The Business of Museums and the Engagement of 21st Century Audiences

Within the sub-theme of Collaboration, Partnerships, and Mergers – the author will create an engaging discussion with attendees on how the of business of museums lends itself to building collaborative and viable business partnerships which can be beneficial both in terms of revenue and audience engagement. A second element will examine through case studies how organizations such as the Oxford University Museum Partnership, The Lightbox Museum and Gallery as well as the British Museum and Museum of London retool and refocus their commercial interests to build sustainable partnerships and mergers with non-museum sector organizations to expand their retail and enterprising activities. Attendees and participants will gain an insight into these trends and methods currently being used by both large museum and small independent museums in the UK to grow their audiences through none traditional methods. Similarly, the author will demonstrate how non-traditional enterprising approaches to stewardship and education can demonstrate the public value of museums in an age when limited funding and competition for resources require museums to become more creative and collaborative outside their traditional roles, whilst continuing to engage and capitalize on the growing sophistication of 21st century audiences.

Next generation Web marketing - beyond the glog

Social media offers access to marketers, yet an ethical framework for this has yet to be address by the industry or regulators. The rights and responsibilities for both producers and audiences are discussed with reference to existing fan groups and online communities.

Defining the nation, defining public television: discourses of publics on public service television in post-communist Latvia

Institutional and political economy approaches have long dominated the study of post-Communist public broadcasting, as well as the entire body of post-Communist media transformations research, and the enquiry into publics of public broadcasting has traditionally been neglected. Though media scholars like to talk about a deep crisis in the relationship between public broadcasters and their publics in former Communist bloc countries across Central and Eastern Europe, little has been done to understand the relationship between public broadcasters and their publics in these societies drawing on qualitative audience research tradition. Building on Hirschman’s influential theory of ‘exit, voice and loyalty’, which made it possible to see viewing choices audiences make as an act of agency, in combination with theoretical tools developed within the framework of social constructionist approaches to national imagination and broadcasting, my study focuses on the investigation of responses publics of the Latvian public television LTV have developed vis-à-vis its role as contributing to the nation-building project in this ex-Soviet Baltic country. With the help of focus groups methodology and family ethnography, the thesis aims to explore the relationship between the way members of the ethno-linguistic majority of Latvian-speakers and the sizeable ethno-linguistic minority of Russian-speakers conceptualize the public broadcaster LTV, as well as understand the concept of public broadcasting more generally, and the way they define the national ‘we’. The study concludes that what I call publics of LTV employ Hirschman’s described exit mechanism as a voice-type response. Through their rejection of public television which, for a number of complex reasons they consider to be a state broadcaster serving the interests of those in power they voice their protest against the country’s political establishment and in the case of its Russian-speaking publics also against the government’s ethno-nationalistic conception of the national ‘we’. I also find that though having exited from the public broadcaster LTV, its publics have not abandoned the idea of public broadcasting as such. At least at a normative level the public broadcasting ideals are recognized, accepted and valued, though they are not necessarily associated with the country’s de jure institutional embodiment of public broadcasting LTV. Rejection of the public television has also not made its non-loyal publics ‘less citizens’. The commercial rivals of LTV, be they national or, in the case of Russian-speaking audiences, localized transnational Russian television, have allowed their viewers to exercise citizenship and be loyal nationals day in day out in a way that is more liberal and flexible than the hegemonic form of citizenship and national imagination of the public television LTV can offer.

Identifying and explaining framing strategies of low carbon lifestyle movement organisations

Over the last decade we have seen the growth and development of low carbon lifestyle movement organisations, which seek to encourage members of the public to reduce their personal energy use and carbon emissions. As a first step to assess the transformational potential of such organisations, this paper examines the ways in which they frame their activities. This reveals an important challenge they face: in addressing the broader public, do they promote ‘transformative’ behaviours or do they limit themselves to encouraging ‘easy changes’ to maintain their appeal? We find evidence that many organisations within this movement avoid ‘transformative’ frames. The main reasons for this are organisers’ perceptions that transformational frames lack resonance with broader audiences, as well as wider cultural contexts that caution against behavioural intervention. The analysis draws on interviews with key actors in the low carbon lifestyle movement and combines insights from the literatures on collective action framing and lifestyle movements.

International Sales of UK Television Content: Change and Continuity in ‘the space in between’ Production and Consumption

Focusing on the UK, this article addresses key issues facing the international distribution industry arising from over-the-top digital distribution and the fragmentation of audiences and revenues. Building on the identification of these issues, it investigates the extent to which UK distribution has altered over a ten-year period, pinpointing continuities in the destination and type of sales alongside changes in the role and structure of the industry as UK-based distributors adapt to a changing UK broadcasting landscape and global production environment. At one level increasing US ownership of UK-based distributors and the arrival of OTT players like Netflix, highlight the tensions between the national orientations of UK broadcasters and the global aspirations of independent producers and distributors. At another level VOD has boosted international sales of UK drama. Although the full impact of SVOD on content and rights has yet to materialise, significant changes in the industry predate the arrival of SVOD.

