Loading...
Concerning metrics: convening hybrid forums to explore the intersection of mission and data practices in the non-profit arts sector
Date
2025
Abstract
This research examines how markets and their infrastructures are shaped in the non-profit arts sector. By tracing the process of becoming concerned, it explores how market actors navigate competing concerns through the study of data-driven practices. Rather than a straightforward shift towards data-driven decision-making, the study highlights how efforts to frame the market in this way intersect with responses, misfires, and negotiations within arts organisations, shaping how data is adopted, resisted, and reinterpreted as organisations seek to safeguard their mission.
Conceptualising data as practice allows for an examination of how non-profit arts organisations are both agencing and counter-agenced within socio-technical arrangements. By positioning arts organisations as concerned actors operating within an increasingly digitalised arts and cultural
market, the research reveals how concerns—ranging from financial sustainability to artistic integrity—become entangled in decision-making. To capture this dynamic, it introduces the concept of layering concerns, which illuminates how multiple, sometimes conflicting, concerns coexist and shape organisational responses to datafication.
The study also demonstrates how hybrid forums emerge as spaces where concerns are surfaced, negotiated, and reshaped through cross-sectoral exchanges. These forums reveal tensions between innovation and resistance in the adoption of data-driven models. Through an analysis of benchmarking and dynamic pricing, the research shows how these digitalised practices, often positioned as solutions, instead become ongoing sites of negotiation and concern.
Ultimately, the findings suggest that market actors frame arts markets as failing not only as a means of embedding societal concerns into decision-making but also as a strategic approach to balancing societal and economic objectives while fostering innovation. By foregrounding the entanglement of data, concerns, and market framings, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how arts organisations negotiate digitalisation while balancing artistic, financial, and societal imperatives in a complex landscape.
Supervisor
Ryan, Annmarie
NicGhabhann-Coleman, Niamh
NicGhabhann-Coleman, Niamh
Description
Publisher
University of Limerick
Citation
Collections
Files
ULRR Identifiers
Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International