Abstract:

Numerous demonstrations in France indicate that profound questions are being asked in the field of non-profit cultural and creative industries. Although these questions concern the production and broadcasting of different artistic forms (live shows, publishers, …), many people working in these fields are sympathetic to the questions related to the meaning of their commitments, whether they be artists, broadcasters, spectators, or researchers in humanities and social sciences. These questions point to the basic tenets linked to the activities in each of these fields. The demonstrators resent the fact that the economic models upon which these fields are based have reached their limits of viability in a time when public subsidies are decreasing. They are also questioning the nature of the relationships among artists, public institutions, politicians, publics and civic supervisory boards. They are questioning their contributions to society in a time when the legitimacy of subsidized cultural activities is (once again) being queried.

At the heart of these queries is the notion of meaning which appears more or less explicitly: what is the meaning of cultural and artistic activities for artists, for the publics, and for society? How does one (co)develop and share this meaning?

In France, the Cultural Minister’s policy since its creation in 1960 has been inundated with specific responses to these questions.

The aim of making culture, the body of humanity’s great works, available as much as possible to everyone thanks to a geographic and sociological widening of the publics at large, is based on a universal vision of culture which, uniformly shared, becomes the crux of national identity.

Within this framework, it is up to professionals, recognized by the state, in a given field to take charge of justifying the legitimacy of various works, determining their meaning and validity, and then organizing how they will be shared.

It is this vision which is currently being called into question by more and more professionals through initiatives inspired by notions of democracy, diversity and the basic right to culture. Cultural democracy is a political aim which complements the idea of making culture available to everyone. The diversity of works and the need for the process of justifying their legitimacy to take into account the publics at large has been thrust into the forefront.

Within this framework, developing the meaning of artistic activities and the justification of their legitimacy must be done collectively, a process shared by artists, the publics at large and the professionals in each field. This process is no longer reserved exclusively to professionals. The topicality of these ideas and the attempts to put them into practice are a huge opportunity for researchers in the social sciences to « watch things as they are happening ». Seemingly, researchers should be in the field, with the various professionals involved, in their attempts to put into place new ways of functioning and alternative means of developing the meaning and sharing of artistic activities.    

To apply this, the starting point for our work will be our participation in a short art chain value project in which the meetings between artists and the general publics will not only take place during cultural events but also before and after these events so as to create a long-lasting commitment. In this way, a bond is woven at different moments in the process of encoding/decoding the various works which will allow for meaningful co-creation.

Keeping this in mind, our communication will benefit from the building methods for this meaningful co-creation between artists and their respective audiences within the framework of a specific mechanism inspired by the short art chain value models such as the ones which exist in other fields.

Our communication strategy will have three main phases:

-The first phase will analyze the context and the explanatory factors for the emergence of this socio-economic innovation based on researchers’ theoretical questions coming from various disciplines (economy, managerial sciences, sociology, information-communication).

- The second phase will present the first step in setting up this short art chain value project which started in 2010. The theoretical factors for this first step will then be laid out.

- The third phase will present the research methodology involved and the initial results in the form of different paradoxes which emanate from putting our initial aims into place.