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Arts and the Market
Number of Followers: 6  Hybrid journal * Containing 1  Open Access article(s) in this issue *ISSN (Print) 2056-4945 - ISSN (Online) 2056-4953 Published by Emerald  [362 journals]
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- Creating the baseline: data relations and frictions of UK City
of Culture evaluation-
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Authors: Daniel Ashton, Ronda Gowland-Pryde, Silke Roth, Fraser Sturt
Abstract: Socioeconomic aims and impacts are an explicit part of the UK City of Culture (UKCoC) application, bidding, delivery and evaluation stages. This article engages with existing debates on evaluating cities of culture and introduces perspectives from critical data studies to examine the collection and analysis of different data for the purposes of the CoC application and evaluation processes. The meta-methodological concept of accompanying researcher is used to analyse the experiences of researchers based within a city bidding for UKCoC 2025 in dialogue with the evaluation reports from past UKCoC host cities. Findings are analysed under three themes: defining data morsels; local histories and infrastructures of data generation and sharing; and resources, capacities and expertise for data generation and evaluation. The discussion examines data still to be generated and/or brought into relation; tensions around data and measurement; and how constructing an evaluation baseline is generative—creating new organisations, relationships and practices. The conceptual and methodological approach and empirical findings will be relevant for academic, policymakers and practitioners engaging with cultural evaluation. In focussing on the bidding stage in real time through the accompanying researcher position, this article presents original empirical insights into the process of creating a baseline for cities of culture evaluation. The conceptual originality of this article is in using critical data studies to explain strategies of data generation and analyse data relations and frictions.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-09-06
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0038
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- Revisiting the impact of Liverpool as ECoC 2008: the lost opportunity to
reconcile cultural policy and evaluation-
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Authors: Stephen Crone, Rafaela Ganga
Abstract: In this paper, the authors reflect critically on their experience as researchers on the Impacts 18 programme: a re-study concerned with the long-term effects of Liverpool European Capital of Culture (ECoC) 2008. Situating Impacts 18 at the confluence of three important debates within the cultural policy field, the paper considers the causation, nature and significance of the shortcomings of the research, with a view to advancing cultural evaluation practices and encouraging re-studies in a field where they are seldom used. The authors draw on documentary analysis of unpublished research outputs, along with their own research notes and critical reflections. The paper focuses on two projects from the Impacts 18 programme, in particular, in order to illustrate the broader issues raised in terms of the epistemological framing, methodological design and execution of the Impacts 18 research. The paper highlights and explores the various issues that affected Impacts 18 in terms of its epistemological framing and methodological design, as well as problems encountered in terms of data management and stakeholder relationships. As a large-scale re-study of a cultural event, Impacts 18 represents an exceedingly rare occurrence, despite the acknowledged dearth of evidence on the longer-term impacts of such events. Similarly unusual, however, are critical and candid retrospectives from research authors themselves. The paper is thus doubly unusual, in these two respects, and should help to advance research practice in an under-researched area.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-08-02
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0045
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- Theatre arts in UK city of culture evaluation practices: the case for
headphone verbatim-
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Authors: Charlie Ingram
Abstract: This article's purpose is to examine the case for the use of the theatre arts in the evaluation of UK City of Culture (UKCC) programmes, specifically headphone verbatim. Through an analysis of secondary evidence, supported by some primary research, this article analyses past and present evaluation practices surrounding UKCC programmes and the case for headphone verbatim to be included as a method of gathering and distributing research data. The article also observes the challenges in how data may be disseminated through verbatim theatre performance practices, given the limited examples of its use in this context. The author argues that the theatre arts can provide a different way of knowing and understanding the impacts of UKCC projects on the host city. Specifically, that headphone verbatim can bring an experiential perspective that is rarely if ever captured by existing UKCC evaluation methods and policymaking in general. This article details an innovative method of evaluating social impacts associated with UKCC projects.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-08-01
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0033
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- The cultural politics of civic pride through Hull UK City of Culture 2017
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Authors: Michael Howcroft
