Artists and Online Dissemination: An Analysis of Positions and Position-Takings

Abstract This article analyzes visual artists’ response to online sales and dissemination technologies by mapping the range of corresponding positions and position-takings by professional artists in Norway. We consider whether artists’ responses align with traditional logics of artistic consecration identified in Bourdieu’s accounts of the field of cultural production, and how these responses correspond to Rogers’ theory of diffusion of innovations. Employing multiple correspondence analysis, we find position-takings toward online sales and dissemination can be structured by a dimension differentiating between technology-oriented optimism and techno-skepticism, between high and neutral levels of risk aversion toward online technologies, and thirdly between technology adopters and those still at an intentional stage.