio, P. J. (2006) Nonprofit organizations and the intersectoral division of labor in the arts. In W. W. Powell & Ri. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). Yale University Press.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Anheier, H. K. (1990). The Sociology of Nonprofit Organizations and Sectors. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 137–159.

Lowry, W. M. (Ed.). (1984). The Arts and Public Policy in the United States. The American Assembly.

Wyszomirski, M. (1999). Philanthropy and Culture: Patterns, context, and change. In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America (pp. 461–479). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Wyszomirski, M. J. (2013). Shaping a triple-bottom line for nonprofit arts organizations: Micro-, macro-, and meta-policy influences. Cultural Trends, 22(3/4), 156–166. http://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2013.817645

TV and wellbeing

For our next feature article following up on the findings from “Why Don’t They Come?,” we’ve been exploring the relationship between television viewing habits and wellbeing. Below is the latest draft of our internal report sharing findings from the literature reviewed thus far on this topic.

How good or bad is watching TV?

Is watching television associated with lower utility levels or life satisfaction than not watching television?

The evidence on whether television is good or bad is mixed and largely depends on what we think is most important for determining wellbeing. There is somewhat strong evidence to suggest that television is bad for physical health, depending on how credible we think the claim is that television causes obesity and other poor health outcomes, but more mixed evidence on whether it is bad for subjective wellbeing.

Evidence that television is bad for physical health:

• Associations with a more sedentary lifestyle, which is in turn associated with health problems. The relationship between obesity and television in children is an area of particular concern in the literature.
• Television may “crowd out” other, more social activities that are associated with higher life satisfaction
• In some older people (according to a qualitative interview-based Dutch study with older Americans) television is a “compensation” strategy for development and growing older, meaning that it takes the place of other, more meaningful activities as a coping mechanism for losing loved ones and losing abilities to participate in other activities.
• Television is associated with an increased risk of obesity and mortality not entirely explained by an increased tendency toward a sedentary lifestyle. Even among relatively healthy adults who meet the recommended level of daily physical activity, there is an increased tendency toward higher waist circumference and other indicators of poor health outcomes.

Evidence that television is not bad for life satisfaction and utility:

• Some authors suggest that people use television as a point to socialize, even with changes in technology and habits related to watching television
• Most of the interviewees in the Dutch qualitative study on selection and compensation reported that they selected watching television instead of using it as a compensation strategy to make up for things that they can no longer do.
• In contrast to evidence showing that television displaces more social activity and thus causes lower life satisfaction, when considered as a watching television vs. not watching television binary, two papers showed that watching television leads to higher life satisfaction than not watching television. This might be related to a basic level of income or comfort associated with having a television vs. not having a television.

Why do people with lower incomes and education levels tend to watch more TV than people with higher incomes and education levels?

We found several studies that consider the impact of higher television viewing on health outcomes in subgroups with higher levels of poverty than the rest of the population. These studies did not theorize why people of lower incomes tend to watch more television, but we might be able to draw some logical conclusions based on their discussions.

• People with lower incomes and less education are more likely to be unemployed and thus have more time to watch television
• Watching television is relatively inexpensive and more easily available to people
• Television doesn’t require advance planning, and thus might be more accessible to people who have more unpredictable schedules (like people who don’t know their work schedules far in advance)

With regard to the relationship between addiction and poverty, we found some strong agreement that television addiction exists, but little to suggest that it is tied to poverty. Several studies consider television, addiction, and its psychological implications, and the current consensus seems to be that television addiction does exist. One study found weak, not statistically significant evidence that less educated people showed more tendency to describing their television habits in a manner consistent with addiction to other substances. Further, these studies reference that people with one type of addiction are more likely to have other types of addictions. We could not find evidence or considerations of the magnitude of the problem of television addiction.

Do people with lower incomes and education levels watch different kinds of programming on TV than people with higher incomes and education levels? And does the type of programming make a difference with respect to how good or bad TV is for you?

We still can’t find any evidence on television type and its correlation with income or education level. We found one study that looked at how people justify the type of television they watch to themselves (in particular “bad” TV), which may vary by self-identified class. Another qualitative study considered how people make the choice to watch particular television programs, and found that childhood family and current household influences were strong determinants of what people choose to watch. If people are influenced by their parents’ television choices and if people at certain income levels tend to watch a genre of television, this might mean that those choices tend to carry on through generations.

The literature on how genre of television influence or are correlated with certain personality traits or behavior is a bit of a rabbit hole. For example, some types of television may create political biases, shape purchasing behavior, or increase aggression, depending on the type of television that people watch.

Since we know that low-SES people are more likely to watch television according to survey data, it is likely that they receive more of the negative impacts. There is a good portion of the literature devoted to how narrative techniques used in television are used to discuss race, class, and gender, and other literature devoted to how those discussions affect audiences. This literature is largely qualitative and discusses critical theory and theories of communication and how they relate to television.

