Live and digital engagement in arts and culture (Research category)

This section collates research that asks questions about how people interact with culture in the digital realm. This is a relatively new area of research, which explains why this is a relatively small section in CultureCase. More studies should emerge in the coming year, especially given the work occurring through the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts.
The summaries in this category are:

The views of venue managers in a live music destination undergoing change

This research was conducted by Nicholas Carah and five others at the University of Queensland and three other institutions, AustraliaSummaryThis research examined live music venues in Fortitude Valley, an inner-city neighbourhood in Brisbane, Australia. The neighbourhood has undergone rapid change, from a diverse mix of venues and live music experiences, to a more commercialised generic offer of a venue-club-bar experience based around excessive or premium alcohol consumption. This attracts

Art therapy makes dementia patients more alert and engaged

This research was conducted by Jennifer Rusted, Linda Sheppard and Diane Waller at the University of Sussex, the University of Sheffield and Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
Summary
This paper reports an experiment designed to test the effectiveness of art therapy on older people with dementia. The study took place in Sussex, UK. The sessions involved a mix of drawing, painting, collage and sculpting. The study found that art therapy provided long-term benefits to the patient’s
By | 11 December 2013 |

A vibrant cultural scene helps ensure a more efficient tourism sector

This research was conducted by Calogero Guccio, Domenico Lisi, Marco Martorana and Anna Mignos at the University of Catania, ItalySummaryThis paper looks at the relationship between levels of cultural engagement and the performance of tourist destinations in Italy. It found that the regions with higher levels of cultural activity also had the most ‘efficient’ tourism sectors. The overall explanation for the results was that a vibrant cultural offering brings people to an area, gets visitors to

A participatory approach to cultural mapping

outside the city centre. The draft map was physically taken on a tour of public events among cultural groups in the city and through these the researchers captured the perspectives of 115 people. Once a place or a space was added to the map the team then added data about it. The process uncovered 759 cultural spaces, many more than the 95 yielded by initial desk research using existing data about the city. The categories describing these assets also grew in number as a result of the participatory

Corporate sponsorship is about more than just marketing

short while to showcase work they had commissioned (they also served the visitors coffee). Other examples cited in the paper include Benetton who set up Fabrica: a centre that develops and hosts artistic projects, the company thereby enhanced its public image but also supported in-house creative product development.
Investing in the arts really matters in the 21st Century knowledge economy
Arts and culture play a heightened role in a post-industrial world where goods and services are sold more
By | 11 April 2014 |

Digital broadcasts of live events do not reduce audience numbers

This research was conducted by Hasan Bakhshi and David Throsby at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, UK and Macquarie University, Australia
Summary
This paper tackled the question of whether digital broadcasts of live events lead to an increase or reduction in the number of attendees at those live events. The competing theories are that either audiences substitute their live experience for a more convenient digital one, or that the digital broadcasts bring in new
By | 11 April 2014 |

An active cultural life helps people live longer

(not solely relying on what the subjects reported about their own health). The authors are able to assert that 'people who are actively engaged in clubs, voluntary societies, hobbies or in cultural, recreational and civic activities seem to live longer than people with moderate leisure participation, and people with no or little leisure participation live the shortest life. Conventional health-related risk factors do not explain these associations.' This was true even after leisure activities
By | 9 December 2013 |

The positives and negatives of streaming live theatre and opera

on stage
Sitting in the dark, the use of a musical score and close ups of a particular character enables cinema audiences to become emotionally engaged in a performance. Theatregoers can be rather more detached, choosing for themselves where to look, and engaging in a ‘suspension of disbelief’. The cinema experience can lack the type of involvement that could lead to spontaneous applause and the sense of a shared occasion with others in person.
Streaming audiences are similar to live theatre
By | 23 May 2016 |

Six motivations for attending live music

, etc.). The fourth motivation was 'being there' (where the status of attendees is raised by being in the same space as the artist). The fifth component was 'uniqueness' (live music's unpredictability and once-in-a-lifetime feel). The sixth motivational component was 'music specific' and was related to the artist and their repertoire. People visited festivals for social and personal reasons – to hang out with others and discover new experiences. They predominantly