The Popularity of Art

Discussion & listening activity

A)Pre-listening:  discuss the question below and give examples or justify your views.

How much artistic success is about the actual quality of the work and how much is just luck or chance?

Good Art Is Popular Because It's Good. Right?

NPR Listening – length:  7.47 min

B)Listening: listen to the National Public Radio interview and say whether the statements below are TRUE or FALSE.

1.The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world because there is something special about the painting. It deserves to be famous.

2.Anybody who visits the Louvre Museum can easily see and appreciate the Mona Lisa.

3.Princeton Professor Matthew Salganik developed an experiment to see how much of success should be attributed to quality.

4.Always people’s attention attracts more attention, until many believe that something is really special, mostly because other people believed so.

5. Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world and it's hard to imagine that something different could have happened.

6.In his experiment with songs Salganik created different environments online where people could choose his prefered songs out of 48.

7.Surprisingly, everybody chose the same song in all different worlds.

8.Not many different things have an impact on success and failure. A huge hit isn't a matter of chance.

9.Chance plays a big role in success in our lives.

10.SALGANIK  thinks that his discoveries helps you understand people and treat them better.

Answers here!