Impact Update 17, February 2009
This newsletter reviews the content that has been added to the Impact Database since the end of November 2008. As always, many of the studies are recently published but we also include earlier research that is relevant to the themes of the database. Full bibliographical details of the references highlighted below can be obtained from the database.
We continue to encourage users and their networks to use the online facilities of the Database to submit their own research, which will then be considered for inclusion. Alternatively, please contact us at impact@ccpr.arts.gla.ac.uk . Research should relate to the main themes of the database (as listed in the 'Advanced Search' section) and should have stated aims/objectives, methodological approach and findings/conclusions.
Arts, Culture and Audience Development
The Scottish Arts Council has published Taking part in Scotland 2008. The survey by TNS Travel and Tourism (2008) contains data on current levels of attendance and participation in arts and cultural activities and attitudes towards the arts among the adult population of Scotland, with a special focus on under-represented groups, and compares this to data collected through two earlier audience surveys, carried out in 2003 and 2006. It found that 90% of the Scottish adult population either attended or participated in an arts or cultural activity (comparable to 2006 but slightly higher than 2004). 77% had attended one or more activities and 71% participated in one or more activity (slightly lower than in 2006). Cinema-going was the most popular activity (55%), while only 11% had attended a dance event. Reading books was the activity participated in by the largest proportion of adults (61%). Levels of participation in most art forms remained at a similar level across the 2004 to 2008 period. However, levels of attendance and participation and types of art forms undertaken varied, with the most significant variations found in level of educational qualification, socio-economic group and working status.
Arts, Culture and the Economy
Two small scale economic impact studies have been included in the Impact Database in this quarter. The Museum of Modern Art. An economic impact study, by Audience Research & Analysis (2006), analyses the economic impact analysis of New York's Museum of Modern Art between 2005 and 2007, estimating this at $2 billion. It found that the museum supports an average of 4,242 fte jobs annually, including the direct employment of around 800 staff members as well as a wide variety of jobs outside the museum. In the period under investigation, the museum generated an estimated $50m in tax revenues for New York City, as well as an estimated $43m for New York State.
Tall Ships Nova Scotia Festival 2007 economic impact study, by T.M. McGuire Ltd. (2007) assesses the festival's impact on motivating non-residents to visit the province of Nova Scotia, as well as the impact of visitor spending on the local economy. It found that total non-resident spending was between $22.7 and $28 million, while the estimated overall contribution to Nova Scotia's GDP by non-residents visiting the province because of the event was between $19.6m to $11.20m in direct GDP, $3.58m in indirect GDP and $4.87m in induced GDP.
Regional Technology Strategies and Mt. Auburn Associates, Inc (2008) has carried out an economic modelling study of the scale and distribution of the state of Colorado's creative enterprises, for Colorado Council on the Arts, published as The state of Colorado's creative economy. It found that the state's creative economy comprises 69 industries across a wide range of economic activities. Creative enterprises are the 5th largest employment sector in the state. 186,251 jobs are associated with creative enterprises and creative occupations.
Two studies by the Alliance for the Arts focus specifically on the economic impact of the arts and cultural sector in New York City. The first, Arts as an industry: their economic impact on New York City and New York State (2006), found that in 2005, New York's arts industry had a total economic impact for the city of $21.2 billion, generated 160,300 jobs, $8.2 billion in wages, and contributed $904 million in taxes to the city. The industry's economic impact on New York State was $25.7 billion, with 194,000 jobs created, $9.8 billion in wages, and $1.2 billion paid in taxes. It also found that, since 1993, the economic value of the arts had increased by 61%. A follow-up study, Culture builds New York. The economic impact of capital construction at New York's cultural institutions 2003-2010 (2007), specifically looks at the economic impact of spending on new construction at the city's cultural institutions. It concludes that between 2003-2005, cultural institutions spent $1.4 billion on capital construction, generating an economic impact of $1.85 billion, an average of 3,460 fte jobs per year, and a total of $560 million in wages and $40.6 million in taxes to the city. In the period 2006-2010, a total of $1.7 billion was expected to be spent on capital construction, generating an estimated economic impact of $2.2 billion, an average of 2,500 fte jobs per year, and a total of $670 million in wages and $48.5 million in taxes.
Finally, two studies published by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) have been included. Beyond the creative industries: mapping the creative economy in the United Kingdom, by Higgs, Cunningham and Bakhshi (2008), measures the contribution of the creative industries to economic activity in the UK. According to this study, the UK creative economy accounted for 7.1% of national employment in 2001. From 1981 to 2006, UK creative employment grew by 3.2% per annum, compared with 0.8% for the wider economy. Creative occupations generated over ₤40 billion in salaries and wages in 2006, while support staff in creative industries earned an extra ₤16.8 billion. More creative people work outside the creative industries than inside them. A second NESTA study, Creating innovation: do the creative industries support innovation in the wider economy? (Bakhshi, McVittie and Simmie, 2008), looks at the links between the creative industries and other sectors in the wider economy. The report found evidence of a significant positive impact from creative linkages on some, but not all, dimensions of innovation behaviour. Its findings suggest that firms spending double the average amount on creative products are 25% more likely to introduce product innovations either new to their firm or market. There is also some suggestion that knowledge transfers associated with purchases by firms of creative products may support improvements in their product range and quality. The report's findings therefore support the hypothesis that supply chain linkages to the creative industries are positively related to innovation elsewhere in the economy.