English Cathedrals: Events and Spiritual Capital

This paper investigates the recent trend for cathedrals in England to develop a wider and more ambitious scope to their event and activity programmes. It sets out to explore the types of events now hosted at cathedrals, to consider barriers to such ambitions and the opportunities presented by event programming to develop new audiences and grow attendances. The research focuses on the 42 Anglican cathedrals of England and has involved a review of recent reports published by church and cathedral organisations, supported by an in-depth review of event activity and objectives at five selected cathedrals in southern England. Despite declining general church attendance in England, cathedrals have enjoyed two decades of attendance growth both as places of worship and as tourist attractions, partly a reflection of a more complex contemporary search for multi-faceted types of spirituality. The paper explores how events can tap into the realm of individual spiritual capital and demonstrates the rich diversity of events now being hosted by cathedrals. The paper offers a new categorisation of ecclesiastical/liturgical events, cultural and community events and openly commercial event activity. Barriers remain but key facilitating factors have been new investment in event expertise and professionalism, encouragement to experiment by key funding bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and the embracing of new forms of spirituality. The diversity of cathedral events reflects a new found growth in the nurturing of “spiritual capital” amongst both worshippers and tourists.

Fieldworks from the Museum of the Void: Experiments in the Event of an Archive

This exhibition was a research presentation of works made at Center for Land Use Interpretation [CLUI]base in Wendover, Utah, USA between 2008-2010. The project was commissioned by the Centre For Land Interpretation in USA and funded by The Henry Moore Foundation in the UK. Documentation of research conducted in the field as made available as video and installation. An experimental discourse on the preservation of land art was put with GPS drawings and research information displayed as maps and documents. In examining physical sites in Utah, USA, the project connected to contemporary discourse centred on archives in relation to land art and land use. Using experimental processes conceived in relation to key concepts such as event structures and entropy, conceptual frameworks developed by Robert Smithson (USA) and John Latham (UK), the 'death drive' of the archive was examined in the context of a cultural impulse to preserve iconic works. The work took items from Lathams archive and placed them at the canonical 'Spiral Jetty', Smithson land art work at Rozel Point north of Salt Lake City. This became a focus for the project that also highlighted the role of the Getty Foundation in documenting major public artworks and CLUI in creating an American Land Museum. Work was created in the field at extreme remote locations using GPS technologies and visual tools were developed to articulate the concepts of the artists discussed, to engage the exhibition audience in ideas of transformation and entropy in art. Audiences were encouraged to sign a petition to be used in future preservation of spiral jetty currently facing development challenges.

The Punk-Rock King: Musical Anachronism in Period Film

Music has a powerful indexical ability to evoke particular times and places. Such an ability has been exploited at length by the often-elaborate soundscapes of period films, which regularly utilise incidental scores and featured period songs to help root their narrative action in past times, and to immerse their audiences in the sensibilities of a different age. However, this article will begin to examine the ways in which period film soundtracks can also be used to complicate a narrative sense of time and place through the use of ‘musical anachronism’: music conspicuously ‘out of time’ with the temporality depicted on screen. Through the analysis of a sequence from the film W.E. (Madonna, 2011) and the consideration of existing critical and conceptual contexts, this article will explore how anachronistic soundtracks can function beyond ‘postmodern novelty’ or ‘nuisance’ to historical verisimilitude, instead offering alternative modes of engagement with story and history.

Children's TV and Digital Media in the Arab World

Who analyses children’s screen content and media use in Arab countries, and with what results? Children, defined internationally as under-18s, account for some 40 per cent of Arab populations and the proportion of under-fives is correspondingly large. Yet studies of children’s media and child audiences in the region are as scarce as truly popular locally produced media content aimed at children. At the very time when conflict and uncertainty in key Arab countries have made local development and diversification of children’s media more remote, it has become more urgent to gain a better understanding of how the next generation’s identities and world-views are formed. This interdisciplinary book is the first in English to probe both the state of Arab screen media for children and the practices of Arabic-speaking children in producing, as well as consuming, screen content. It responds to the gap in research by bringing together a holistic investigation of institutions and leading players, children’s media experiences and some iconic media texts. With children’s media increasingly linked to merchandising, which favours US-based global players and globalizing forces, this volume provides a timely insight into tensions between differing concepts of childhood and desirable media messages.

Introducing Corporate Reputation Continuity to Support Organizational Resilience Against Crises

As Corporate Reputation (CR) evolves into an important asset for organizations, crises and disasters stand as threats to the preservation of the reputation capital since they usually result to negative projections to their audiences and to problematic evaluations by their stakeholders. Viewing CR as the accumulated trust and positive evaluations of the stakeholders, this paper proposes a conceptual and normative framework for Reputation Continuity, which enhances the ability of organizations to preserve their reputation, instead of working for its recovery in the post-crisis period. In our approach, we propose a process of maintaining trusted links, instead of restoring them and establishing a reputation resilient organization, instead of one struggling to recover from reputation losses, after the crisis has emerged. Working closely with stakeholders during the crisis, injecting a sense of normality continuity through effective leadership and mitigating image problems are seen as critical concerns, alongside a set of managerial practices to be followed. Ultimately, it is argued that, the value-based and strategically integrated view of Business Continuity must be enhanced and supported by Reputation Continuity activities.