Cultural Capital as a Driver of Art Consumption
Modern sociology considers cultural capital as one of the essential factors of cultural consumption. However, using this concept in cultural-oriented empirical research is still very difficult because of the conceptual ambiguity of the term and the impossibility to measure cultural capital by methods traditionally used in the sociology of culture and art. The article considers the methodological problems of conceptualization of the concept of “cultural capital” from the point of view of cultural studies as one of the key drivers determining the volume and nature of cultural consumption. The semantic dominant of the article is substantiation and presentation of the practical experience in determining the quantitative measure of cultural capital, with the use of modern analytical methods, which was carried out by the author in the course of a large-scale concrete sociological study of the audience of visitors of the State Tretyakov Gallery. In the course of the study, several hypotheses were tested on the connection between the measure of cultural capital and the individual characteristics of its transmission and accumulation, as well as on its impact on the nature and extent of cultural consumption, in particular, the attendance of cultural and artistic institutions. The obtained results refute some well-established stereotypes about the influence of education and age on the consumption of art and clarify the ideas about behavioral characteristics of the audience of art museum. The findings of this study do not represent a particular result of an individual empirical experience; they reveal some common patterns of cultural consumption and fully fit into the broad context of the world practice of scienti-fic study of the audience of art. The results of the research clearly show the potential and high explanatory capacity of cultural capital as a driving factor of art consumption.