Cross-National Differences in the Consumption of Non-National Culture in Europe

This article analyses Europeans’ consumption of and participation in non-national cultural activities. These patterns serve as a measure of Europeans’ affinity with cosmopolitan culture and aesthetic tastes that are associated with other countries. I use survey data recently collected by the Eurobarometer (2013) to analyse the profile of individuals in European countries who engage with another country’s culture and to compare distributions between countries. Examples of indicators include reading books by an author from another country, going to a musical performance from another country, and attending a festival or exhibition from another country. I find low levels of cosmopolitan cultural consumption in the sample as a whole. There are significant differences between countries and among individuals in a specific country in the degree of engagement with another country’s culture. I discuss the implications of the finding that cosmopolitan cultural consumption is not necessarily a very significant phenomenon for different social groups and what this means for the analysis of the link between cultural consumption and social inequality.