Social inequalities in the creative economy over time and place: connecting workforce, programming and consumption
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Edinburgh College of Art
Abstract
The creative economy is often celebrated for its contribution to the economy, in the form of job creation, the night-time economy, cultural tourism, and intellectual property. It contributes to policy and practice in terms of urban regeneration, education, and soft power diplomacy, as well as quality of life and life satisfaction. It is feted as being a driver for social mobility, and for the progressiveness and belief in meritocracy of the workforce. However, research has also revealed the significant exclusions from this picture: the creative workforce demonstrates substantial inequalities in terms of social class origin, gender and ethnicity. Moreover, existing research has demonstrated the low chances people from working class origins have of entering the creative economy workforce did not change significantly between 1981 and 2011, despite huge changes in the social structure of English society. Cultural consumption too is strongly stratified according to social class and ethnic group. The lack of representativeness amongst those that that create and commission of culture is the subject of sustained debate in public, policy and industry circles. There are also important inequalities in the geographical distribution of cultural investments.
This research builds on recent AHRC-funded projects to explore each of these dimensions of exclusions from the creative economy in turn, in three linked work packages:
- Work package one will explore the relationship of audience members from Black and Minority (BAME) ethnic groups to the programming of cultural institutions, how they feel that their culture is represented by these institutions, and how this relates to their cultural lives overall. I will analyse how this interacts with their own social class and education, traditional predictors of cultural participation.
- Work package two will explore how cultural consumption is contextualised by the places that people live in, by analysing the cultural participation of those that relocate: how does moving to an area with more or fewer cultural services, or other measures of cultural intensity, affect the cultural lives that people report? How does this relate to the factors that we know affect whether people being report being culturally engaged, such as education and being taken as a child? Previous research found that those with lower probability of attending a venue are more negatively affected by a lack of local opportunities to do so.
- Work package three will develop a more nuanced understanding of how social mobility into creative employment varies geographically, comparing Scotland to England and those raised outside London to those who grew up in the capital. In addition I will look for explanations of the high rates of people leaving the creative workforce, to better understand the barriers to maintaining a career in the creative economy.
This fellowship builds on successful previous work with The Audience Agency, a creative sector support organisation that is at the centre of research into the relationships between audiences and venues. It partners with a new independent research organisation, the Centre for Towns, which offers academic research and analysis in support of the viability and prosperity of towns across the UK. Each partner organisation will contribute to the research design stage (focusing on work packages 1 and 2, respectively), will offer advice on protocols and operationalisation, access to data that they have developed, and a platform for dissemination and impact through inclusion of the research in at least one event, and will publish a public-facing report which summarises the research findings. The Audience Agency will in addition offer advice on and access to networks for recruiting participating venues for the audience research.
This research builds on recent AHRC-funded projects to explore each of these dimensions of exclusions from the creative economy in turn, in three linked work packages:
- Work package one will explore the relationship of audience members from Black and Minority (BAME) ethnic groups to the programming of cultural institutions, how they feel that their culture is represented by these institutions, and how this relates to their cultural lives overall. I will analyse how this interacts with their own social class and education, traditional predictors of cultural participation.
- Work package two will explore how cultural consumption is contextualised by the places that people live in, by analysing the cultural participation of those that relocate: how does moving to an area with more or fewer cultural services, or other measures of cultural intensity, affect the cultural lives that people report? How does this relate to the factors that we know affect whether people being report being culturally engaged, such as education and being taken as a child? Previous research found that those with lower probability of attending a venue are more negatively affected by a lack of local opportunities to do so.
- Work package three will develop a more nuanced understanding of how social mobility into creative employment varies geographically, comparing Scotland to England and those raised outside London to those who grew up in the capital. In addition I will look for explanations of the high rates of people leaving the creative workforce, to better understand the barriers to maintaining a career in the creative economy.