Abstract: This article explores the cultural politics of civic pride through Hull's year as UK City of Culture (UKCoC) in 2017. It unpicks some of the socio-political meanings and values of civic pride in Hull and critiques the ways in which pride, as an indicator of identity and belonging, was mobilised by UKCoC organisers, funders and city leaders. It argues for more nuanced and critical approaches to the consideration and evaluation of pride through cultural mega events (CMEs) that can take account of pride's multiple forms, meanings and temporalities. A multidimensional, mixed methods approach is taken, incorporating the critical analysis of Hull2017 promotional materials and events and original interviews with a range of stakeholders. The desire for socio-economic change and renewed identity has dominated Hull's post-industrial sense of self and is often expressed through the language of pride. This article argues that UKCoC organisers, cognisant of this, crafted and tightly controlled a singular pride narrative to create the feeling of change and legitimise the entrepreneurial re-branding of the city. At the same time, UKCoC organisers overlooked the opportunity to engage with and potentially reactivate the political culture of Hull, which like other “left behind” or “structurally disadvantaged” places, is becoming increasingly anti-political. Through the case study of a relatively unresearched and under-represented city, this paper contributes to cultural policy literatures concerned with critically assessing the benefits and shortcomings of Cultural Mega Events and to a more specific field concerning Cities of Culture and the political cultures of their host cities. This paper also contributes to an emerging literature on the centrality of pride through the UK's post-Brexit Levelling Up agenda, suggesting that pride in place is becoming figured as a “universal theme” of the neoliberal city script.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-07-24
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0043
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- Understanding customer attitude toward advergames: an extended TAM
approach-
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Authors: Mona Jami Pour, Zohre Kazemi, Hossein Moeini
Abstract: Advergames have attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners as a new way of increasing customer engagement and advertising effectiveness. Gamified ads provide an exciting and persuasive environment for customers rather than non-gamified advertisements. Despite the growing spending on advergames projects, the understanding of customer attitude regarding advergames has received less attention and there are not enough studies about advergames. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to design a novel TAM-based model of determinants of customer attitudes toward advergames to enhance customer engagement and purchase intention. To obtain this end, the mixed method was applied. In the first step, the main determinants of customer attitude towards advergames were identified by a literature review as well as semi-structured interviews. In the second step, the proposed technology acceptance model (TAM)-based model was validated by survey method through players of advergames. A total of 15 interviews were conducted in the qualitative phase and 102 completed questionnaires were analyzed in the survey method. The results of the qualitative approach indicate that the main determinants of attitude towards advertisements can be classified into three categories, which are added to TAM as external variables. The results of the survey approach reveal that advertising content and game-related factors have a significant positive effect on perceived ease of use (PEOU). The advertising content and player-related factors also significantly affect perceived usefulness (PU). PU and PEOU also positively and significantly affect customer attitude. The findings show that the new TAM-based model can be considered as a robust model for explaining customer attitude toward advergame acceptance. The research findings can assist digital marketers to have a big picture of customer attitudes regarding advergames and implement these innovative digital-enabled advertising strategies successfully. The findings further suggest considering marketing/advertising aspects and game-related aspects as well as individual factors to design advergames. Advergames have become one of the priorities for digital marketers to enhance brand awareness and customer engagement, yet there is no study identifying determinants of attitude by considering multi-aspects of advergames. The most important theoretical contribution of the current study is to design a new extended TAM-based model which integrates behavioral variables (PEOU and PU) with factors related to the advergames context.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-07-19
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-01-2022-0001
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- A “life changing” year: intangible legacies of the Hull City of
Culture volunteer programme-
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Authors: Jessica Whitfield
Abstract: The Hull City of Culture 2017 volunteer programme is widely celebrated and remains a key legacy of the designation. A 2019 master's project found that volunteers experienced a multitude of intangible personal benefits from their time volunteering with the programme. Taking an interpretivist stance, this article aims to capture these sentiments; what volunteering has meant to the volunteers themselves and what legacy it has left them, both as individuals and as residents of the city. To investigate legacy over a longer period, the original qualitative research was supplemented with a similar number of interviews taken in 2021. The 2019 focus groups were largely positive towards Hull City of Culture, and the effect it had on the volunteers and the city of Hull overall. Participants highlighted various intangible benefits and legacies, namely, personal well-being, perceptions of the city and a sense of community. The world in which the 2021 interviews took place is almost inconceivably different, yet the volunteers' feelings about their time with Hull City of Culture and its later iterations are remarkably similar to the earlier findings. Despite the changing circumstances, they too expressed positivity about the programme and its effect on them individually, and the city more widely. The continued experience of intangible benefits from volunteering with the programme demonstrates an important legacy of Hull City of Culture 2017.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-07-12
