The paradox of impact measurement in cultural contexts

The cultural sector has increasingly adopted practices of impact measurement to justify public investment. While scholars have investigated the (de)merits of this cultural trend, literature on its rationale, development, and evolution is limited. We address this oversight by uncovering the intellectual history of impact measurement in cultural contexts. We reveal how measurement justification and practice became misaligned over time, creating a latent paradox of impact measurement in cultural contexts. We argue that current practices of impact measurement both strengthen and weaken the justification for public cultural investment. In the short term, impact measurement strengthens investment justification by providing cursory evidence of produced outcomes. In the long term, current practices weaken this justification by failing to produce counterfactual accounts for how cultural spend achieves funding objectives. We problematize this paradox and outline future research to either confront, embrace, or cope with its existence.