This fellowship builds on successful previous work with The Audience Agency, a creative sector support organisation that is at the centre of research into the relationships between audiences and venues. It partners with a new independent research organisation, the Centre for Towns, which offers academic research and analysis in support of the viability and prosperity of towns across the UK. Each partner organisation will contribute to the research design stage (focusing on work packages 1 and 2, respectively), will offer advice on protocols and operationalisation, access to data that they have developed, and a platform for dissemination and impact through inclusion of the research in at least one event, and will publish a public-facing report which summarises the research findings. The Audience Agency will in addition offer advice on and access to networks for recruiting participating venues for the audience research.
Planned Impact
Impact is core to this fellowship: the research questions are as much of interest to creative economy policymakers and practitioners as they are to scholars. Moreover, it builds on two AHRC-funded projects that I have worked on which have been focused on impact and engagement: "Who is missing from the picture? The problem of inequality in the creative economy and what we can do about it" has raised the profile for the problems of exclusions from the creative economy, with a public-facing report that has had widespread media and policy coverage. The Creative Economy Engagement Fellowship which I currently hold at the University of Sheffield is a collaboration with a major theatre to explore the relationship between diverse programming and diverse audiences. The project has been co-created with the theatre to inform their programming and marketing practices, as well as informing policy and practice more theoretically.
By working with two important partner organisations, The Audience Agency and The Centre for Towns, the fellowship will enable the co-creation of knowledge with organisations that are central to providing evidence and tools for change. The Audience Agency have underlined the value of this research in helping them to support organisations to become more inclusive, as well as understanding the complex interaction of access and socio-demographic factors in influencing participation. The Centre for Towns has stated that understanding how the creative economy contributes to the social and economic vitality of towns is a high priority for their work and they have many local development agencies and others approaching them for advice in this area.
Specifically, I will support the impact of this research through the development of short, easy to read reports written by me and published by the partner organisations, as well as presentations at industry and policy workshops and seminars:
- WP1 involves primary research on the relationship between diverse audiences and programming by cultural institutions: the initial research findings will be confidential to the participating venues, and discussed jointly with them under Chatham House Rules (which will have impact in itself), a broader set of findings and recommendations will be developed which can be shared and discussed with a larger circle of cultural institutions and policymakers. This will be developed into a short, accessible publication, and will be presented at industry seminars, workshops and conferences
- WP2 offers analysis of the longitudinal Taking Part Survey to understand the relationship between cultural participation and the areas that people live in, including their access to venues. This will be developed in consultation with the Centre for Towns in order to maximise its relevance to their political and policy stakeholders, and will again be developed into a short, accessible publication available online, as well as presented at seminars, workshops and conferences as appropriate.
- WP3 examines how social mobility into the creative economy varies in different parts of the country, and causes of the high levels of people leaving creative jobs. The actionable findings will relate to employment and internship practices. By presenting these findings to creative sector organisations, alongside those of WP1, the link between employment and consumption will be reinforced and I can hope to challenge some of the factors reinforcing creative workforce exclusions.
An additional impact of this fellowship will be capacity-building within the creative sector, bringing in methods and data sources which are not currently referenced by the sector.
The eventual impact will be to challenge cultural organisations and funders about how their work, which they sincerely intend to be challenging the social inequalities in British society, might in fact be reinforcing them, and helping them to reflect on how they might change this.
By working with two important partner organisations, The Audience Agency and The Centre for Towns, the fellowship will enable the co-creation of knowledge with organisations that are central to providing evidence and tools for change. The Audience Agency have underlined the value of this research in helping them to support organisations to become more inclusive, as well as understanding the complex interaction of access and socio-demographic factors in influencing participation. The Centre for Towns has stated that understanding how the creative economy contributes to the social and economic vitality of towns is a high priority for their work and they have many local development agencies and others approaching them for advice in this area.
