This Week In Audience: Is Text Slipping Away As We Go More Video?

Looking for diverse audiences? Here’s where they are… But orchestras are still struggling to be relevant… Turns out attention might be a muscle we have to use or we lose it… FaceBook wonders if it will be all-video in five years… And libraries get into loaning e-books.

1. We (Say We) Want Diverse Audiences… So here’s where the audiences already are diverse says a new study. “The findings [of a recent large-scale study] are both fascinating and exciting. One of the most important findings is that outdoor arts consistently attract an audience that is representative of the population as a whole. This is a simple statement with profound significance. In the cultural sector there’s often the ambition to be accessible for all, and there are examples of that being achieved. The outdoor arts though consistently achieve it over both time and place.”
2. Are Orchestras Still Relevant To Today’s Audiences? Want to be relevant? Then you might have to accept that the things that are important to you might not be what’s most important to your audiences. Thus the existential crisis facing today’s orchestras. How do you give them what they want without compromising your values? “How do we make these institutions relevant to an audience that is pulling away, finding other ways to get music and information? The scrutiny isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s shining a light on some unexpected baggage.”
3. Is Paying Attention A Skill? (And What Happens If We Lose It?) The constant distraction of our always-on digital lives is not benign. Devices must be answered. Attention must be paid. But that constant plea for attention takes its toll: “When the smartphone brings messages, alerts, and notifications that invite instant responses—and induces anxiety if those messages fail to arrive—everyone’s sense of time changes, and attention that used to be focused more or less distantly on, say, tomorrow’s mail is concentrated in the present moment.” More to the point – as we get used to being constantly “on,” our abilities to pull back and be present to pay attention to a performance or a book for any length of time might be compromised.
4. So Video Is Popular. FaceBook Thinks Text Will Go Away: That’s what a senior exec at Facebook conjectured last week, saying that Facebook will likely be all-video and pictures within five years. Facebook says that its users engage with video much more than they do with text. “I just think if we look already, we’re seeing a year-on-year decline on text. We’re seeing a massive increase, as I’ve said, on both pictures and video. If I was having a bet, I would say: video, video, video.” Will this be our primary form of communication?
5. Should Libraries Be Able To Lend E-Books? Looks like that’s what the European Union is about to decide.  “Under VOB’s ‘one copy, one user’ system an e-book at a library’s disposal may be downloaded by a user for the lending period, on the understanding that it is not accessible to other library users during that entire period. At the end of that period, the book in question will automatically become unusable for the borrower in question and may then be borrowed by another user.” It works for movie streaming, why not for books?