Performing Legitimacy

Studies in High Culture and the Public Sphere

This book is an investigation of the cultural work involved in the social process of achieving and maintaining legitimacy as a not-for-profit arts or media organization in the twenty-first century. Within this work, Larsen advances an approach to studying organizational legitimacy, emanating from within cultural sociology. More specifically, he analyzes the legitimation work done in public service broadcasters in the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.