In 2004, the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies was awarded a three-year Research Fellowship, funded jointly by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Arts Council England, in order to develop rigorous procedures for a better understanding of the social impact of the arts. The project started in November 2004, with Dr Eleonora Belfiore as the Research Fellow and Professor Oliver Bennett as Director. The research was conducted with particular reference to poetry, the novel and theatrical performance.
The first stage of the research resulted in a detailed critical analysis of the numerous claims that have been made in the West over time, from Classical Greece (V century BC) to the present day, for the ways in which the arts can affect individuals and society. Entitled The Social Impact of the Arts: An Intellectual History, this extended analysis was published as a book by Palgrave/Macmillan in 2008. It offers a taxonomy of these suggested impacts, both positive and negative, with a view to establishing an appropriate conceptual basis for the discussion and investigation of what the social impact of the arts might mean. At the same time, the book attempts to reconnect contemporary policy debates with a complex intellectual history, from which it is argued that these debates have become detached. It is suggested that the impacts of the arts cannot be properly understood, measured or evaluated without reference to this history. An introduction to this study can be found in 'Rethinking the Social Impact of the Arts' in The International Journal of Cultural Policy, vol 13, no 2, 2007, pp.135-151
The second stage of the project focused on the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. This resulted in an extended paper, 'Determinants of Impact: towards a better understanding of encounters with the arts', which was published in Cultural Trends in the autumn of 2007. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of philosophical and empirical attempts to capture the main features of the aesthetic encounter, the paper draws attention to the gaps in our current understanding of the responses to art. It proposes a classification and exploration of the factors - social, cultural and psychological - that contribute to shaping the aesthetic experience, thus determining the possibility of impact. The 'determinants of impact' identified are distinguished into three groups: those that are inherent to the individual who interacts with the artwork; those that are inherent to the artwork; and 'environmental factors', which are extrinsic to both the individual and the artwork. The paper concludes that any meaningful attempt to assess the impact of the arts would need to take these 'determinants of impact' into account, in order to capture the multidimensional and subjective nature of the aesthetic experience.
The third stage of the research explored the conceptual difficulties that arise in the notion of 'the arts' and the implications of these difficulties for attempts to generalise about their value, function and impact. This resulted in a paper, 'Researching the Social Impact of the Arts: literature, fiction and the novel', which was published in 2009, in the International Journal of Cultural Policy. The paper examines both 'essentialist' and 'institutional' perspectives, first on 'the arts' in toto and then on literature, fiction and the novel. It shows how literature sits uneasily in the main systems of classifying the arts and how the novel and fiction itself are seen as problematic categories. The position of the novel in the literary canon is also discussed, with particular reference to the shifting instability of the canon. The paper suggests that the dilemmas thrown up in trying to define or classify the novel are likely to be encountered in attempting to define other art forms. The implications of these findings for the interpretation and conduct of traditional 'impact studies' are explored.
The fourth and final stage of the project considered the implications of the findings of the project for the understanding of the social impact of the arts and for the place of the arts in modern societies. The resulting publication The Social Impact of the Arts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), explores the part that research and evidence actually plays in the formulation of policies for culture and resulting actions.