Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Collecting And Classifying Data On Audience Identity: The Cultural Background Of Festival Audiences, Katya Johanson, Hilary Glow, Mark Taylor

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This article investigates the issues and tensions involved in collecting data from audiences to describe their diversity. It uses data collected as part of a survey of festival audiences to examine (1) how people choose to describe their identity in an open-text question and (2) how classifying complex responses to questions about ethnic or cultural background has implications for analysis. First, data provided through an open-text question in the festival survey were used to establish two classification systems. The results show patterns in the relationship between how people choose to identify themselves and their arts knowledge and appetite. It also …