Audiences take centre-stage in new effort to assess the Arts

In the early 20th century the poet T. S. Eliot famously described culture as "that which makes life worth living". Today the Arts continue to play a hugely important role within society, a fact recognised by the Arts Council England when it launched its public engagement agenda to encourage greater public participation in cultural activities. Despite this, a recent report concluded that the cultural sector has difficulty in assessing the impact of its work on audiences.

In response to these findings, a Sheffield researcher, in partnership with Audiences Yorkshire and qualitative researcher Lisa Baxter, has developed a new approach for gauging the impact of cultural activities on audiences. Dr Elizabeth Carnegie, of the university's Management School, is leading a multi-agency project which brings a fresh perspective to this area by fusing academic research methods with approaches used in marketing and consumer studies.

A recent report by Sir Brian McMaster touched upon the challenges arts and cultural organisations face in understanding the profound value of their work, concluding that "too many organisations are trying to second-guess what their audiences want and are therefore cheating them out of the deepest and most meaningful experiences". In response to this, Dr Carnegie and Lisa Baxter set out to develop a critical understanding of how people experience the Arts, focussing in particular on their more intangible emotional responses. Dr Carnegie explains: "There was a lack of robust research and evaluation on the impact and value of arts projects and programmes. Whilst many such organisations have detailed quantitative information about their audiences through various surveys, this methodology failed to address the deeper question of what constitutes a 'quality' experience for their audience".

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Dr Carnegie worked with Audiences Yorkshire to run two workshops involving academics, arts representatives, marketing experts and commercial researchers. From these workshops co-researcher Lisa Baxter developed a qualitative methodology for gauging how audiences experience arts and cultural events, on a number of levels. The team put their novel approach into practice at two key partner venues, catering for different audiences: the 'Face of Steel' exhibition at Rotherham's Magna Science Adventure Centre and a Yorkshire Playhouse production of 'Othello'.

In both field studies, the team (including Dr Daragh O'Reilly, also of the university's Management School) were interested in exploring the experiential side of being an audience member, and discovering how the exhibition or play was able to move and engage individual audience members. Dr Carnegie explains: "Participants were encouraged to draw their responses to the exhibition or play. We found that, particularly with the group who had experienced the Magna exhibition, the drawings showed a strong sensory, emotional and, in many cases, visceral reaction to the exhibition. The depth of experiences revealed by this process, arguably not attainable through purely discussion-based techniques, points to the value of visualisation in gaining in-depth understanding into both the tangibles and intangibles of the arts consumption experience".

The team's novel approach was able to yield crucial qualitative information (e.g. emotional reactions) as opposed to simple quantitative ones (e.g. time spent in the exhibit). "By approaching the issue from a fresh perspective, we hope to lead the move away from a 'tick-box' culture to deeper interpretations and understandings of audience experiences, a move strongly encouraged by key policy-makers".

As well as pioneering a fresh, more profound approach to understanding the impact of culture and the Arts on audiences, the success of the team's methodology makes it suitable for application in a number of commercial settings, including customer services, brand development and market positioning.

For further information, please contact Dr Elizabeth Carnegie at:

tel: 0114 22 2182

email : E.Carnegie@sheffield.ac.uk