Poster #122 - The Limited Research on Public Funding for the Arts: A Scoping Review

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Sparse scholarly research exists on public funding for the arts. Most of the information available consists of white papers usually providing descriptive information solely. A scoping review is necessary to gather what the literature has covered and determined and what research gaps remain. Using the a variety of searches, I found approximately 80 articles and book chapters written in the last 70 years on public funding for the arts. The topics generally connected public funding to philanthropy or debated its normative value or public support for it. Fewer than 20 articles and book chapters have researched the impact of public funding for the arts on arts nonprofit organizations operationally. For more than 30 years, legislators in the United States have debated whether the government should fund the arts in any capacity despite consistent low levels of funding that pale in comparison to other countries’ public support for the arts. This existential threat seems to have led arts administrators and researchers to focus on the normative or economic arguments validating public funding for the arts to the exclusion of the impact and relationships of public funding for the arts. Ironically, this preoccupation with justifying public funding for the arts has precluded substantial evidence supporting such a claim. This review and the precarious funding environment highlight the need for robust studies evaluating the link between public funding for the arts and comprehensive impacts on organizations and communities for legislators, policymakers, public administrators, and the public when evaluating public investment in the arts.

Author

• Brandy Moriah Wicker, University of Texas, Dallas
  Presenting Author