Survey reveals how Americans participate in the arts

How do Americans participate in the arts in the course of a year? What kinds of art forms and activities do they engage with, and in what numbers? The National Endowment for the Arts investigates these questions and more in the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), the nation’s largest population survey of arts participation trends. The NEA has released an initial report of the survey’s findings. A more comprehensive report will be available in 2014.

“One of the most important things we can do as the National Endowment for the Arts is to understand how our nation engages with the arts,” said NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa. “This iteration of the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts is our most comprehensive look yet at the myriad ways art works for Americans.”

The 2012 survey asked a nationally representative sample of adults ages 18 and older if they had participated in five broad categories of arts activity in the past year: attending, reading, learning, making/sharing art, and consuming art via electronic media.

For the 2012 survey, the NEA doubled the sample size in order ask more questions and discover new patterns of arts engagement.

Read the key findings here.

Via: National Endowment for the Arts