Other literature suggests that it is likely that people are directly affected by what they watch on television and that it informs the way that they think about themselves. These studies draw on both empirical methods (public opinion polling, survey research, examining the effects of violent television on children’s behavior through direct observation), as well as critical theory about television and audience interpretation. According to Sonia Livingstone, author of several books and articles related to the effects of media consumption, “Psychologically it does not seem plausible that our assumptions, images, and knowledge of the world portrayed by television can be strictly separated from our assumptions, images, and knowledge of everyday life.”

Are people with different education/income levels more likely to derive different levels of utility from watching television?

We have found nothing to suggest that this might be the case, except for some evidence of a potential social desirability response in survey or interview responses among more educated people about television.

One study considered how increased hours spent watching television might exacerbate poor health outcomes for low income and some racial demographics, but did not find statistically significant evidence. Another way of thinking about differing impacts might be that since lower income people tend to watch more television, they are more at risk for poor health outcomes as a group.

How do the benefits or harms of watching television compare to those of attendance at arts events?

People who write about television and other activities seem to agree that relationship building, making connections within a community, and finding activities and work that are personally fulfilling are important components of meaningful activities. From what we’ve read about why people do or don’t attend arts events, it seems like people attend arts events do so because they fit all of those criteria (people like going with friends, go because they find them meaningful or enjoyable, and use them to feel connected to their communities). However, there is certainly some variation that underlies why and how people participate in arts events that might make attending arts events less beneficial for some people.

Television, on the other hand, probably fills some of these criteria for some people, but not for everyone. For example, in a study of elderly people on whether television is a choice among a set of meaningful events or whether they use television to take the place of events they can no longer participate in, some used it to compensate for losses and some selected it as a meaningful, fulfilling activity.

What makes poor and less-educated adults less likely to be interested in attending arts events, and should we be concerned about this lack of interest?

What do we know about why non-interested non-attendees are uninterested in attending arts events?

We looked at studies primarily from the Wallace Foundation explaining why groups of people systematically do not attend arts events, and found the following themes:

• Their friends don’t go. If people don’t have friends to go with them or don’t feel included in the activities happening at the opera, they are less likely to attend
• They feel excluded from arts organizations, or feel that they can’t relate to arts organizations’ content or productions
• Less available arts education among lower income people might make lower income people less interested in attending arts events.

Does the greater propensity of low-SES people to watch television rather than attend arts events typically reflect a conscious choice, a lack of awareness, or something else? If a choice, what’s behind that choice?

From studies that consider how making choices influences watching television:

• Some evidence to suggest that people watching television make a conscious choice to watch television from a set of meaningful activities, though not for everyone
• Strong evidence that household factors, such as spousal preference, children’s preference, parents’ preference, and friends influence television viewing choices
• Some evidence showing that people watch television because of social aspects related to discussion and shared viewing

While we could not find studies that explored the choice between television and arts events specifically, since television occupies a significant portion of time for Americans, it’s likely that some people are making the choice to watch television instead of attending an arts event, just as some are choosing to watch television instead of going grocery shopping.

“Researching.” Photo by Steve Hanna

Our latest feature article, “Part of Your World,” explored the relationship between the arts and the meta-concept of wellbeing. While much of the work for this investigation occurred earlier this year, below are some new sources that we reviewed in preparation for the article.

Arts & Wellbeing Research Update

Cobb, C & Rixford C. (1998). Lessons learned from the history of social indicators. San Francisco, CA: Redefining Progress.

Dodge, R., Daly, A. P., Huyton, J., & Sanders, L. D. (2012). The challenge of defining wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(3), 222–235.

Easterlin, R. (1974). Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence. In David, P. A. & Reder, M. W. (Eds.), Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramovitz. New York. Retrieved from http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/16/business/Easterlin1974.pdf

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.well-beingindex.com/

GDP: A Flawed Measure of Progress | New Economy Working Group. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.neweconomyworkinggroup.org/visions/living-wealth-indicators/gdp-flawed-measure-progress

Langlois, A., & Anderson, D. E. (2002). Resolving the Quality of Life/Well-being Puzzle: Toward a New Model. Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 25(3), 501–512.

