The Situation of the Arts Sector in the Age of Digital Technology
The development of each sector nowadays has entered a state closely involved with digital technologies and digitised information. According to the European Admission, encouraging transformation and enhancing competitiveness by digital tools has been noted as a prospective priority for each category, notably for art experts in 2021. What stands out in the survey by International Telecommunication Union is that there were 3.97 billion total internet users globally in 2019, up from 3.74 billion in 2018. Especially, digital technology changes the daily operations of the arts sector, including both public and private institutions.
This blog post systematically reviews the cases involved with digital technologies, aiming to critically analyse the opportunities and challenges faced by arts institutions. It begins by discussing the importance of digital technologies in breaking restrictions of conventional forms. It will then go on to interactive communication through multimedia. The next section analyses how digital technologies influence arts institutions’ selling modes. It addresses copyright issues brought by digital technologies in the final part of the post, which challenge the creative energy in the arts sector.
Breaking Conventional forms of Conceiving Artworks
The innovation of digital technologies impacts arts institutions in the following ways. First, digital technologies can help arts institutions break the limitations of two conventional forms of conceiving artworks, which are time and space. Online marketing and e-commerce models have become the most important operational areas within various industries, especially in the arts sectors. As artworks are precious and fragile, they are usually presented in fixed art museums, exhibitions, and other specific places. Apart from that, there are also certain restrictions on the display time of artworks. In some cases, tickets are even limited. Due to such factors, the demand of arts consumers is not able to be satisfied. The development of the cultural industry is therefore restricted.
The advent of the Internet era has created many possibilities for arts institutions, breaking the limitations of traditional art dissemination methods. As long as people use mobile phones, tablets, and other devices to connect to the Internet, they can see artworks in any form, anytime, and anywhere. Bristol’s ‘collections online’ platform is a successful example of the digitisation of artworks. After making efforts to digitise its collection of art, Bristol Culture (the council’s arts and culture service) gained 90,000 unique page visits in 2017 . This project makes art objects more accessible to the public, enriching the cultural engagement of the society.
Online Communication and Data Collecting
Online communication and data collecting, furthermore, significantly impact arts institutions. In 2000, Bendixen observes that communication as an effective tool constructs the cultural capital, which is public reputation and distinction. Digital technologies bring arts institutions with a new platform choice. Through platforms such as Google Arts & Culture, it is flexible for arts institutions to achieve interactive communication with the audience through multimedia, which is an essential component in business operations. Suggested by Preece et al. in 2002, clickable buttons are one of the cues for digital interactions in the graphical user interface.
Shown in the Figures above and below, The Clash, a Google Street Art project, adopts interactive operations on its website, aiming to create immersive online experiences for users. After the original view of it in figure 2, click the arrow on the right side of the screen, it represents an amplified cut with fine details in figure 3, which allows the audience to observe and analyse the work interactively. Apart from that, data collecting has equipped institutions with stronger customer identification. As social media serves as a tool stimulating brand image. MIS management information system is an exact example of collecting customers’ data to form its data system, in order to make better decisions in the future. Since this data system allows art managers with better data sources to analyse their customers’ activities.
Selling Modes
On the other hand, digital technologies influence arts institutions’ selling modes. Silverstein holds the view that the internet serves as an effective business channel worldwide. As one of the purposes of arts institutions is to promote the sale of artworks. Digital technologies have broken through the traditional means of selling works of art. It is not limited to offline marketing models such as auctions and exhibitions but uses E-marketing platforms, such as Instagram, art websites, and other online media platforms for publicity.
Provided by eMarketer, retail e-commerce is 4.28 trillion US dollars globally in 2020. Moving onto a specific arts institution, for instance, the Sydney Opera House, a leading arts centre in Australia, online ticket sales contributed to over a third and even 80% of its total tickets. As the distribution variables usually include three factors, which are the distribution channel, physical distribution, and commercial locations. Jiajia Hu also mentioned in the blog post, e-commerce is effective in expanding markets. The key element contributing to the success of the e-commerce model is its provision of a flexible distribution channel, which proves the significance of the e-Commerce model to arts industries.
Copyright Issues
Digital technologies could also bring copyright issues and challenge the creativity and originality of works in the arts sector. Take the photograph as an example. People can quickly copy and paste images they want online and share them on their social media easily without claiming copyright. This might trigger a series of issues around originality and creativity. It might cause a negative impact on photographers' creative energy when they see their efforts are not being valued. And this is actually not fair to those who pay a lot of time for artistic creation.
To conclude, digital technologies, as tools, effectively impact the development of arts sectors. This can be found in several ways. First, digital technologies can support arts sectors with flexible conditions of time and space compared to traditional forms. Second, technologies also influence arts institutions’ selling modes. The key factor contributing to the success of e-commerce mode is the online distribution channel. Online interactive communication and data collecting, furthermore, build an effective way to create close connections with users through multimedia. However, digital technologies also challenge the arts sector as it makes plagiarism easier with lower costs, which would be a broad area for further work.
