The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/2044-2084.htm AM
1,1

Mapping the arts marketing literature 26

Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Daragh O’Reilly
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to visually map the arts marketing journal literature.
Design/methodology/approach – An extensive title and abstract search was carried out to identify literature on the relationship between art and the market. Papers were then classified by topic. Visual maps were drawn showing topic coverage in relevant areas.
Findings – The literature dealing with the relationship between art and the market is found to be extensive and multi-disciplinary. The search found just over 1,500 papers.
Research limitations/implications – This was a mapping exercise rather than an analysis of the issues. Many different disciplines have a stake in understanding the art-market relationship.
Arts marketing scholars can benefit from engaging with research in this area, which is outside the marketing academy.
Practical implications – The maps provide a visual guide to the work, which has already been done across a wide range of disciplines and journals. They enable academic and professional readers to see where knowledge and insights may already exist and where work remains to be done.
Originality/value – Given the recent growth in arts marketing research, the paper provides a timely map of the territory.
Keywords Arts marketing, Serials, Research work
Paper type Literature review

Arts Marketing: An International
Journal
Vol. 1 No. 1, 2011 pp. 26-38 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2044-2084
DOI 10.1108/20442081111129851

1. Introduction
Although there is a commonly held view that arts marketing is a minority interest area, this is more akin to a lazy prejudice than a well grounded and clearly considered proposition. It is based on the narrow view of arts marketing. There are, broadly speaking, two ways of talking about it: first, as a discourse about the marketing management of artistic organisations and offerings (the narrow view) and, second, as a discourse about the relationship between the arts and the market (the broad view).
The choice of where one is on the narrow-broad spectrum is contextual and strategic.
The strategy in this paper is to take the broader view and to seek the fullest possible picture of the academic literature on the art-market relationship. This is in line with the
“fresh approach” to arts marketing advocated by O’Reilly and Kerrigan (2010, p. 3) and with Rentschler and Shilbury’s view (2008) of arts management as a field which “does not fit neatly within management, marketing, sociology, aesthetics, economics or law, but is a multidisciplinary profession drawing on these and other fields as its platform for scholarship”.
Within the international academy, there are many scholars outside marketing who have a stake in the theorisation of art and its relationship with the market, including,
e.g. cultural economists, sociologists of art, aestheticians, music scholars, researchers in film and performance studies and psychologists. It is important that arts marketing, arts management and indeed mainstream marketing scholars should listen to what they have to say. For example, Rentschler and Kirchner’s (2010) analysis of who is publishing and citing arts management and marketing articles shows the perceived importance for mainstream marketing of journals such as the Journal of Cultural
Economics. The importance of this journal is no doubt also related to governments’

enthusiasm for economic measures of the impact of the arts. If we do not pay attention to these strands of thinking, we are left with a version of arts marketing that is simply about marketing a product whose production, status and consumption we do not fully understand. Underlying the broader approach is the belief that there is merit — for policy makers, citizens, scholars and arts