Introduction

The Sociology of the Arts and Culture Unit in the Institute of Cultural Theory, Research, and the Arts is conceived as an academic place of teaching and research on the macro, meso and microsociological structures and processes that produce and transmit art and culture and lead to their various receptions. The focus of the sociological perspective on “Cultural Transmission and Cultural Organization” (the official designation of the Institute Chair) is on the models of an interdependent cultural production, distribution and reception.
Culture is the result of cooperation. The product of culture is never merely the product of a single artist. Culture only becomes culture through a collective process of production, distribution and consumption. ‘Distribution and Organization of Culture’ studies this collective process, its structures and change.
Social, political and economic conditions determine this process. These conditions are constructed by environments, that is through markets, communal and social networks as well as political and other organizational structures. The creation, survival, and disappearance of cultural organizations cannot be reduced to economic factors alone; culture both adapts to and causes social and economic, global and local, demographic and socio-economic, political and social circumstances.

Cultural organizations can be found on local, national and global levels. Their audiences can be defined by class, lifestyle or demographic factors. The analyses of audiences and of organizations go hand in hand. The social analysis of the transmission of culture and the arts is inseparable from the analysis of cultural organizations, and vice versa.

The Sociology of the Arts and Culture Unit in Lüneburg teaches, researches and discusses in the fields of culture production, distribution and reception.
These fields of culture are mainly museums, exhibitions and music in high culture – as well as in popular culture. The Sociology of the Arts and Culture in Lüneburg describes and analyses the interdependent environments of the production, distribution and consumption of culture.
Social, political and economic environments influence the contents and forms of culture. In these environments culture is produced, distributed, collected, valued, taught and consumed in various ways.

The Sociology of the Arts and Culture in Lüneburg recognizes the importance of the distribution and transmission of culture as situated between the production and consumption of culture.
The sphere of distribution serving the transmission between the production and consumption of culture is based on three competing and co-existing environments: first, cultural markets; second, the public systems of support of culture and, third, non-profit-organizations. Each of these environments has its own structure and motivation; e.g. commercial objectives, political instrumentalization (also on the part of cities) or an emphasis on the value of cultural production itself.

 
The Sociology of the Arts and Culture in Lüneburg explains, using research into cultural organizations and urban contexts, how environments affect culture.
Every environment affects structures, contents and changes in cultural institutions. A further focus of the environmental analysis is urban culture, which has become interesting in the context of image, location and general communal politics. ‘Creative cities’, ‘creative industries’, and ‘cultural districts’ are important terms when outlining this topic.

The Sociology of the Arts and Culture in Lüneburg compares variation and change in organizational forms of cultural institutions.
Organizational forms of cultural institutions vary from the traditional cultural administration, with its roots in public cultural policy to cultural management, which plays a central role in cultural production, as transmitted through cultural markets. The reception of culture, which plays a major role in both the museal field (audience research) as well as for the marketing of culture, is a focus important to both research and teaching.

The Sociology of the Arts and Culture in Lüneburg is embedded in the social science and practice-oriented modernization of Lüneburg’s pioneering program of study in Applied Cultural Sciences.
Given major changes in the fields of cultural production during the last years, it has become necessary to provide a scientific foundation for the central questions in this field. This involves the inter-disciplinary integration of organizational and transmission models into the interface of culture and economy, culture and the city as well as culture and communication.

The Sociology of the Arts and Culture in Lüneburg in its teaching aims at providing students with individual qualifications for careers in cultural fields.
These are, narrowly defined, conceptualization, execution, development and formatting. In a broader sense they also include administration, sales and marketing as well as the education of scientific personnel. Students obtain a professional qualification for employment in the domains of museums, music, cultural administration, corporate endowments as well as in publishing. Classes taught in English put an emphasis on the international orientation of the subject.