Noll, H. (2004). Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research: Background, Achievements and Current Trends. In N. Genov (Ed.), Advances in Sociological Knowledge (pp. 151–181). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

The Hangzhou Declaration: Placing Culture at the Heart of Sustainable Development Policies. (2013). Presented at the Hangzhou International Conference China. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/images/FinalHangzhouDeclaration20130517.pdf

The Story of GNH | GNH Centre Bhutan. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gnhcentrebhutan.org/what-is-gnh/the-story-of-gnh/

Follow-Up Research on “Why Don’t They Come?” Update

Our research on the arts and wellbeing has led us in some interesting directions. After an initial scan and review of the literature on television, wellbeing, and the arts, we are drawing some initial conclusions about how television impacts health and subjective wellbeing. Our findings thus far include strong evidence that television is associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes, and not just because of sedentary behavior. Some researchers have suggested that the content of television that people watch and the behavior or mindsets it inspires might contribute to poor health.

The association between television and subjective wellbeing is a bit murkier. Researchers have pointed out that findings related to subjective wellbeing may seem counterintuitive because they don’t quite correlate with what you might expect to be significant drivers of wellbeing like income or health, which means that even though television might create poor health, it does not necessarily create poor subjective wellbeing. We can say with confidence that people tend to rate television relatively low compared to other activities, and that because it occupies such a significant portion of free time, television does tend to “crowd out” other, more satisfying activities. The overall effect on subjective wellbeing, however, remains somewhat unclear.

In the coming month, we plan to look more closely at our research questions related to the drivers of watching television vs. attending arts events among economically disadvantaged people. We will look at the degree to which this group is making a conscious choice to substitute television for attending arts events and will seek to better understand the lower interest in arts event attendance through market research analyses and interviews.

The articles and reports that we’ve read this month include:

Bruni, L., & Stanca, L. (2008). Watching Alone: Relational goods, television, and happiness. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(3-4), 506–528. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268106002095

Cardwell, S. (2014). Television Amongst Friends: Medium, Art, Media. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 9(3), 6–21. Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/manup/cstv/2014/00000009/00000003/art00002

Dempsey, P., Howard, B., Lynch, B., Owen, N., & Dunstan, D. W. (2014). Associations of television viewing time with adults’ well-being and vitality. Preventative Medicine. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25230366

Guetzkow, J. (2002). How the Arts Impact Communities: An Introduction to the Literature on Arts Impact Studies (No. 20). Taking the Measure of Culture Conference: Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. Retrieved from https://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP20%20-%20Guetzkow.pdf

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2006). Would You Be Happier if You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion. Science, 312(5782), 1908–1910. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/312/5782/1908.short

Kataria, M., & Regner, T. (2011). A Note on the Relationship Between Television Viewing and Individual Happiness. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 40(1), 53–58. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535710000892

Muennig, P., Rosen, Z., & Johnson, G. (2013). Do the Psychological Risks Associated with Television Viewing Increase Mortality? Evidence from the 2008 General Social Survey – National Death Index dataset. Annals of Epidemiology, 23(6), 355–360. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662979/

Robinson, J. P., & Martin, S. (2008). What do Happy People Do? Social Indicators Research, 89(3), 565–571. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11205-008-9296-6

Schneider, L. (2013). A Note on Income Aspirations, Television, and Happiness. Kyklos, 66(2), 301–305. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/kykl.12022/abstract

Uslaner, E. M. (1998). Social Capital, Television, and the “Mean World”: Trust, Optimism, and Civic Participation. Political Psychology, 19(3), 441–467. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792173

Wheeler, K. S. (2015). The relationships Between Television Viewing, Behaviors, Attachment, Loneliness, Depression, and Psychological Well-Being (Undergraduate Honors Thesis). Georgia Southern University, Georgia. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses/98/

World Health Organization. (2012). Social Determinants of Health and Well-Being Among Young People. Retrieved from http://www.hbsc.unito.it/it/images/pdf/hbsc/prelims-part1.pdf

Meanwhile, because of our recent focus on our investigation of wellbeing and the arts, we have been mostly in the research planning phase of our investigation into the history of change in the arts ecosystem.

History of Change in the Arts Ecosystem Research Update

Having identified three areas of the arts ecosystem that have experienced major changes over the past 50 years, we’ve assigned one member of our research team to conduct the initial bibliographic research in each area. Katie will be exploring the expansion of the nonprofit arts infrastructure, Fari will investigate the broadening of the definition of “art” in the nonprofit arts establishment, and John will be looking for literature on the impact that new technologies have had on both nonprofit and for-profit forms of expression.

To get an initial sense of the literature, we’re going to search Google Scholar and JSTOR, and add literature to our Zotero library based purely on titles and abstracts. In doing so, we’re going to keep track of the search terms we’ve used, monitor the time we’ve spent on each database, and make note of general observations.

After that we’ll discuss what additional research may be necessary. This might include searching additional databases (EBSCO Host, ProQuest Dissertations and Abstracts, ProQuest News and Newspapers, discipline specific databases), searches for books (Academic Library catalogs, WorldCat, Google Books), or specific academic journals that we should review. Alternatively, we might start pulling some of the literature and checking out the works they reference in their bibliographies.