Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

A new study has just been issued by the National Endowment for the Arts called Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation . There are a few things of special note about this research: 1) The findings: People who participate in the arts through electronic media are nearly THREE times more likely to attend live arts events as non media participants (59% vs. 21%). They also attend TWICE as many live arts events on average  - 6/year vs. 3/year. In other words, active participation in the digital media world does not compete with attendance at live arts activities, it may encourage it. I say "may" because this study once again raises the issue of causation vs. correlation. Certainly there seems to be a correlation between high consumption of art in digital form, and higher consumption of live arts. It could be that people that are passionate about art now seek it out in all formats, NOT that their digital consumption is somehow driving them to participate in live...