Digital audiences: engagement with arts and culture online – November 2010
These activities can be mapped in terms of the proportion of people who engage in them and the depth of engagement that they represent, with access at the bottom of the pyramid and create at the top. The top levels in the pyramid tend to require more sophisticated internet skills, behaviour and equipment. Exhibit 13: Benefits classification framework for online engagement with arts and culture Requires increasingly sophisticated online skills and behaviour
Create
Share
Experience Learn Knowledge
Skills
Access Discover
Plan
Filter
Note: Based on combined analysis of quantitative and qualitative research data.
6.3
Understanding access activities
6.3.1 Using the internet to discover information The internet is now one of the main channels for discovering information about arts and cultural events and organisations – for many it is the primary channel. At a high level discovering information can be divided into two categories: active and passive (effectively the inverse to push and pull marketing). People actively set out to discover information through a range of tools:
Search engines: the dominant means of active discovery, even across older age groups: „I was surprised at how easy it was to Google “theatres in local area”. If I hadn‟t gone online, I wouldn‟t have found out those were on‟ 45-65 year old
Known websites: some respondents described bookmarking their favourite arts or cultural sites and visiting them regularly for up-to-date information (examples included Guardian, BBC, Tate Online, Time Out London, Days Out Guide)
Phone apps: the Time Out London iPhone app, which enables users to identify places of cultural interest to visit within a set radius, was used by some focus group attendees and had strong appeal Passive consumption of information directed at the audience tends to involve offline marketing or emails:
E-marketing: most respondents in the qualitative phase described receiving emails from either arts or cultural organisations, or ticket agencies that covered arts or cultural events. There is a general willingness to subscribe to emails from known organisations provided the information is relevant and the frequency is appropriate. Social networking sites can enable both active and passive discovery of arts and cultural information. For example:
Facebook: users come across arts and cultural information in status updates, comments and messages, but also actively join groups in order to keep up-to-date (although there is a considerable resistance among Facebook users to being too heavily „marketed to‟)
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