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:

Charting the decline in newspaper live arts coverage

This research was conducted by Riie Heikkilä, Irmak Karademir Hazır and Semi Purhonen at Tampere University, Finland and Oxford Brookes University

Summary

This research examined the changing levels of arts coverage in European quality newspapers over a 50 year period (from 1960 and 2010). The paper draws out the changing balance …

Social media can increase engagement with museum collections

This research was conducted by Michela Arnaboldi and Melisa L. Diaz Lema at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Summary

This paper explores the potential for social media to democratise access and increase participation with museums. The study looked at the Facebook posts of nine Italian archaeological museums over the course of …

Crowdfunding a regular income for cultural projects

This research was conducted by Tobias Regner at the University of Jena, Germany

Summary

This paper explores the behaviour of creators and patrons on the crowdfunding site Patreon. The researchers took data from the first 18 months of the site (2013-15) and found a number of patterns which reveal the best …

The reasons musicians favour free streaming services

This research was conducted by Ramadan Aly‐Tovar, Maya Bacache‐Beauvallet, Marc Bourreau, and Francois Moreau at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord and Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France

Summary

This paper uses survey data from 1100 French professional musicians to draw out four main reasons why they favour free streaming. Firstly, it is a …

Exploring why people use social media to engage with music

This research was conducted by Jari Salo, Mikko Lankinen and Matti Mäntymäki at the University of Oulu and University of Turku, Finland

Summary

By talking to music executives and music fans in Finland this study found five motives for using social media to connect with artists and other fans: accessing content, …

Taking a work online may increase audiences but not diversify them

This research was conducted by Pablo De la Vega, Sara Suarez‐Fernández, David Boto‐García and Juan Prieto‐Rodríguez at Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Oviedo, Spain

Summary

This paper examined the difference between people who attended performing arts events in person and those who watched …

The difference between online and in-person visits to a museum

This research was conducted by Yves Evrard and Anne Krebs at HEC Paris and the Musée du Louvre, France.

Summary

This paper looks at the profile of visitors to the Louvre in Paris and compares them to those visiting the museum’s website. The research revealed that while the website and social …

Book-buying habits since the arrival of ebooks

This research was conducted by Paul Crosby at Macquarie University, Australia

Summary

A survey of Australian adults revealed three types of book readers. The largest group, “Technological Adopters”, tend to be younger and are equally happy with traditional printed book formats as newer digital ones. They often ‘rely on critical review …

Using Twitter to measure audience reception to a performance

This research was conducted by Deborah Agostino at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Summary

This study looked at tweets associated with a 2015 run of performances of Aida at La Scala in Milan. It extracted and downloaded all the tweets in English and Italian that mentioned the name of the …

Understanding online museum communities

This research was conducted by Tien-Li Chen, Wei-Chun Lai and Tai-Kuei Yu at National Taipei University of Technology and National Quemoy University, Taiwan

Summary

This paper uses a survey of students in Taiwan to understand how best to create emotionally resonant and engaging experiences with online museum communities. The survey was …