Specifically, I will support the impact of this research through the development of short, easy to read reports written by me and published by the partner organisations, as well as presentations at industry and policy workshops and seminars:
- WP1 involves primary research on the relationship between diverse audiences and programming by cultural institutions: the initial research findings will be confidential to the participating venues, and discussed jointly with them under Chatham House Rules (which will have impact in itself), a broader set of findings and recommendations will be developed which can be shared and discussed with a larger circle of cultural institutions and policymakers. This will be developed into a short, accessible publication, and will be presented at industry seminars, workshops and conferences
- WP2 offers analysis of the longitudinal Taking Part Survey to understand the relationship between cultural participation and the areas that people live in, including their access to venues. This will be developed in consultation with the Centre for Towns in order to maximise its relevance to their political and policy stakeholders, and will again be developed into a short, accessible publication available online, as well as presented at seminars, workshops and conferences as appropriate.
- WP3 examines how social mobility into the creative economy varies in different parts of the country, and causes of the high levels of people leaving creative jobs. The actionable findings will relate to employment and internship practices. By presenting these findings to creative sector organisations, alongside those of WP1, the link between employment and consumption will be reinforced and I can hope to challenge some of the factors reinforcing creative workforce exclusions.
An additional impact of this fellowship will be capacity-building within the creative sector, bringing in methods and data sources which are not currently referenced by the sector.
The eventual impact will be to challenge cultural organisations and funders about how their work, which they sincerely intend to be challenging the social inequalities in British society, might in fact be reinforcing them, and helping them to reflect on how they might change this.
Publications
Brook, O.
(2019)
The Palgrave Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Markets
Brook Orian
(2020)
Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries
Brook Orian
(2020)
Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries
Brook Orian
(2020)
Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries
Brook Orian
(2020)
Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries
Brook O
(2022)
Social Mobility and 'Openness' in Creative Occupations since the 1970s
in Sociology
Brook O
(2019)
Inequality talk: How discourses by senior men reinforce exclusions from creative occupations
in European Journal of Cultural Studies
Brook O
(2020)
"There's No Way That You Get Paid to Do the Arts": Unpaid Labour Across the Cultural and Creative Life Course
in Sociological Research Online
Description | This award supported in part the completion of "Culture is bad for you", a book synthesizing existing research and presenting new findings on the causes and consequences of social inequalities in the creative economy. This has been met with great interest by various academic audiences, including Cultural Policy, Cultural Studies and Cultural Sociology. It also supported work understanding multiple jobholding in creative work, an important aspect of precarity which is previously under-researched. We found that people holding creative jobs alongside other work were of somewhat more disadvantaged backgrounds compared to those who held one main creative job, but that those with more than one creative job (ie portfolio creative careers) were not. We also found that multiple jobholding was a relatively stable employment pattern, with few transitioning either to single creative jobs or out of the workforce. Work on spatial differences in social stratification of cultural consumption is ongoing. |
Exploitation Route | The outcomes are being taken forward by policymakers and practitioners in considering their recruitment and funding practices. |
Sectors | Creative Economy Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
URL | https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526144164/ |
Description | This project had public policy and societal impact of three kinds: -Instrumental impact, because it changed a variety of behaviours in various arts organisations, as well as influencing broader public policy on class inequality in the arts; -Conceptual impact, because it reframed the arts policy and practitioner world's understanding of social class; -Capacity building, because the project aided the use of social science methods and findings within a variety of arts policy and arts practitioner organisations. Conceptually, the findings have made a major contribution to understandings of social mobility, especially in the context of creative work. Extensive coverage in print and broadcast media has featured debates on the relevance of class to contemporary life, as well as on shaping access to creative careers. Prior to this research, media attention focused on the number of famous actors who attended Eton; now we have reflective commentary on how the media focus on celebrity nepotism serves to mask the advantages conferred by a middle class upbringing. Journalists and creative practitioners have demonstrated a more nuanced insight into social mobility, which had often been poorly understood. |
First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal Policy & public services |
