Greg Sandow, one of the first critics to have recognized the extent of the crisis of the traditional classical concert, recently made a remark on his classical-music blog (www.artsjournal.com/sandow) that bears repeating:

　　The [fine] arts—as an enterprise separate from our wider culture, and somehow standing above it—are over. . . . [A]ny attempt to revive them (this includes classical music, of course) will have to mean that they engage popular culture, and everything else going on in the outside world。

　　Up to a point, I believe Sandow is correct. If we want to see a revival of the middlebrow culture of the pre-Vietnam era, in which most middle-class Americans who were not immersed in the fine arts were nonetheless aware and respectful of them and frequently made an effort to engage with them through the mass media, then high-culture artists will have to learn how to use today’s mass media in the same way and to the same ends。

　　Should we attempt to revive the old middlebrow culture? After all, there is a serious case to be made for not doing so: the case, in brief, for artistic elitism. The critic Clement Greenberg put it best in the pages of Commentary a half-century ago when he claimed that “it is middlebrow, not lowbrow, culture that does most nowadays to cut the social ground from under high culture.2 Greenberg's point is still arguable—but there is no getting around the fact that if you care about the continuing fate of symphony orchestras, museums, ballet, opera, and theater companies, and all the other costly institutions that were the pillars of American high culture in the 20th century, you must accept that these elitist enterprises cannot survive without the wholehearted support of a non-elite democratic public that believes in their significance。

　　Leonard Bernstein and Beverly Sills apprehended this, and did something about it. Perhaps more than any other American classical musicians of their generation, they did their best to communicate to ordinary middle-class Americans the notion that the fruits of high culture are accessible to all who make a good-faith effort to understand them. While that may not be strictly or wholly true, it is largely true—and an ennobling idea. I would not be greatly surprised if Sills in particular is remembered for delivering this message long after the specifics of her performing career are forgotten。

　　Alas, the message has to a considerable extent been forgotten by the orchestra that Bernstein led. To be sure, the New York Philharmonic, like all American orchestras, works hard at cultivating new audiences—but since Bernstein’s time, its efforts in this direction have rarely involved its music directors. Neither Kurt Masur nor Lorin Maazel made any serious attempt to reach beyond the purview of their regular duties to communicate the significance of classical music to a mass audience. Like most conductors of their generation, they saw their job as purely musical, and took for granted that its value would be appreciated by the larger community they served。

　　Alan Gilbert will not have that luxury. Instead, he must start from scratch. He must realize, first of all, that mere exposure to the masterpieces of Western classical music does not ensure immediate recognition and acceptance of their greatness—least of all when those doing the exposing make it clear that they expect young audiences to like what they are hearing, on pain of being dismissed as stupid。

　　This condescending attitude is part of the “entitlement mentality” that has long prevented our high-culture institutions from coming fully to grips with the problem of audience development. Too many classical musicians still think that they deserve the support of the public, not that they have to earn it. One of the signal virtues of America’s middlebrow culture was that for the most part it steered clear of this mentality. Its spokesmen—Bernstein foremost among them—believed devoutly in their responsibility to preach the gospel of art to all men in all conditions, and did so with an effectiveness that our generation can only envy。

　　I sincerely hope that Alan Gilbert will prove to be a great conductor. But I have no doubt that it is far more important to the future of classical music in America for him to be a great communicator, one who finds new ways to do what Leonard Bernstein did so superlatively well in the days of the middlebrow. And I suspect that his will be the harder task: to make the case for high culture to a generation that is increasingly ignorant, if not downright disdainful, of its life-changing power and glory。

　　Text 2文章取自Business Week (商业周刊)2009年11月5日，原文标题为 Top Managers Are Quitting, Without a New Job(顶级经理人在离职，新工作还没着落)，作者为 Jena McGregor。文章讲述的是和经济相关的内容，随着金融危机的缓和，工作机会渐增，许多高级经理人在没有找到下家时，就先辞职，也就是现在所谓的“裸辞”。针对这一现象，文章分析了这种“裸辞”的利弊和产生的原因。难度一般。

　　查看原文：

　　Top Managers Are Quitting, Without a New Job

　　When Liam McGee departed as president of Bank of America in August, his explanation was surprisingly straight up. Rather than cloaking his exit in the usual vague excuses, he came right out and said he was leaving “to pursue my goal of running a company。” Broadcasting his ambition was “very much my decision,” McGee says. Within two weeks, he was talking for the first time with the board of Hartford Financial Services Group, which named him CEO and chairman on September 29.

