Digital media are seen as important instruments of increasing participation and diversity in arts and culture. To examine whether this view is justified, this article draws on two bodies of research that have hitherto remained disconnected: research on cultural participation and research on the digital divide. Building on these insights, the article examines the Taking Part Survey data on digital media and cultural participation in the United Kingdom between 2005/2006 and 2015/2016, focusing on museums and galleries. While the results confirm that digital media provide an important means of engaging new audiences, they also show that the engagement with museums and galleries both online and offline remains deeply unequal. Most worryingly, the gaps between the haves and the have-nots are even wider online than in the case of physical visits. Rather than helping increase the diversity of audiences, online access seems to reproduce, if not enlarge, existing inequalities.
BlankGLutzC (2018) Benefits and harms from internet use: a differentiated analysis of great Britain. New Media & Society20(2): 618–640.
5.
BourdieuP (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6.
BrookO (2016) Spatial equity and cultural participation: how access influences attendance at museums and galleries in London. Cultural Trends25(1): 21–34.
7.
CuttsDWiddopP (2017) Reimagining omnivorousness in the context of place. Journal of Consumer Culture17(3): 480–503.
8.
Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) (2016a) Taking part: the national survey of culture, leisure and sport, 2015–2016; Adult and child data [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 8070. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sports. Available at: http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-8070-1
9.
Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) (2016b) Taking Part Focus on: Museums and Galleries. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sports.
10.
Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) (2016c) The Culture White Paper. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sports.
11.
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) (2018) Culture Is Digital. London: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports.
12.
DiMaggioPHargittaiE (2001) From the ‘digital divide’ to ‘digital inequality’: studying internet use as penetration increases. Working paper no. #15, Summer 2001, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
13.
DiMaggioPHargittaiECelesteCet al. (2004) Digital inequality: from unequal access to differentiated use. In: NeckermanK (ed.) Social Inequality. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 355–400.
14.
HammondsWBhandalL (2011) Where to next for diversity? An assessment of arts council England’s race equality and cultural diversity policies and emerging trends. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events3(2): 187–200.
HelsperEJReisdorfBC (2017) The emergence of a ‘digital underclass’ in great Britain and Sweden: changing reasons for digital exclusion. New Media & Society19(8): 1253–1270.
18.
LeeHParkNHwangY (2015) A new dimension of the digital divide: exploring the relationship between broadband connection, smartphone use and digital competence. Telematics and Informatics32(1): 45–56.
19.
LeguinaAMilesA (2017) Fields of participation and lifestyle in England: revealing the regional dimension from a reanalysis of the taking part survey using multiple factor analysis. Cultural Trends26(1): 4–17.
20.
MansellR (2017) Inequality and digitally mediated communication: divides, contradictions and consequences. Javnost – The Public24(2): 146–161.
21.
MeyrowitzJ (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
22.
MiheljSHuxtableS (2018) From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
MilesASullivanA (2012) Understanding participation in culture and sport: mixing methods, reordering knowledge. Cultural Trends21(4): 311–324.
PariserE (2011) The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. London: Penguin Books.
26.
PepperRGarrityJ (2015) ICTs, income inequality, and ensuring inclusive growth. In: DuttaSGeigerTLanvinB (eds) The Global Information Technology Report 2015. Geneva: World Economic Forum, pp. 31–38.
27.
PetersonRAKernRM (1996) Changing highbrow taste: from snob to Omnivore. American Sociological Review61(5): 900–907.
28.
PrieurASavageM (2013) Emerging forms of cultural capital. European Societies15(2): 246–267.
29.
PriorN (2005) A question of perception: Bourdieu, art and the postmodern. The British Journal of Sociology56(1): 123–139.
30.
RobinsonMJ (2017) Television on Demand: Curatorial Culture and the Transformation of TV. London: Bloomsbury.
31.
RossmanGPetersonR (2015) The instability of omnivorous cultural taste over time. Poetics52: 139–153.
32.
SavageM (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Pelican.
33.
ScannellPCardiffD (1991) A Social History of British Broadcasting. Volume One, 1922–1939: Serving the Nation. London: Basil Blackwell.
34.
ScheerderAVan DeursonAVan DijkJ (2017) Determinants of internet skills, uses and outcomes: a systematic review of second- and third-level digital divide. Telematics and Informatics34(8): 1607–1624.
35.
SchillerD (2014) Digital Depression: Information Technology and Economic Crisis A New Political Economy of Digital Capitalism. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
36.
SunsteinCR (2017) #Republic Divided: Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
37.
TaylorM (2016) Nonparticipation or different styles of participation? Alternative interpretations from taking part. Cultural Trends25(3): 169–181.
38.
TurowJ (2006) Niche Envy: Marketing Discrimination in the Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
39.
Van DeursenAHelsperE (2015) The third-level digital divide: who benefits most from being online. In: RobinsonLCottonSRSchulzJet al (eds) Communication and Information Technologies Annual. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 29–52.
40.
Van DeursenAVan DijkJ (2014) The digital divide shifts to differences in usage. New Media & Society16(3): 507–526.
41.
Van DeursenAHelsperEEynonRet al. (2017) The compoundness and sequentiality of digital inequality. International Journal of Communication11: 452–473.
42.
Van DijkJ (2017) Digital divide: impact of access. In: RösslerP (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects. London: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 1–11.
43.
Van DijckJPoellTDe WaalM (2018) The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
44.
Van EijckKKnulstW (2005) No more need for snobbism: highbrow cultural participation in a taste democracy. European Sociological Review21(5): 513–528.
45.
WardeDWrightAGayo-CalM (1999) Understanding cultural omnivorousness: or, the myth of the cultural Omnivore. Cultural Sociology1(2): 143–164.
46.
WiddopPCuttsD (2012) Impact of place on museum participation. Cultural Trends21: 47–66.
47.
ZillenNHargittaiE (2009) Digital distinction: status-specific types of internet usage. Social Science Quarterly90(2): 274–291.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