Description | Appointed as Advisor to College of Experts, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/dcms-college-of-experts#contents |
Description | Contributed to a Rapid Evidence Assessment for DCMS |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | Invited to Disciplinary Expert Group for the project Arts, Society and Public Health at UCL |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology-health-care/research/behavioural-science-and-health/research/soci... |
Description | Member of Advisory group, Making Data Work |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
URL | https://www.culturalvalue.org.uk/our-work/making-data-work/ |
Description | Impact Acceleration Account 2019: Edinburgh |
Amount | £1,084,218 (GBP) |
Funding ID | ES/T50189X/1 |
Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2019 |
End | 03/2023 |
Description | UKRI COVID-19 Grant Extension Allocation (CoA) |
Amount | £13,140 (GBP) |
Organisation | United Kingdom Research and Innovation |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2020 |
End | 02/2021 |
Description | Collaboration with The Audience Agency on understanding audiences for Black Plays |
Organisation | The Audience Agency |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | I have been working with the Audience Agency to understand audiences for Black plays in London. I identified a number of plays written by Black British authors and addressing Black themes (ie set within Black communities, featuring Black characters). I am analysing data that they return to me on audiences for these plays (described below), and will use some of it for geo-demographic modelling. |
Collaborator Contribution | They hold aggregated, anonymised box office data from a number of arts venues around the UK. and the Audience Agency have identified those that booked tickets for these event from their Audience Finder database, and have given me data on their behaviour - the number of different events and venues they attended, within and outside this set of plays - and their location. They will also be involved in knowledge exchange and impact work with the results of this research (based not only on the analysis of the data they provided, but also of the DCMS's Taking Part Survey data, and of individuas venues' audience surveys). |
Impact | Work still in progress |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | "Museums are bad for you" talk to Scottish Contemporary Art Network members |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk about social exclusions in museums (curation & management, staffing and attendance) based on my research, including the book "Culture is bad for you". The audience, who also participated in a Q&A, are museums and galleries staff (especially curators and senior management). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/museums-are-bad-for-you-a-curatorial-leadership-in-collections-event-... |
Description | "Museums are bad for you" workshop with Cultural Leadership in Collections Project, part of Scottish Contemporary Art Network |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A workshop debating the implications of our research presented within the talk "Museums are bad for you", specifically for sector leaders and senior managers within the sector who are participating in the Curatorial Leadership in Collections Project. The workshop consisted of contributions from workshop members reflecting on their own work and organisations, with questions for me and my co-author Dave O'Brien. The workshop was for invited project members only, so a public booking page does not exist. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Book Launch, "Culture is bad for you" |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | An online event chaired by Stella Duffy, a writer, actor, director of Fun Palaces and campaigner for socially inclusive arts practice - given the orientation of the book is to the general reader, not academic audiences, and the involvement of Stella, the participants/audience for the talk was a mixture of arts practitioners/managers, policymakers and academics. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8139135233216505613 |
Description | Hamburg Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited speaker at a workshop at the Institute for Arts and Media Management at Hamburg's University of Theatre and Music. The audience was a mixture of people working in creative industries in Germany undertaking professional development, and academics and postgraduate students from Germany, Switzerland and Norway researching work in the creative industries. This led to a further invitation to speak in an online workshop for a Leadership Programme run by the institution for creative practitioners across Germany. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Interview on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was invited on to the BBC Radio 4 programme "Thinking Allowed", to discuss the findings presented in my book "Culture is bad for you" |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zdv1 |
Description | Interview on cultural policy podcast |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | I was interviewed for a podcast hosted by Martin Zierold, Professor of Organizational Theory & Change Management and Head of the Institute for Arts and Media Management, University of Music and Performing Arts, Hamburg. He runs a Masters in Arts Management and many of his podcast guests are creative economy practitioners and managers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://wiegehts-kultur.de/2020/12/11/orian-brook/ |
