AHRC Research Workshops Impact of Arts

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AHRC Research WorkshopsImpact of Arts
Humanities Research Scheme

• Qualitative Methods of Enquiry into the Arts
  Consumption Experience and its Impact
• AH/G001146/1
• Lisa Baxter
• Associate Research Consultant, Audiences Yorkshire

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Presentation Content

• Key outcomes from Workshop 1
• Partner venues
• Methodological approach
• Locate the innovation
• Learning outcomes
• Limitations and concerns
• Key questions for the future

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Key Findings From Workshop 1

• Experience can only be partially captured
• Multi-dimensional,
• Where does an arts experience begin end,
• Immediate, cumulative latent impacts,
• Intrinsic and extrinsic factors,
• Imperfect recall,
• Capturing intangibles,
• Articulacy,
• Influence of the research process,
• Influence of subjective researcher
  interpretation.

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Mapping The Assets
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Impact of Workshop 1 on Our Thinking

• Criteria for selection
• Feasibility of chosen approach within available
  time/resources,
• Clarity about the nature of arts consumption
  experience being researched,
• Clarity on what we mean by innovation,
• Address potential drawbacks.

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Methodological Approach

• Key methodological objectives
• Trial innovative methodologies in developing our
  understanding of the arts consumption experience
  and its impacts,
• To find methods to encourage greater articulacy
  and authenticity,
• To address issues surrounding imperfect
  recollections of past behaviours and experiences,
• To elicit insights into the intangibles of the
  arts consumption experience,
• To test the degree to which personal narrative
  can provide valuable context into the arts
  consumption experience,
• Minimise the influence of subjective
  interpretation,
• To develop a better understanding of how these
  methods could be commercially applied within the
  arts sector research community,
• To deliver mutual value for the project team and
  partner venues.

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Methodological Approach

• Key methodological solutions
• Visual Explorer - Metaphor,
• Personal narrative,
• Visualisation,
• Graphic ideation,
• Self interpretation.

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Partner Venues

• Magna
• Science Adventure Centre
• Low ratings for The Face of Steel
• Understand the visitor experience of The Face of
  Steel
• Seek ways to refine
• Parents who hold annual family pass and live
  locally

• West Yorkshire Playhouse
• Receiving and producing theatre
• Declining audiences
• Understand in-venue environmental experience
• Identify attitudinal reasons behind non
  attendance
• Lapsed attenders

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So Wheres The Innovation?

• Specific techniques
• - visualisation
• - graphic ideation
• - visual explorer cards
• Configuration
• - mixed mode
• - flow from left to right brain thinking
• Empowerment
• - participant driven
• - self interpretation and co-discovery
• Personal experience
• - new to me
• - facilitation rather than moderation
• Context
• - arts sector

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Results - Impacts
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Arts Experience Impact

• Intrinsic impacts
• sensory
• physical
• emotional
• visceral
• personal epiphanies or awakenings
• collective
• a complex interweaving of the personal and social
• Cumulative impacts
• values creation
• self actualisation

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• Mind, emotions, body, senses.
• Well, youve got more atmosphere when you have a
  crowded theatre like that. Its a sort of shiver
  goes through you because people are anticipating
  whats to come and so many of them...
• When Lenny Henry came on, I thought everyone is
  going to clap, its going to be awful, but it
  was silent, you could hear a pin drop really and
  it was so good, you could hear, you know, people
  were appreciating it almost.
• Well elation I suppose. Pleasure At the end,
  with people clapping, but with there being quite
  a lot of young boys, 17 year olds, they were
  whistling and it was amazing
• its a bit sad because all the excitements
  over.
• I put my coat on I didnt feel anything one
  way or the other. It was just flat.

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• Mind, emotions, body, senses.
• it felt bloody cold, and the darkness, you kind
  of lost your sort of peripheral vision because of
  the darkness and so all you get is this sense of
  scale and the sounds with itmakes you feel like
  youre walking into a steelworks.
• you get that almost kind of butterfly feeling
  the sense of whats to come
• from a sensory point of view, theres something
  there that says This is the start. Its like
  the start of a show when the lights dim and the
  curtains are closed on the stage
• I feelquite guarded and quite protective
• Maybe its something to do with the cold and the
  dark Its going back to your monsters in the
  corner you know, bogeyman under the bed sort of
  thing.

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Personal Epiphanies

• It was mainly about these two homosexual men and
  how they didnt know how to express their love
  for each other and at one point, I thought this
  was so beautiful, theyre wearing evening dress
  with bow tie and theres this dry ice coming up
  and theyre waltzing together and its so lovely.
  It makes you think, Theyre just the same as we
  are.
• Well, theyve made me realise other people can
  love each other. Its not just man and woman.

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Results - Context
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Values Creation

• Impact of childhood experiences on parenting
  value sets
• I think because there was never the money to be
  able to go abroad or to go to Alton Towers
  everything that we did had to be relatively
  cheapand thats been instilled in me Now as a
  family we always make sure we get value for money
  and making the most of everything.
• I want them to have everything that I had and
  that I know I loved and enjoyed a love of the
  outdoors and sharing my experiences with my
  family with my children.