　　McGee says leaving without a position lined up gave him time to reflect on what kind of company he wanted to run. It also sent a clear message to the outside world about his aspirations. And McGee isn’t alone. In recent weeks the No.2 executives at Avon and American Express quit with the explanation that they were looking for a CEO post. As boards scrutinize succession plans in response to shareholder pressure, executives who don’t get the nod also may wish to move on. A turbulent business environment also has senior managers cautious of letting vague pronouncements cloud their reputations。

　　As the first signs of recovery begin to take hold, deputy chiefs may be more willing to make the jump without a net. In the third quarter, CEO turnover was down 23% from a year ago as nervous boards stuck with the leaders they had, according to Liberum Research. As the economy picks up, opportunities will abound for aspiring leaders。

　　The decision to quit a senior position to look for a better one is unconventional. For years executives and headhunters have adhered to the rule that the most attractive CEO candidates are the ones who must be poached. Says Korn/Ferry senior partner Dennis Carey:”I can’t think of a single search I’ve done where a board has not instructed me to look at sitting CEOs first。”

　　A FADING STIGMA

　　Those who jumped without a job haven’t always landed in top positions quickly. Ellen Marram quit as chief of Tropicana a decade age, saying she wanted to be a CEO. It was a year before she became head of a tiny Internet-based commodities exchange. Robert Willumstad left Citigroup in 2005 with ambitions to be a CEO. He finally took that post at a major financial institution three years later。

　　Many recruiters say the old disgrace is fading for top performers. The financial crisis has made it more acceptable to be between jobs or to leave a bad one. “The traditional rule was it’s safer to stay where you are, but that’s been fundamentally inverted,” says one headhunter. “The people who’ve been hurt the worst are those who’ve stayed too long。”

　　The question is how quickly these ambitious managers can land on top. Smith's search didn't take long; neither did McGee's. When debating whether to leave, he reached out to colleagues, CEOs, and headhunters. Their advice, he says: "If you're viewed as good, it actually might be a positive thing. It shows you have the independence and self-confidence to go for what you want."

　　Text 3文章取自The McKinsey Quarterly(麦肯锡季刊)，原文标题为：Beyond Paid Media: Marketing's New Vocabulary。分析的是大众媒体最新的变化，由于涉及一些专业词汇，所以难度为较难。

　　点击查看原文：

　　Beyond Paid Media: Marketing's New Vocabulary

　　The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for. No longer. While traditional "paid" media--such as television and radio commercials, print advertisements and roadside billboards--still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers enamored of a product may, for example, create "earned" media by willingly promoting it to friends, and a company may leverage "owned" media by sending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its website. In fact, the way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing's impact stems from a broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media。

　　These expanding media forms reflect dramatic changes in the way consumers perceive and absorb marketing messages. As a result, some strategic-marketing frameworks--such as the popular "paid, owned, earned" one--are in serious need of updating. Many marketers use this framework to distinguish different ways of interacting with consumers, forms of financing and measures of performance for each contact. Yet the paid, owned, earned framework increasingly looks too limited. How, for example, should a marketing strategist for a company react to requests from other companies to purchase advertising space on its product sites? How should a company deal with online activists when they take hold of a product or campaign to push a negative emotional response against it?

　　Two media types must therefore be added to the framework: "sold" and "hijacked." These new forms of media, which demand sustained investment and attention, challenge the traditional strategies, structure and operations of most marketing organizations. Yet marketers should view their expanding range of media options not only as a challenge but also as an opportunity worth grasping, to encourage readers to share content or even create their own。

　　Five Forms of Media

　　Too many companies view marketing plans as little more than an exercise in where and when to buy media placement. Yet as the number of digital interactions increases, marketers must recognize the power that lies beyond traditional paid media。

　　Paid, Owned, Earned

　　Paid media include traditional advertising and similar vehicles: A company pays for space or for a third party to promote its products. This market is far from dying; options for marketers are expanding exponentially with the emergence of more targeted cable TV, online-display placement and other channels, not to mention online video and search marketing, which are attracting greater interest. The second category, owned media, consists of properties or channels owned by the company that uses them for marketing purposes (such as catalogs, websites, retail stores, and alert programs that e-mail notifications of special offers)。

　　Earned media are generated when the quality or uniqueness of a company's products and content compel consumers to promote the company at no cost to itself through external or their own "media." Starbucks ( SBUX -news - people )， for example, announced in July that its Facebook fan base exceeded 10 million people, the highest of any U.S. corporation. The company directly links its recent strong performance to its social-networking efforts and "crowdsourced" innovations such as "My Starbucks Idea," a website where anyone can suggest ways to make the company better。

　　Similarly, Honda ( HMC -news - people ) Japan undertook a promotion on the social-networking site Mixi where more than 630,000 people registered for information about the launch of its new CR-Z vehicle. The company automatically added "CR-Z" to these users' Mixi login names (for example, "Taro CR-Z") and gave them a chance to win a car. Nonregistered users wondered why people suddenly had login names incorporating CR-Z. Thanks to the buzz, prelaunch orders reached 4,500 units, and actual sales topped 10,000 units in the first month。

　　Sold

　　Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers touting their own products. For earned media, such marketers act as the initial catalyst for users’ responses. But in some cases, one marketer’s owned media become another marketer’s paid media—for instance, when an e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its Web site. We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment. This trend, which we believe is still in its infancy, effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotels and will no doubt go further. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has created BabyCenter, a stand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitive products. Besides generating income, the presence of other marketers makes the site seem objective, gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about the appeal of other companies’ marketing, and may help expand user traffic for all companies concerned。

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