![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wordcloud_advocacy.jpg\" "\\"wordcloud_advocacy\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe most prevalent word (after \u201carts\u201d) is \u201ceducation,\u201d which makes sense since much of current arts policy thinking revolves around the benefits of arts on schoolchildren in terms of their intellectual and social development. Fair enough. But then look\u2014\u201cprograms,\u201d \u201cindustries,\u201d \u201ceconomy,\u201d \u201cmillion,\u201d \u201cbillion.\u201d\u00a0 Interspersed in there are some less economically-driven language like \u201ccreative,\u201d \u201cartists,\u201d and \u201ccultural,\u201d but really, perhaps because these arguments were being made for essentially economic gain (i.e. not losing money in the budget), they are essentially economic.<\/p>\n
(A caveat here that there are, of course, wonderful examples of people making non-economic arguments for the value of the arts, including at AFTA and elsewhere. Check out, for example, this very recent (very awesome) blog post<\/a> from Randy Cohen at AFTA.\u00a0 In general, however, it is my understanding that those arguments aren\u2019t usually the ones carried forward to legislators, often because they\u2019re based in feelings rather than numbers.)<\/p>\n (A further caveat that we clearly now need economic and numbers-based arguments for the value of the arts. This blog in general isn\u2019t about replacing any valid argument for the value of the arts, it\u2019s about augmenting those arguments with new ones.)<\/p>\n So, keep that one in your head. \u201cPrograms,\u201d \u201cindustries, \u201cmillion,\u201d \u201cbillion.\u201d Now take a look at another special interest group\u2019s messaging about the arts\u2026the Republicans. Here is a word cloud generated from as many speeches and blurbs as I could find about the NEA from Republican naysayers from Sarah Palin to John Boehner to Rush Limbaugh to John Kyl:<\/p>\n Surely not surprising, but it turns out the NEA, and arts in general, are being used as a front for attacking Obama and his other policies. The word \u201cthings\u201d (as in, in Sarah Palin\u2019s words, \u201cfrivolous things\u201d) comes up more frequently than the thing itself, \u201carts,\u201d (as does that favorite effigy of the far right, Obama) and grandstanding words like \u201cpassion,\u201d \u201cpeople,\u201d \u201cspeech,\u201d and \u201cagenda\u201d float high in the mix. (Ironically, “passion” is perhaps the closest thing to one of the core impacts of the arts that anyone is connecting to it right now.\u00a0 Too bad it’s generally a passion to cut government funding to zero.)<\/p>\n So there are essentially the two sides \u2013 our advocates versus our critics, duking it out for our relatively paltry $160 million slice of the pie. The kicker, though, is that neither of these word clouds reflects how we talk about ourselves in our purest form\u2014which is to say, in the missions of our organizations. Here\u2019s one last word cloud showing high-frequency words from the mission statements of about 300 theatre companies of all sizes in the San Francisco Bay Area:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n