Counting eyeballs, soundbites and ‘plings’: arts participation, strategic instrumentalism and the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad

Abstract

This article examines cultural participation, its metrics and ‘drivers’ as they are defined through cultural programming for the London 2012 Olympics. The meanings and interpretation of these terms are considered by examining the development of an evaluation framework for the We Play programme in the North West of England, an initiative funded by Legacy Trust UK and part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. It argues that in spite of the dissonance between arts and sports within Olympics programmes and claims of the deleterious impact on arts funding, particular within the regions, London 2012 has engendered creative programming which strategically deploys the Cultural Olympiad to satisfy local cultural policy objectives as well as meeting broader interests in ‘legacy’ from the Games. Such ambitions require the development of appropriate methodologies for understanding arts participation and engagement for the purpose of evaluation and evidence-based policy making, a particular challenge for such a complex range of activities, sites and settings for arts participation.

Keywords:

• arts participation
• Olympics
• strategic instrumentalism

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a paper given as part of the International Conference for Cultural Policy Research, 24–27 August, in Jyväskylä, Finland. Thanks to the conference organisers and delegates for this opportunity and all comments and feedback in this article. I also thank the Arts Council England We Play Programme Team, the Legacy Producers Group, and members of CRESC and Impacts 08 for permission to feature material from the programme and the evaluation research in this article.

Notes

*Does not include any figures for Expo 2012.

**Figures include participants in conferences, online forums, interactive projects, etc.

***Does not include figures from public realm, web awareness, marketing outputs.

1. ‘Plings’ is an online search engine advertising opportunities for cultural engagement for young people by collating information offered by local authorities and other partners. It stands for ‘places to go, things to do’. It has been created by social research cooperative, Substance, and piloted in 20 local authorities in England (DCFS nd).

2. A consultancy brief, to develop this framework and a strategy to implement it, was commissioned by the Programme Team at Arts Council to a partnership of two teams of academic researchers from the University of Manchester and University of Liverpool drawing on their experience in relevant academic and applied research projects, including Impacts 08 longitudinal research programme for Liverpool European Capital of Culture (see Impacts08, 2010) and the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change (CRESC) Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion research (see Bennett et al. 2009).