Top of the pops, ascend of the omnivores, defeat of the couch potatoes: Cultural consumption profiles in Denmark 1975-2004

This article presents a new approach to modelling change over time in cultural consumption practices, which jointly models qualitative heterogeneity in cultural consumption clusters, measured via latent classes, and quantitative heterogeneity in total cultural participation level within each latent class. We analyse cultural consumption practices in Denmark over the period 1975-2004 and identify four cultural consumption clusters. We document the relative size of each cluster over time, the profile of socioeconomic gradients across clusters, and the total cultural participation level within each cluster. We find that (i) the 'couch potato, limited participation cluster in which members engage in only few cultural activities becomes less prevalent and less active over time, (ii) the 'popular' cluster in which members engage in lowbrow, popular activities replaces the couch potatoes over time, (iii) the 'omnivore' cluster in which members engage in both highbrow and lowbrow activities becomes slightly more prevalent and culturally active, and finally (iv) the middle class 'middlebrow' cluster does not change much over time.