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0044
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- Digital audience engagement in Nigeria: a shift from live to online
audience experience in Tosin Jobi-Tume’s-
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Authors: Tekena Mark
Abstract: Arts practitioners have looked for ways to engage their audiences and sustain their interests and patronage of theatre shows amidst the coronavirus pandemic that kept patrons at home. This has led to digital engagement with audience members via social media. This research paper looks at digital audience engagement in Nigeria’s theatre using Segun Adefila’s production of Tosin Jobi-Tume’s Corona Palava which was performed on 4 August, 2020, at the Crown Arts Centre in Bariga, Lagos, Nigeria and later made available on Facebook on 22 December, 2020 and 21 December 21 2021. This study is based on the “Arts Audience Experience Index” theory proposed by Radbourne et al. (2009). It employs netnography as its methodology. This entails observing and analysing users’ comments, communication style, frequency of engagement and dwell time while watching Corona Palava production on the researcher’s Facebook timeline “Tekena Gasper Mark” and on the Facebook group “Bolt Drivers in Port Harcourt”. Overall, 53 comments (39 from the researcher’s Facebook friends and 14 from members of the Facebook group “Bolt Drivers in Port Harcourt”) were sampled and analysed to provide insights into how the spectators experienced the Corona Palava production. The text that accompanied the Facebook video provided viewers with information about the performance, helped them prepare for what to expect, reduced the likelihood that they would experience any unease while watching it and increased the likelihood that they would look for similar performances in the future. They were pleased with the performance; there were no functional risks, no economic risks and no psychological and social risks. Although they may have watched it at varying times, Facebook provided a space for them to engage with the performance as a group and share their thoughts in the post-performance comments. One of the study’s limitations is that one cannot ascertain how many of the respondents are drivers. Also, the researcher believes that the length of the video may have discouraged participation in the study. In order to increase viewership and provide better findings, future studies and artistic endeavours could consider shorter pieces (about 3–5 min) and wider locations (transportation businesses) where a larger number of drivers with active social media presence, can participate in the research. This study documents an innovative approach to reaching theatre audience via social media in Nigeria. This research demonstrates that Nigerian theatre and arts practitioners are reinventing their approaches to play production by using the social media to reach their audiences in the post-COVID-19 era. The study reveals that as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Nigerian theatre artists have looked for ways to engage their audiences and sustain their interest and patronage of arts projects through social media.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-01-23
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-06-2022-0029
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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- Commodifying participation through choreographed engagement: the Taylor
Swift case
Open Access Article-
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Authors: Linda Ryan Bengtsson, Jessica Edlom
Abstract: This article examines the ways in which the popular music industry markets artists through integrated transmedia marketing campaigns. These campaigns unfold across multiple media and create multiple pathways for audience engagement, particularly fan engagement, across social media platforms. The purpose is to further theorise the relationship between artists, the music industry and audiences. The study used digital ethnography to scrutinise the activities within a contemporary music transmedia marketing campaign, focusing on the release of Taylor Swift's album Reputation as an illustrative case. The study demonstrates how strategically curated activities encompass platforms' affordances and industry events by making use of fan engagement across social media platforms and streaming services. Fans shift through platforms, as well as across digital and physical spaces, through defined marketing activities at specific times. This article proposes the concept of choreographed engagement to specifically address the ways in which the temporal and spatial aspects of social media marketing are used at the intersection of platform logic, algorithm economy and fan engagement to reach wider audiences. By proposing the concept of choreographed engagement, the authors bridge the gap between fan practices and marketing practices, providing insight into how commodification of fan engagement is utilised spatially and temporally within the contemporary platform economy. Choreographed engagement constitutes a significant aspect of strategic communication and marketing. The term expands the vocabulary used in the debate on the commodification of artistic work, and audience engagement in the platform era.
Citation: Arts and the Market
PubDate: 2023-01-17
DOI: 10.1108/AAM-07-2022-0034
Issue No: Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print (2023)
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