News

18
Jan

How do Europeans feel about culture two years into a pandemic?

In February 2020, the INVENT project commenced having planned out the multiple interdisciplinary research queries set to be conducted over the course of the project. Not long after, the Covid-19 pandemic introduced itself as an unforeseen factor and formidable force that has gone on to interlace itself throughout nearly every stage of the project thus far. What Covid has brought

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12
Jan

Have you heard of ‘booktowns’? A new literary initiative in the town of Calonge, Spain receives funding

During the Covid-19 pandemic many Europeans have (re)discovered a passion for reading books. When presented with an array of items and asked whether these “belonged to culture”,  80% of Europeans in the INVENT survey voiced that they regarded ‘literature’ as definitely belonging to culture. It is not surprising therefore that ‘access to public libraries’ and ‘being able to attend literary

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10
Jan

Is there a cultural basis of vaccination skepticism?

Throughout its research, the INVENT project considers how contemporary trends of globalization, digitalization, migration and social inequalities impact Europeans’ cultural participation and way of life. In this week’s blog, we inquire whether an older sociocultural movement of the early 19th century is still able to influence Europeans’ behaviors and participation today in times of the pandemic. Namely, we explore whether

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16
Dec

New Research: A collaboration between UK and Spain team members analyzes the participation of Women in Gaming

Throughout the years, video games have been considered a masculine interest. However, through INVENT, the UK survey found no gender differences in responses to the question regarding the belonging of video games to the definition of “culture” (10% of men and 10% women replied “yes” to this question). In a new collaboration between Neta Yodovich (from our UK team) and

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14
Dec

New Danish government budget for 2022 puts research-based knowledge about culture and cultural initiatives on the agenda

With the new 2022 budget plan, the Danish government has announced to finance the establishment and development of a new Institute for Cultural Analysis. “Kulturens Analyseinstitut” will be established as an independent institute, contributing to a better understanding of the importance of culture for the individual citizen and for society as a whole. Research needed to develop the cultural field

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9
Dec

Meet-up Dutch INVENT team with Cultural Policy Officers of the City of Rotterdam

Last month the Dutch INVENT team sat down with Olga Smit and Anne-Rienke Hendrikse of the Municipality of Rotterdam. The two senior cultural policy officers paid a visit to Erasmus University Rotterdam to have an open conversation on the developments and current affairs in the local cultural sector. To reach the central objective of the INVENT project — the creation

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1
Dec

Cultural Microcosms in Europe

Unlike the simple divisions into elite and mass arts audiences, omnivores and univores, the culturally engaged and cultural inactives – while analysing INVENT survey data – we encountered a large number of small cultural worlds or cultural microcosms. Using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, we identified a number of aggregates of people who have different conceptions of culture,

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17
Nov

Upcoming article on the relationship between cultural participation and political orientation

Finnish INVENT Team members Sara Sivonen and Semi Purhonen will be publishing an article called “Politics and cultural participation: The associations of party preference and conservativeness with high and popular cultural participation in Finland” in Sosiologia later this autumn (article in Finnish). The article examines the association between politics and cultural participation in contemporary Finland from the perspective of change

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27
Oct

Tourism and the Social Values of Culture

Croatian INVENT team co-leader Mirko Petrić participated in the online panel on sustainable cultural tourism, held on the occasion of the World Tourism Day, and organized by the Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism in Split (Croatia) on October 21st, 2021. His presentation emphasized the importance of the societal values of culture, from a perspective developed within the INVENT project.

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22
Oct

New research alert: Diversity in cultural leadership

Aligning with INVENT’s interests in globalization, unequal cultural opportunities, and a bottom-up approach to cultural policy, Yeala Hazut Yanuka, from the UK team, is finalizing her research on diversity in cultural leadership in Arts Council England (ACE) and how it is perceived in the media. Her research explores ACE’s view and the media’s view of the leadership component in ACE’s diversity strategy in the framework of organizational legitimacy theory (Suchman 1995). The study

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