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The role of Magna in visitors identity creation

• Value set
• You dont need to spend a lot to have a good
  family day out,
• Love of the outdoors,
• Repetition is just as good as the new,
• Dont ignore what youve got on your own
  doorstep,
• Importance of creating or passing on family
  ritual experiential legacy.

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Results Graphic Ideation
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Meaningful Metaphors

• Literal and non-literal meanings,
• Some revealed through self interpretation,
• Some revealed through researcher interpretation,
• The medium is the message.

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Emotionally Charged Milestones
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Literal and Non Literal Meanings
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Visual shorthand
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Family Dynamic
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The Medium Is The Message
I really wanted to do a bright and sunny and
bold timeline because that is important to me.
Im 37 and Ive had an absolutely blast. Ive had
a ball and thats what I wanted that line to
represent. Weve had some brilliant times, really
great, at whatever life stage its been at. So
first off, I feel very lucky in the things Ive
done.
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Results Visual Metaphor
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Hands On

• This isnt a visitor attraction where you just
  walk through and have a look at and go and have a
  coffee and disappear and say Thank you very much
  it was a nice 10 quidits getting stuck in and
  learning through hands on.
• Im always the mummy in the playground that goes
  on the play equipment as wellrather than a mummy
  who goes to have a sit down and a coffee and lets
  the kids go off and playI like getting involved
  and you lead by example.

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A Lovely Flower

• I chose this one because theyre all yellow
  flowers and then theres this lovely red one that
  comes up and I think West Yorkshire Playhouse is
  a little like that. Theres not a lot going on
  theatrically and then suddenly weve got this
  lovely burst of plays and a lovely theatre, and
  thats why I chose it, because its so much on
  its own and its so attractive. I thought it sort
  of stood out as the Playhouse does.

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What did we learn?
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• Arts Consumption Experience
• - embodiment
• - mind, emotions, senses, visceral
• - personal and social dimensions
• - self actualisation
• Personal Narrative/Timeline
• - reflective
• - milestones, impacts and gains
• - relevant cumulative and lasting impacts
• - valuable context
• - direct links to the arts consumption
  experience
• Visualisation
• - retrospective
• - immersive
• - depth, embodied recall

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Limitations Concerns

• Recruitment
• WYP low turnout and narrow demographic
• Dyad Group sessions
• Case study thematic approach
• Highlighted merits and demerits of each in each
  sector
• Session format
• Elicited very little group discussion
• Too many methodologies
• Problems with share of voice in group session
• Reversion to words
• See next slide

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Key Areas For Future Development

• Methodological refinement
• - reliance on words in graphic capture
• - use of metaphor in unlocking intangibles
• Broader applications
• - sample and demographics
• - scope
• - arts consumption contexts
• Experiment with Formats
• - group size, depth, dyads, mini depths
• - group dynamics
• - economically viable research units

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Practical Application

• Customer experience management
• - receptivity
• - navigation and dwell time
• Shaping and evaluating the brand experience
• Developing resonant sales messages
• - personalisation
• - empathy
• - communicate beyond adjective and cliché
• Points of engagement and separation as indicators
  of audience expectations and investment
• Points of resonance to evaluate degrees of
  loyalty and brand buy-in
• Market positioning
• - comparative experiences
• Expectation management

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Sources of inspiration

• Anna Bagnoli (2009), Beyond the standard
  interview the use of graphic elicitation and
  arts-based methods, Working Paper, University of
  Cambridge, ESRC National Centre for Research
  Methods.
• Athinodoros Chronis, Ronald D. Hampton (2003),
  Baudolino at the edge of historynarrative
  Construction and Narrative Closure In A Heritage
  Museum, in Advances in Consumer Research Volume
  30 eds. Punam Anand Keller and Dennis W. Rook,
  Valdosta, GA, 355 356
• Jane Elliott (2005) Using narrative in social
  research Qualitative and Quantitative
  Approaches, Sage Publications
• Jennifer Mason and Katherine Davies (2009),
  Coming to our senses? A Critical Approach to
  Sensory Methodology, Working Paper, University of
  Manchester, ESRC National Centre for Research
  Methods.
• Jennifer Mason (1996) Qualitative Researching,
  Sage Publications
• John W. Cresswell (2007) Qualitative Inquiry and
  Research Design, Choosing among five approaches.
  Sage Publications, second edition
• Kent Grayson (1997), Special Session Summary
  Narrative Theory and Consumer Research
  Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives, in
  Advances in Consumer Research Volume 24 eds.
  Merrie Brucks and Deborah J. MacInnis, Provo, UT,
  67 70
• Jon Prosser and Loxley Andrew Loxley (2008)
  Introducing Visual Methods, ESRC National Centre
  for research Methods Review Paper, NCRM/10