Description | Keynote speaker at a hybrid conference in Peru on Public Policy and Cultural Development in association with UNESCO |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Invited to give a keynote speech to this conference organised by the UNESCO chair on Public Policy and Cultural Development at the Universidad Scientifica, Peru, to a large, international audience of policymakers, practitioners and academics |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://landing.cientifica.edu.pe/congreso-politicas-publicas-y-gestion-cultural/ |
Description | Meeting with Alan Davey, BBC |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | I had originally been approached by a producer at Newsnight to appear on the programming discussing the relationship between class and cultural participation. I did not appear, but the producer suggested that I contact Alan Davey, who as well as being controller of BBC Radio 3, leads on issues of social class within the BBC. I contacted him about my research, and he invited me to meet him to discuss it. He talked to me about his efforts to reduce the class-based obstacles to recruitment and progression at the BBC. We discussed their mentoring programme, which I made suggestions as to how it might be extended. He suggested that I return to talk to staff. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Panel discussion, "Culture is bad for you" and "Can music make you sick?" |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Given the overlap in interest in our books, the University of Westminster proposed a joint panel event on the negative social and personal impacts of aspects of the music industry/creative economy more broadly. Given both books are aimed at a general readership rather than academics, and that the co-authors of "Can music make you sick?" have significant music industry careers (as a hip-hop artist and artists manager), the audience drew widely from music and creative economy practitioners. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://uwestminsterpress.blog/2020/10/12/bad-culture-sick-music-fairness-and-wellbeing-in-cultural-... |
Description | Podcast created by Arts Emergency Youth Collective on the subject of my book |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | We had planned to have an event around the launch of "Culture is bad for you" with speakers from academia and the creative sector. Given the pandemic, this wasn't appropriate, so we decided instead to use the money to fund the creation of a podcast and ezine by the Youth Collective of Arts Emergency, which would convey the findings of the book, and the young peoples reaction to it, to listeners, with the collective debating the issues and interviewing relevant individuals from the sector about their experience/perspective. Two episodes have been made so far, further episodes and the ezine are still planned. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
URL | https://www.arts-emergency.org/noticeboard/21/10/crash-culture-podcast |
Description | Presentation to Arts Council Collection Curators Day |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Gave a talk, followed by Q & A, to 35 museum and art gallery curators organised by Arts Council England, on my broad research topic of social exclusions from the creative economy, and my own research. Very positive reactions from the organiser, fellow presenters (both curators and academics/artists) and audience - and I was invited to give a subsequent talk at the Imperial War Museum. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Talk at launch of Edinburgh Cultural Map |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | I spoke about my experience of the uses of cultural mapping as part of the launch of Edinburgh Cultural Map, a collaboration between University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh City Council which I had worked on in an advisory capacity and assisting in workshops |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://efi.ed.ac.uk/events/edinburgh-cultural-map-launching-event/ |
Description | Talk to Space Invaders campaign group for representation of women in museums |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | One of two academic speakers on women in museums at an online launch of the manifesto for the network of museums workers working to improve the representation of women in museums, both workforce and collections |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/space-invaders-manifesto-launch-tickets-110707047760# |
Description | Talk to staff at Imperial War Museum |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | I was invited to speak to staff members at the Imperial War Museum in London, a mixture of curators and human resources staff, followed by a Q & A with a good debate about practical steps. After I left they continued with an internal discussion about what actions they can take to address the social exclusions uncovered in my research. (I stated that the impact was national as I was presenting at IWM in London but they also operate in Manchester and Cambridgeshire) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Workshop with Producers Lab, Singapore |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited to speak with with young cultural producers in Singapore as part of an initiative "Producers Lab", an arts network supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Workshop with Scottish Government |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | I was invited to give a talked followed by Q&A with the policy officers working on culture within the Scottish Government |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Workshop, Scottish Arts Union learning programme |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited talk and Q&A with members of the Scottish Artists Union |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |