Exploring Cultural Consumption - TFT00124M
Module summary
This module ambitions to explore the interactions that occur on the marketplace between consumers, cultural offers and their diffusers and distributors (cultural organisations and institutions, but also critiques, other gatekeepers and policymakers). It shall provide students with an in-depth theoretical and practical understanding of how consumers anticipate, choose, live, and remember cultural experiences, what societal and individual forces influence that process, and how to craft meaningful cultural experiences for them.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 2 2023-24 |
Module aims
- Understand the forces that drive people towards cultural
participations.
- Explore the main challenges faced
by organisations in engaging their audience in our era of cultural
abundance.
- Question and discuss the specificities
of cultural goods and experiences.
- Define the
different stages of the cultural experience – anticipation,
purchase, core experience and remembrance – and explore their
inherent issues and challenges for cultural organisations, their
staff, and their audiences.
- Give guidance on how to craft meaningful cultural experiences for successful audience development in a competitive environment.
Module learning outcomes
- To demonstrate a detailed and critical understanding of the
theoretical aspects to consumer behaviour and how they can be
applied to the study of cultural consumption.
- To
be able to mobilize conceptual knowledge to critically analyse
practical cases depicting the challenges several cultural industries
faces in engaging with their audience in the 21st century
– such as museums, cinema, live concerts, music and video streaming,
NFTs…
- To gain an understanding of the determinants
to cultural consumption and of the current consumption trends to
creatively address the problems faced by today’s cultural
organisations in developing and maintaining their audiences.
- To develop skills in conceiving meaningful cultural experiences for a variety of organisations and consumers and communicate efficiently and concretely such expertise, both individually and in teams.
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100.0 |
Special assessment rules
None
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100.0 |
Module feedback
Students will receive feedback during seminars as well as during the revision session at the end of the module where they will discuss their assessment plans.
Indicative reading
- Arnould, E. J., & Thompson, C. J. (Eds.). (2018). Consumer Culture Theory. Sage.
- Colbert, F., & d’Astous, A. (2021). Consumer Behaviour and the Arts: A Marketing Perspective (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429263118
- Kravets, O., Venkatesh, A., Miles, S., & Maclaran, P. (2017). The SAGE handbook of consumer culture. Sage.