Arts, Culture and Education
Southgate and Roscigno (2009) have examined the association between music involvement and academic achievement of children and adolescents. They found that music participation generally increases levels of math and reading achievement among children and adolescents, but that gains were not equally distributed among all students. Music involvement was found to vary quite systematically by social class and gender status ('The Impact of Music on Childhood and Adolescent Achievement', in: Social Science Quarterly 90(1): 4-21).
Two studies have examined the effects of music training on language and skills. Gaab et al (2005) show that musical experience improves the way the human brain processes pitch and timing changes used for perceiving words and music, and suggest that mastering a musical instrument may improve the acoustic and phonetic skills essential to language and reading. ('Neural correlates of rapid spectrotemporal processing in musicians and nonmusicians', in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1069: 82-88). Research by Musacchia et al. (2007) found that musicians audiovisual processing was more enhanced in musicians' brains and that musicians were more sensitive to subtle changes in both speech and music sounds, which indicates that the music training enhances the same communication skills needed for speaking and reading. The authors suggest that music training in schools may thus be beneficial for children with speech-encoding deficits. ('Musicians have enhanced subcortial auditory and audiovisual processing of speech and music'. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(40): 15894-15898).
The YDance 'Dance-in-Schools Initiative' (DISI): final evaluation report, a longitudinal study by Muldoon and Inchley (2008), assessed a five-week programme of dance, delivered to Scottish primary and secondary school pupils between 2005-2008. They found that the positive effects of the initiative were greatest among primary level girls, although most were short-term only, while self-consciousness was found to be a barrier to engagement in physical activity among girls at secondary level. The initiative was found to be successful at challenging male preconceptions of dance, particularly at primary level, where positive changes were still evident at the six month follow-up, but it proved more difficult to engage boys at secondary level.
Arts, culture and the Environment
First step: UK music industry greenhouse gas emissions for 2007, a scoping study by the Environmental Change Institute (Bottrill et al, 2008), gives estimates of the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the UK music industry across its core sectors and activities. The study found that the sale of music products and live music performances to UK consumers creates around 540,000 ton CO2 equivalent a year, comparable to the average annual emissions of a town of 54,000 inhabitants. Live music performance sectors together with audience travel account for 75% of the industry's GHG emissions, while recorded music sectors account for 25%. CD packaging, venue energy use and audience travel were found to be the most significant components of the industry's carbon footprint.
Arts, Culture and Inclusion
Arts and refugees: history, impact and future, by Kidd, Zahir and Khan (2008), traces the history of the arts and refugees in the UK over the past 20 years, and reports on trends in practice and funding and outcomes. It finds that participation in the arts is used to address a broad range of social objectives, with reported benefits of arts-based projects including: their usefulness for processes of communication; their contribution to social and community cohesion; their effects on the mental and physical health of participants; their contribution to capacity building and skills development within refugee community organisations and for individuals; and their role in supporting the professional development of refugee artists, as well as celebrating refugees' cultural heritage.
Arts, Culture and Society
Two studies have been published measuring the social impacts of arts and culture using social indicators. The findings of a study by Hill Strategies Research (2008) show that Canadians who participate in cultural activities are more likely to be socially active than those who do not take part in cultural activities. Visits to public art galleries or historic sites were each found to have a positive impact on five of six established social behaviours, while visits to conservation areas or parks and theatre attendance each had a positive impact on four, and the reading of books and newspapers and attendance at a performance of cultural/heritage music, theatre or dance had a positive impact on three of the indicators (Social effects of culture: detailed statistical models. Statistical Insights on the Arts 7:1). In Magnetizing neighborhoods through amateur arts performance, Taylor (2008) describes the correlation between informal arts participation and a number of community development indicators. The author found significant positive correlations for population levels, number of housing units, school test scores, and crime rates. However, no consistent link was found between informal arts participation and economic change measures, and positive changes did not translate directly into short-term changes in the economic level of the neighbourhood. Finally, Michalos and Kahlke (2008) found that arts-related activities and the satisfaction obtained from those activities had relatively little impact on respondents perceived or experienced quality of life ('Impact of arts-related activities on the perceived quality of life', Social indicators research 89: 193-258).
In 'The evaluation of community arts projects and the problems with social impact methodology', Clements (2007) discusses the evaluation of participatory community arts programmes and analyses the shift in educational emphasis from aesthetic to social outcomes. The author considers and critiques a range of theoretical models and practices in the field, and concludes that evaluation of community arts programmes concerned with social impact is often a contested and ambiguous process utilised strategically to garner funding and advocate organizations, and that evaluation techniques are often geared towards top-down bureaucratic-autocratic methods which undermine local control and influence project aims and objectives. (The International Journal of Art and Design Education 26(3): 325-335).
Cultural Tourism
Two studies have been included that look at the effects of film and television products on tourism. In 'Measuring the effects of film and television on tourism to screen locations: a theoretical and empirical perspective', Fernandez Young and Young (2008), discuss the development of a general causal model to measure the way in which film and television products can cause tourist visits. They conclude that this causal relation is fractional, diffuse and substantial, and that the magnitude of the effect is destination-specific and related to background causes independent of screen effects (Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 24(2): 195-212). Iwashita (2008) has carried out a case study of Japanese tourists to the UK to identify the influence of film and television drama on overseas tourists' behaviour in terms of choice of travel destination and places to visit. While a wide range of influences were found to be in play at different stages in respondents' destination choice processes, the greatest impacts were found to lie in the ability to create destination awareness, consciousness, and images leading to a stronger interest in the destination and actual travel to the destination ('Roles of films and television dramas in international tourism: the case of Japanese tourists to the UK'. In: Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 24(2): 139-151).